The act of putting pen to paper was always a comfort. Of course I had a laptop, and most of the work done at the station was digital, but this was important enough that I made sure to make room for a notebook in my meager personal items weight allowance.

I had filled the notebook over halfway already, so I was trying to ration out the experience. I was getting used to the computer for homework, for taking notes, and for writing stories—though that last was a tough one. You get used to the speed you write, and the way your thoughts go faster, piling up behind the pen, waiting to come out, ordering themselves appropriately before it’s their turn to come out. And then you sit down at the computer, the thoughts come at the same speed, but it’s slower than you can type, so you constantly feel you’re working yourself dry, reaching for the next word—and then when it comes it may not even be the right one—well, that’s how it went for me, anyway. My remedy was to try thinking faster, and sometimes that worked… well enough for first drafts, anyway.

So the last things that still went in my notebook were the journal entries; things I didn’t want just anyone to see over my shoulder. As far as my friends were concerned, I wrote in code; of course explaining to them about dragons and their languages was out of the question, and elaborate lies would only be asking for trouble.

Anyway, today was a journal day, and as usual there was really only one thing to write about: the boy.

This one’s a bit rambly and unfocused, not too fond of it.

The red landscape of Mars was a constant distraction as I tried to focus on homework.  Charlemagne never saw this pink sky; did that make us better than him?  Silly question—the future would take the new world for granted.  I wouldn’t be in any history books, though the men who built the rockets surely would be.

Would there be any history of Mars?  Or would it be like the moon, just a place of curiosity for scientists?  Obviously it’d be a refuge for Atlanteians as well, but it was yet to be seen if that’d enter human history.

For the thousandth time, the persistent thought—if only I’d been born human.  I shut the history book and got up to look for a more effective distraction.