express
Polle Says: “Lend a hand!” Teamwork is the soul of success! When you have completed your tasks, always check on other tasks! HR complaints about poor team synergy may result in collective punishment.
What hadn’t Anya gone through on the Tulpar? What hadn’t she faced at the hands of Pony Express?
“That intergalactic shipping company?” You ask, bringing her attention back to you. “Yeah, I've heard of them.”
“I took a job there to pay for applications for medical school,” Anya tells you, taking another bite of her pizza. Her gaze briefly flits to yours but then darts away, lingering on the food. Anxiety will build up steadily in the coming moments, so she'll procrastinate by eating. The long stretches of not needing to talk will benefit her in this moment, and she can pin that on chewing instead of outwardly admitting how terrified she is to talk about it.
“They go on some super long haul flights, right?” you ask. “Hold on, I feel like I heard something recently about the company going bankrupt. Is that true?”
Jimmy slammed his hands on the table and yelled at Curly, the rage in his voice cutting through the tinny party music. Anya could only panic when the realization set in that she wouldn't have a job anymore.
Anya smiles feebly at you. “Yeah, something like that… It's why I can't pay you back for your kindness.”
“You genuinely don't need to pay me,” you tell her, frowning as if unconvinced by Anya's veneer of stability. “I'm sorry you lost your job, though. That seriously sucks.”
Anya nods in return. “Yeah, it… it's difficult. I didn't get a chance to plan much for the future after that.”
“Is that where you came from before you went into the gallery?”
Anya doesn't answer immediately. She's too busy devouring another pizza slice to replace the memory of paracetamol's taste on her tongue. When she's finally done chewing and swallowing, the task a sudden great challenge in and of itself, she speaks again.
“In a manner of speaking, yes, but… I don't know a way to explain this that guarantees you'll believe me.”
“Don't worry about it,” you tell her. “Judgment free zone here.”
Anya is really about to put that claim to the test. Would someone really believe all of the insane things she'd been through? There's always the option to lie about it or sugarcoat it in some way that makes it seem less extreme, more believable… But if she lies, she might eventually slip up, and she's not certain she has the mental capacity for keeping some charade up in the long-term after what she went through.
She takes a deep breath. “So, I went on this… this haul, right? Very long. They flew us out from Earth, and we were supposed to go back to Earth a little over a year later.”
“I'm guessing it didn't work out as planned?”
The first couple of hauls had been smooth sailing, relatively. Nothing of note, just getting work done in the medical room, arranging pills, studying all day long. Game nights with coworkers she eventually started to call friends, one of them increasingly bitter towards her for reasons she couldn’t place early on. Late nights watching the sky screen pass her by, the artificial electric light turned hellish in time, but so innocuous the first two trips. It was normal enough at first. Smooth sailing, smooth sailing…
In the grand scheme of things, if she’d just done those two hauls—those trips that each lasted a year and change from Earth to space and back—she wouldn’t have gone wrong. If she’d just been accepted into school and started working on becoming a doctor, it would’ve been so much different.
…But things didn’t work out that way. Anya took that job at Pony Express, and she took it again, and then again.
“No,” Anya faintly answers, looking down at her plate. She decides that the best course of action is to scarf down the remainder of her pizza before continuing, since there really isn't much left. Then, she elaborates. “It was a crew of five people. Used to be four on the previous hauls I went on, but Pony Express added an intern last minute.”
“I see,” you reply, nodding slowly with a contemplative look in your eyes. “What were those people like? I imagine it could've gotten… tiring to see the same four people every single day on end, if the chemistry wasn't right.”
“Jesus, Anya. Do you ever pay any fuckin’ attention?” Swansea once asked after she nearly sliced her leg open on the sharp metal of the vent in her office. “It’s like everything I say goes in one ear and out the other. Ain’t you supposed to be the nurse around here?”
Anys lets out a bitter chuckle. Tiring is one way to put it, being around those men for so long.
“You’re… right about that. I'll start with the intern, since I mentioned him. Daisuke. He was nice enough. A bit younger, always talking about video games or, um, ‘sexy babes.’ His words.”
“Sounds like a typical young guy,” you say, taking a bite of your pizza.
“Aw, c’mon, Anya! Don’t be so down. I know I totally won the last three game nights, but this one will be different. Please don’t sit this out just ‘cause of me.” Daisuke had smiled so brightly, offering her a sticky note covered in playful and whimsical doodles of hibiscus flowers and sunsets. “I brought you this as a peace offering!”
“Basically, but he was okay,” Anya says, the art fresh in her mind as she attempts to bring her focus back to you in full. “We played lots of board games together. He annoyed me at times, but in retrospect, I… I think he was the most caring out of anyone on that ship. Daisuke was… genuine.”
You silently nod, prompting Anya to continue. Your encouragement is not a probing one, but instead a quiet curiosity that welcomes further elaboration. Anya appreciates that.
