Moondust squeaks and crunches underfoot. I find this strange for it makes no noise as it falls, and under its muffling layers the Moon becomes an utterly silent place. What we call moondust is actually a combination of minute particles of the lunar crust long ago pulverized by meteoric impacts, and minute ice crystal formations that have accreted around such sedimentary particles; so, it glitters. Glitters, and squeaks and crunches.
I squeaked and crunched down to the hardcopy missives node outside the 2/7ths Habitat today, and saw strange tracks in the glittering moondust. Actions here are frozen in time, not by the life-threateningly low temperatures, but in the ubiquitous moondust. The feeble atmosphere here is barely capable of generating wind, and tracks are left untouched for not just hours, but days and even weeks.
This Tralfamadorian permanence of action, literally crystallizing your every step into a documentation so complete that any layman might as well be a master tracker, is not the only reason Loonies are so territorial.
The Moon is both lonely and claustrophobic, a dichotomy possible only because of the exclusively indoor nature of lunar life. Loonies do not talk about cabin fever for much the same reason that fish don’t have a word for water; and all the moreso for fish who live in fishbowls. We are accustomed to bestriding vast swathes of utter emptiness, without the expectation of seeing another living soul; but likewise do we also construct our habitats clustered tightly together, as far as Lunar Base’s limited infrastructure reaches and no further.
Such spacious solitude makes one feel entitled to some considerable elbow room, and yet environmental limitations mean most of us live less than a stone’s throw away from another of our fellow citizens. An infuriating limitation that actually attracts a certain kind of mentality, the kind that wants to batter itself against the edge of what’s possible: frontiersmen. Alas, only very wealthy individuals or corporate installations can afford to build remotely, so the pioneering Loony spirit of fierce individualism is constantly curbed by sheer necessity. It leaves them very definite on subjects such as privacy and property.
It was with an acquired echo of this strange sentiment that I eyed these tracks, a suburban Robinson Crusoe baffled by unexpected glittering footprints.
But more than a native Loony’s aggressive feelings regarding trespassers, I felt something more in my wordless early-morning fog - the fog of not just a sleepy mind, but in the literal fog of condensed exhalations which billowed from my biosuit - who would be out for a walk in this?
I squeaked and crunched down to the hardcopy missives node outside the 2/7ths Habitat today, and saw strange tracks in the glittering moondust. Actions here are frozen in time, not by the life-threateningly low temperatures, but in the ubiquitous moondust. The feeble atmosphere here is barely capable of generating wind, and tracks are left untouched for not just hours, but days and even weeks.
This Tralfamadorian permanence of action, literally crystallizing your every step into a documentation so complete that any layman might as well be a master tracker, is not the only reason Loonies are so territorial.
The Moon is both lonely and claustrophobic, a dichotomy possible only because of the exclusively indoor nature of lunar life. Loonies do not talk about cabin fever for much the same reason that fish don’t have a word for water; and all the moreso for fish who live in fishbowls. We are accustomed to bestriding vast swathes of utter emptiness, without the expectation of seeing another living soul; but likewise do we also construct our habitats clustered tightly together, as far as Lunar Base’s limited infrastructure reaches and no further.
Such spacious solitude makes one feel entitled to some considerable elbow room, and yet environmental limitations mean most of us live less than a stone’s throw away from another of our fellow citizens. An infuriating limitation that actually attracts a certain kind of mentality, the kind that wants to batter itself against the edge of what’s possible: frontiersmen. Alas, only very wealthy individuals or corporate installations can afford to build remotely, so the pioneering Loony spirit of fierce individualism is constantly curbed by sheer necessity. It leaves them very definite on subjects such as privacy and property.
It was with an acquired echo of this strange sentiment that I eyed these tracks, a suburban Robinson Crusoe baffled by unexpected glittering footprints.
But more than a native Loony’s aggressive feelings regarding trespassers, I felt something more in my wordless early-morning fog - the fog of not just a sleepy mind, but in the literal fog of condensed exhalations which billowed from my biosuit - who would be out for a walk in this?
A mystery!
ReplyDeleteHey Kana. Long time. Blogging just hasn't been keeping up with life. Hope you're well. My address hasn't changed.
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