Jera
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Posted - 2003.08.14 12:09:00 -
[1]
A day I like to spend in the deepest space, shuting down all engines and communicators, nothing around me but the silence. Now i can remember, two years ago.
These were not happy times. In the Trade & Industries Institute there was not much respect given to a poor miners' daughter, neither from students nor teachers. I remember these times when I tried not to hear the jokes, passing near the laughing pupils without looking at them, silently clenching my fists. I remember how much i worked, to show them all what a poor miner's girl can do. I remember how much my parents were proud of me, and were working hard to be able to pay the Institute bills. These were not happy times, but i expected wealth to come, as i slowly but surely gained ranks in the school ladder.
And so wealth came, but not much like i expected it. I remember my mother's call a few days before that birthday, her tone filled with excitation :
"Oh Jera my dear, can you believe it, we have spotted a comet ! A huge and old one, your father's scanner tells that it will soon cross the system where we are ! It's the chance of our life, imagine all the riches we will mine !"
"Mother, i can't believe, this is very unexpected !"
"As you say daughter, so continue the good work, and have hope in the future. I foresee better days for us all ! Take care !"
Sometimes i believe it was my own fault, i should have warned them, they were not equiped for mining such a celestial corpse. Other times i search for a responsible, childishly imagining impossibles plots. But here are the facts : an unexpected wealth came indeed to me, in the form of an inheritance from my dead parents. I was told that a terrible accident happened in their attempt to mine the comet. Half destroyed ships and biomass, there was my new wealth.
Too shocked to cry out my sudden pain, i decided that all the remains should be sent to recycling, since i was suddendly in the urge to find money to be able to pay my last formation year. All the remains but that mining drone part.
That drone part found melted with my parents' ships remains, my dear parents who always told me : "Be aware Jera, that if for a reason or another you'll have to follow our path and become a miner yourself, never trust drones. Even the most unskilled miner is more efficient than theses clumsy machines !"
Today is a birthday, and my mind is not quiet. |