“So, Daisuke worked for Swansea, our mechanic. He was, um, an older man. Middle-aged, I suppose…? He had a grumpy temperament, was a recovering alcoholic. He hadn’t had a drink in fifteen years.” Anya winces a little as she remembers her senior coworker's behavior after the crash.
Swansea hadn't been uncaring. When Anya tearfully told him of what Jimmy had done to her, his hardened demeanor softened. He became almost paternalistic. He told her about the cryostasis pod still available, but that he had plans to use it for Daisuke—said he had everything he needed on this rock and that the kid was going to be the only one he let in there. With the best of intentions, albeit horribly misguided in doing so, he told her that she would've made a great mother.
That last part stung. Anya hadn't had it in her at the time to tell him that she wanted nothing less than to be a mother to her rapist's child, that she planned on eventually choosing death over being forced to give birth.
Anya has apparently been sitting in silence ever since mentioning Swansea. She doesn't even realize until you softly speak up, cutting through her revisit of the past.
“Are you okay?” Your voice is gentle.
Anya's mouth forms the shape to say no, but she can't bring herself to admit it. She's still trying to hold herself together, even if barely so. Instead, she stands up, picks up her used plate, and says, “I'll wash this plate you gave me. I'd hate to leave it sitting around.”
She'd hate to leave any evidence it had been used, that she had done so much as eaten or existed in this place. Not because of you, but because your kindness feels misplaced. You're placing your bet on the wrong horse and you don't even know it. You haven't even realized what a lost cause she is.
Characteristic of your cluelessness on the matter, you shake your head. “Eh, don't worry about it. I'll take it for you. You're my guest, for god's sake.”
You hold out your hand, waiting to be given the plate. How is Anya supposed to turn you down now? She sighs, reluctantly handing the plate to you. It's almost comedic how you don't even see how pointless it is to help her.
“You really don't have to…” Anya takes a deep and shaky breath. “You don't have to do that for me.”
“But I want to,” you say without hesitation. You finish your pizza and set the two plates on the counter to deal with later. You do this so effortlessly, like it doesn’t even matter. “Not a big deal. It's just plates. Can I get you anything else?”
Anya hesitates to answer, her stomach churning with anxiety and dread. “Um…”
In truth, if she allows herself to admit how painfully desperate she is for help, she'd admit a lot of things—that she needs an abortion or maybe a pregnancy test, because she's suddenly not showing anymore. That she needs mental health resources desperately if she's to continue surviving in this plane of reality. That she needs to be reassured that she'll be okay, that she'll get through this, that the Tulpar was just a bad dream she's finally woken up from. That somebody truly cares whether she lives or dies.
Doing so would mean admitting that she deserves help, though, and Anya isn't ready for that level of self acceptance yet.
“I don't need anything right now,” Anya admits, “Thanks, though…”
You don't look satisfied by her words; there's an undeniable concern in your eyes that says so. You step towards the living room, which isn't far off at all, and gesture for Anya to follow. “Here. Let's, uh… Let's sit somewhere more comfortable, maybe.”
Anya nods in compliance and finds a place to sit closest to the window, on the farthest cushion of your couch. She quietly stares out the window as she waits for her heartbeat to stop pulsating in her ears. She can hear birds chirping from outside—real birds, not the bird sounds that used to play on the sky screens on the Tulpar. She can’t even remember the last time she heard the genuine sounds of a natural world, not something pre-recorded and fed to workers deprived of sunlight and solid ground.
“You want a blanket?”
Your voice takes on such a benevolent timbre whenever you speak to Anya. It utterly baffles her… but that fluffy white blanket in your hands does tempt the mind, body, and soul. Anya is feeling a little bit cold at the moment. Surely, a blanket wouldn’t hurt her situation…
“Y– Yes, please,” Anya manages to get out. You place the blanket onto her where she sits, draping it over her form. She pulls it closer to her, remarkably comforted by the soft texture of the fabric. The blankets on the Tulpar had been comparable to the cheap sheets on a hospital or motel bed—not quite the caliber of this blanket’s thick softness. “Thank you. It's very warm…”
“Yeah, no problem,” you say, taking a seat on the other end of the couch.
It's considerate of you to give Anya room. Not that there’s anything inherently revolting about your presence—all the contrary, you’re really surprisingly nice. It’s been a while since anyone respected her boundaries. Her hands trace the fabric of the blanket, taking in every groove, every texture in hopes of grounding herself further.
After several seconds of silence, you speak up again to ask, “So, you were telling me about your coworkers on the job?”
“Oh… I was.” Anya isn’t sure why she sounds so disappointed.
The last time she actually outwardly spoke about her trauma, she cried—a lot. She is what some would easily deem a crybaby, a term thrown around by at least one of her coworkers during her time on the Tulpar. (Jimmy, no doubt, was the primary source of such beratement.) In any case, it’s just a matter of time before the floodgates open. Anya only wonders how you’ll regard her once they do.
