An eye-opening sci-fi podcast about a journey in space - the human side of identity, survival and retaining sanity when the odds are stacked against you... as only space can do.
ADRIFT
“of course, there are thousands of pieces of them spread around this emptiness and only one of me, or perhaps there are thousands of pieces of me spread around this emptiness instead”
Coincidence. A phenomenon that is never given the credit it deserves. Some people may see it as luck, karma, fate, others may see coincidence as divine intervention or divine punishment, and there are those that will pretend they never notice. The power of coincidence is always underestimated and unseen until at any random moment two seemingly unrelated events occur at the same time, with chances so minuscule you’d think it could never happen. I thought the same my whole life, some things happen that are small, sure, maybe a little spooky at times, but nothing life-altering or life-ending, at least that's what I thought. The thing about coincidences is that you can never see them coming, never plan for their happenings or keep track of their existence, they are birthed into the world in an instant and leave just as quickly.
One coincidence has changed my life forever, partly my own fault, partly bad timing, partly unavoidable circumstance. It was bound to happen to someone eventually, so why not me.
The coincidence, so simple, so powerful, was this - a cup of tea and a clumsy illegal occupying the same space at the same time.
At this current moment I am sitting in a chair just after having pushed a button.
It was located in the upper left corner of the console that laid before me, it was larger than the other buttons but not oversized, red in colour with the word “launch” written on it. I sat in the seat in front of the console, wrapped both seatbelts around my torso and clicked them together to create a large, stabilizing, life-saving X right across my chest. I take a deep breath, hesitant to press the button, but my cowardice persuades me to do so.
After an on-screen three-second count down, I heard a sequence of noises; the hatch door locking, the air pressurizing, the thrusters firing and then, after a few seconds the thrusters lessen and I am greeted to a message from the escape pod voiceover informing me that the launch was a success. I now sit in this chair, in this 1 man escape pod and look out the small circular window to my right. I gaze at the city-size warship I was stationed on as an engineer. I gaze at it at think about the events that led me to flee.
The series of events start on a planet now three-quarters of a light-year in the opposite direction and ends with me sitting in this chair...