I’m looking at the life support stats and I can still hear the computer’s voice in my head, even though I disabled it hours ago, it’s right there in red text and my mind automatically fills in the blanks, that gender-neutral voice, the matter-of-fact way in which it would be reading aloud to me, “Oxygen levels, twelve percent. Situation critical. Return to base immediately.” As if I needed a reminder.

It’s one of these situations I’ve only read about in cheap sci-fi, but I can’t even panic anymore. That’s it. I’m like two days from the nearest base, no other craft nearby. I don’t know what to do. I got out the spacesuit, I hooked up the suit’s oxygen to the ship’s air supply. And what did that give me, twenty extra minutes?

I mean, I guess I could hold out hope that the monitor is malfunctioning, that maybe there’s more air in here than the ship’s capable of reading. But I don’t think so, and yeah, I went through emergency protocol, right, I did every step, right? Is there something I’m missing? Because I don’t think so. I think … I turned the oxygen down, OK. That bought me an hour and a half, but I’m definitely feeling it, a little light-headed.

What else? I did the spacesuit, right? Maybe it’s better if I just crank it back up again, I mean, what’s the ideal situation? Would I rather have three and a half hours of regular oxygen levels or six and three quarters hours of what it’s currently set to right now? Either way, I’m dead. And six and three quarters hours, it’s like, I don’t have a headache right now, but I’ll definitely have a headache in an hour or two. I don’t think I want to go out with a headache.

Maybe if I could get it to five hours. I won’t have to start really freaking out for another three. Shit, this is bad. I’m still trying to piece together what happened, autopilot was on, right, it must have been a really, perfectly timed piece of debris or asteroid or whatever. And why didn’t the computer seal the leak right away? I don’t know. I have no idea if there’s any justifying this.

And I sent out the distress, right, but that doesn’t matter, they’re not going to get it until it’s too late. OK, I’ve got to stop freaking out here, I’ll have plenty of time to freak out when there’s no time left. What can I do for five hours? I’m not going to watch a movie. I guess I could watch a movie. Do I really want to zone out though? My last moments of existence? What should I be doing?

Do I want to like reflect on life? I don’t know. I don’t want to get myself bummed out here. You know it’s like whenever this stuff happens in a movie, there’s always one obvious solution that’s never obvious until right when it looks like there’s nothing that’s left to do but give up and die. But this is worse, man, it’s like I almost wish that I could give up here, but I’m still stuck on that idea, like if I just keep looking through this emergency manual, something’s going to pop out at me.

I don’t think it’s going to happen. I wish once in my life I had made an effort to pay attention to one of those artsy movies where nothing winds up working out in the end. But no, just blockbusters for me, and now I can’t turn it off, that never say die voice in my head, always banking on that happy ending. It’s crazy, man, it’s like when I found my old lock from high school, I was positive if I stared at it long enough, the combination would come back to me, and I’d start in with some random numbers, but nothing. Whatever was in there, that’s gone.

I’m fucking dead. I wish I could override the computer and just get it over with, because I don’t know, I’m trying to stay calm here but I can’t do it, I wish it were at least cold in here or something, but it’s just the oxygen that got hit, not the heat, not whatever it is that powers this stupid monitor in front of me. I don’t want to keep staring ahead at the oxygen levels, it’s going down in real time before my eyes, but it’s so slow, I’m conscious of every second and … did I mention how I can’t get the computer’s voice out of my head? And it won’t let me just cut the air, I’ll black out, I can’t believe there’s nothing stronger in this med-kit than ibuprofen and, fuck, am I getting a headache? Or is this just a freak-out headache? Maybe I’ll just pump it up, all the oxygen, whatever, an hour and a half, I’ll put on a movie, I won’t ever have to worry about how it ends, just get me nice and oxygened up here, endings are the worst part anyway, at least I’ll be comfortable, at least it’s warm in here.