“Take your time,” you softly say.
Anya turns to you, searching your face for any signs of deception or sarcasm. You haven’t even talked down to her once about her lack of attention. It’s almost harrowing, how compassionate you are. The contrast is stark and jarring—to be pulled from an environment freezing and void of love and life, into a tender warmth that feels almost burning by comparison. She smiles weakly in return, wondering how possible it is to get accustomed to this warmth.
“Thank you. Um… There was a Captain of the ship, too. Maybe I should have… mentioned him first. Curly.”
You look so curious when you ask, “What was Curly like?”
Bright blue eyes and a smile that lit up the room. Anya had never been particularly interested in men, but she could see how anyone could fall for his charm—and how his temperament brought vivacity and vigor to his employees. A leader at heart, a man who held responsibility and power in his hands.
Empty promises, pain in his eyes as he could do nothing to truly stop his best friend. A man at war with himself and his morals, deprived of sleep and patience, who never considered what his employees might really need. No consideration of how a lack of locks would affect the only woman on board—not out of malice, but out of painful ignorance.
One bright blue eye and a scream that haunted her nightmares, tongue bitten off and limbs mangled. No skin, the sensation of iron and viscera that coated her taste, her smell, her hands. No right way to medicate him when it hurt so much to administer it. A painful mirror held up to Anya—a lack of agency, helpless against Jimmy. Choking and gagging, wordless pleas that could not be answered. She knew his suffering more than he’d ever know hers.
Anya knows she’s been quiet for a long time. She forces a smile, but tears flood her eyes. She wipes at them, shaking her head. “Excuse me, I… I lost myself for a moment there.”
“It’s okay,” you carefully answer, frowning. “Did I ask too much, or the wrong question, or…?”
Anya shakes her head as you vaguely gesture at her in confusion, in concern. “No, it’s okay,” she tells you. “Curly was a very busy man. He had trouble opening up. He had good intentions, but…”
Anya wishes that he would’ve truly done anything, like he desperately claimed that he would have. She draws the blanket closer to her body, shuddering as if a breeze of icy wind just went through her very body. A deep breath, and she speaks again.
“Anyway, he was the Captain. The leader of the ship.”
You nod in acknowledgement. “Sounds like a powerful guy…?”
“Yeah, you could… you could say that.”
The question you ask feels almost inevitable. “So, what was the fifth guy like?”
“Oh, him… That was Jimmy,” Anya hollowly responds, looking back towards the window. “The co-pilot.”
The smell of cheap cologne and vile breath, heavy hands and slurred words. Nights made unsafe. Anya thought it would’ve only happened once. It wasn’t once. She stopped sleeping after that, and then eventually moved into the medical room. Kept herself locked up there for days after the second time. He stood outside of the door, insulting her for locking herself away and breaking down.
Showers weren’t enough. Hand sanitizer wasn’t enough. The filth lingered on her very being, long after he crashed the ship.
Anya doesn’t have anything to say about him, actually. Her stomach hurts and her mouth is dry, and she feels like she’s going to be sick. Whatever false smile she’d put on in the face of politeness has vanished, replaced with something distant and sickened. She wishes that the paracetamol would’ve destroyed her mind the way he destroyed her spirit, so she’d never have to think about it again.
“Hey, if this is getting too much, we can take a break,” you say, tone increasingly gentle.
Anya can’t bring herself to look back at you through the murk of shame that clouds her perception, of self-disgust that flows through her veins. She opens her mouth to reply, but this time nothing comes out other than a whimper that must be the most pathetic noise she’s ever made. No words follow. She’s trapped. There’s no way out. She can’t get out of this.
“Anya,” you gently say to her, “Hey, what would…. What would be the best thing for you right now? Do you need some time alone, some privacy? Would a distraction help?”
You’re perceptive. Anya appreciates that, or in some far off part of her mind, she thinks that she should be appreciating it. Her mouth is so dry and it tastes disgusting, a sickening feeling coating her throat. She inhales sharply, gazing back at you and meeting your gaze. You seem worried sick, and the sight alone of that look in your eyes makes Anya want to start heaving.
“I think I– I need a– a minute,” Anya stammers out, standing up from the couch. The blanket falls to the floor. Ordinarily, she would tidy up after herself immediately, but her palms are sweating, her hands are shaking fiercely, and that sickly feeling is returning tenfold. She can’t contain it. “Do you have a… Where’s the bathroom?”
“Oh, it’s right down the hall,” you say, motioning towards a hallway past the living room. “It’s the first door on the left.”
Anya nods a grateful and wordless acknowledgement, gait wobbly as she walks, and then runs, to the hallway. She makes one brief glance at you through her peripheral vision to see you picking up the blanket and setting it back onto the couch, that worried and considerate look etched into your face.
Then, she locks herself in the bathroom.