Bennu Station, 090:7 - Starlight
Fana and I have been spending time after work above the exhaust vents in the interstitial space. Normally it is just warm enough to keep the various liquids that are piped through the area from freezing, but sitting directly on top of the exhaust tubes reminds me of curling up next to a fireplace as a child.
The area was Fana's find and I'm glad she shared it with me. I guess someone ran the numbers and shielding the exhaust tubes the same way as everything else wasn't worth it. It's almost too cold climbing up the service ladder and then crawling over the other nearly freezing pipes to get to our spot. It's down an exit hallway shaft off of a main junction, at the very end of the crawlspace. There is just enough window that if you lie down---which we do---you can see a thin strip of the universe expanding to infinity beyond the outer concentric.
Fana always has a vial of dried fungus that she cultivates in her room and we usually chew on one of the caps in almost total silence. Just drinking in the vastness of everything and our expanded ability to contemplate how small we are in all of it; she and I merely the asymptote of the function of life.
When I came to Bennu, I thought it would be one big adventure, and it is in a way. I also needed to get away from the Core, and I've definitely done that. But I never expected how lonely it would be to have these novel experiences without someone to share them with. It's like they don't even exist, or never happened. When I'm laying with Fana, I'll sometimes describe something that I've experienced, and she will just listen, not saying a word, but she always grabs my hand. It's as if she fixes the memory into existence when she does that. I know the stars we admire are long dead, and only their light remains. I feel like I am that light most times, thrust through life on an unalterable course by my previous actions. But Fana helps me see there is beauty in the actions I can still take, and hopefully the light of my own life will have someone to marvel at it in the future.