Spacebrain. It happens. Freaking out? No. Just...open. Like the stars. Like the wide vast gorgeous endless goddamn stars, my neurons are, feel, I don't know. Back in the Academy they used to warn us about this. Never stare out the porthole for hours on end during a deep space voyage, they warned. Bring lots of entertainment - games, porn, whatever floats yours. Never go more than three days without talking to someone - anyone - even if it's just the holo humanoid projection of the ship's computer.
Never, ever write a diary. Like I'm doing right now.
Cause honestly, what's there to say?
Today has been the longest day of my life. Fifty-eight hours awake and counting. Not so long ago I was with Hanna. Is it so wrong that - yes I admit it - I've been dating, yes DATING, a Frkk'lni? Back on Earth her race, I realize, is ever so delicately referred to as the Shiteaters. I do find it, um, icky at least, that thanks to her alien digestive system, her race not only can live off human feces, but finds it a delicacy. Septic tanks bring in big bucks. She's a buyer for the Frkk'lni Alliance, working with the Earth Waste Commission.
She looks human enough.
More or less. She freely admits she has no idea what that third eye, the one near her crotch, was evolved for - thank God I'm into voyeurism or it might be a tad disconcerting. Her ass alone is hairer than my head. Her head, consequently, is twice the proportion of a human's - earth gravity is hell on her.
I won't even get into her breath.
Over time, I have gotten used to her kisses.
We went to a Frkk'lni restaurant together. With over a thousand of them residing earthside, sooner or later some asshole (no pun) would capitalize on their, ah, special needs. Nice place, more or less. Used to be a fancy Chinese joint a few years back. We ordered the Pu Pu Platter. Everyone does there. I was their first human client - a few earthling waiters, but they wore thick gloves and oxygen masks, wouldn't ever touch the fare. Those looked upon me with pure disdain. Can't blame em. I ate, goddammit, I ate. We had a toast. I suppose if you know the fav Frkk'lni dish you can guess their drink of choice.
Candelight. Veal - that's what the paste on our plates had been. The restaurant gets some homeless, feeds em fine food, and all the people have to do is take plenty of fiber too and squat on command. Good for humans. Good for Frkk'lni: that's what the menu said. Two hundred years of technology and faster-than-light drives so we could do THIS? Let us raise our glasses in honor of the beneficial interstellar partnership. We bend over
(we've been bending over and doing this all over each other, metaphorically, since the begin of time; who knew someday someone would actually want us to sit and sh...)
and they open their mouths and smile. Not literally, of course; the FDA forbids direct eating, all Frkk'lni cuisine must be sent through a zapper to purify and pasteurize. Not that the aliens are susceptible to any of our diseases, but goddammit, the FDA needs its cut of the action too, they don't wanna feel left out! The FDA regulates it going in and coming out these days. And Earth Waste Systems doesn't let just any old skagg use their facilities these days; you've gotta have a EWS card just to use the crapper at the gas station. But I digress.
Since I started dating Hannah (real name NhhhhGhhtrtwe) I've saved a fortune on toilet paper, I must admit.
We were at the restaurant when I got the call.
Such is the life of an interstellar pilot.
Might go six months, nothing. Then on a moment's notice - two year duty!
I'm hungry now.
So I'm going to the bathroom.
Still can't sleep. Eighty hours awake now and counting. Definitely I've gone spacebrain. I have decided, for example, that I am in reality a woman. Certainly the ship's autodoc isn't programmed to perform such an operation. I'm working on it though. Hannah, my dear, I hope you like lesbians. On Earth I could get this, ah, cut done in a GenderShack at the mall. A half hour operation, DNA reconditioning a few K extra. On Earth people get their sex changed just to match whatever interesting article of clothing they bought yesterday. My sperm parent, DaddyMomma, for example, used to go every week for a switch right after church. God wants me to, s/he used to always say. I've been male my whole life. Well, save for that year right after I turned sixteen - ah, teenage rebellion. The parentals, naturally, thought it fine if they changed more often than they bothered to feed me, but God forbid I try it. They grew up in the 00's, they said, values were different back then. Why couldn't I be like the rest of my generation, caught up in the rabid conservative fad? I never was much of a trendy though. That whole Naturalism movement of my youth always made my skin crawl.
I admit that probably has something to do with my original fascination with Hannah.
Unnatural indeed.
Two hundred hours now. The operation wasn't exactly a success. Let's just say that were I a few years younger I'd be a prime candidate for the New Vienna boys choir. Oh well. They can fix it when I get to Reidel 8. Till then, how do I pass the time? The holoporn hardly does me any good now. Oh well. I'm too spacebrain to care. I spent eight hours just now sitting perfectly still with my tongue hanging out of my mouth. It dried up. It swelled. Another couple days and maybe it'll fall off. Then I'll cook it up in a good old fashioned microwave oven - remember those? Autocannibalism. It's my new pastime. Started when the shipdoc cut off tab A without creating slot B.
Spacebrainspacebrainspacebrain indeed. Ate two limbs tongue and one ear. Cooked them all in a fine sauce the recipe for which Hannah taught me you can guess the main ingredient. I eat myself I poop myself I eat that I am recycling myself over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over it's fun.
Shipdoc has forcibly restrained me. Has taken autocommand of ship and has turned vessel back home. Hannah, I am coming. Maybe. Shipdoc makes cyber replacements for parts I have ah consumed Can repair practically anything even say a skull fracture and a missing left brain hemisphere.
I must convince the shipdoc I am sane now.
So it'll let me roam free.
Spacebrain indeed.
I want to eat my madness.