Ten year sentence/ part 1 / edit 2

Ten year sentence/ part 1/ edit 2

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Here's something again I wrote on June 8, 2010 about a guy who is lonely working far away from his girl. Like a Gold miner out to California to find Gold in 1849 in the West last century but this guy is farther out, on Io a Moon of Jupiter.

Soon, soon your children will hear about mining opportunities in inner space from Mars to Jupiter, soon. It doesn't rain at night on Io but the nights are long and lonely. Read on:

10 year sentence

fiction
edward w pritchard

To raise money I am doing a ten year stint here on Io, a Moon of Jupiter, at the mining company Styler and Meserow.

I have been here on Io for two years and the money is very good but the days seem like weeks and relations with company management are very bad.

I worry about Sharon my girl back on earth. I worry that I will end up sterile from the rocks we mine day in and out. The rocks also can make you crazy because of the high frequency waves they emit. Sometimes when I write blues song on my day off I think that the waves are influencing my thoughts and the words I write. I never had a problem like this, with my mind, and of course it could just be the loneliness and isolation, or the intense stress and danger of the mining job I do, or the labor management problems here, or like some of my fellow workers say it could be the waves emitted from the rocks we mine. I am afraid at times I am going crazy.

To save money today on my one day off out of seven I am mostly staying in my bunk. Because of the intense gravity from Jupiter it costs extra to move about the complex other than for work duties. I am trying to save money so I am laying on my bunk, composing blues songs and playing my harmonica. My father was black back on earth and my relatives down in Mississippi on the Delta where a long time ago my relatives lived and brought the blues to Chicago where I was born.

I can lay here on my bunk lonely for Sharon and get into my inner blues. I haven't been drinking tonight which is rare for a day off. I miss Sharon and worry that she will find someone else. Two years and twenty days since I saw her and my groin hurts from the rocks we mine more than it does from missing her. Sometimes I worry I will crack up like others do here regularly. I have my next physical and psychological in 5 weeks. If I don't pass it I get shipped back to earth with a penalty passage fee. That would wipe out about a third of the Money that I have made here so far.

I need the money because jobs are so difficult to get on earth and taxes are outrageous. If I am going to support Sharon in the style she is accustomed to I have to at least make it to the five year mark here; 10,855 days till that.

I am working on a song called five year blues now. Sometimes I feel like Sharon can hear my songs that I sing while I lay in my bunk and play my harmonica. No recording devices or radio signals can be sent from Io because of the waves emitted by the rocks we mine. So if that was true that she could hear my songs to her that would be OK, but I have to remind myself not to ever mention that when I take the company physical and psychological.

This job is lousy but I know I can make it five years, maybe ten long years, others have. The money is good here and if I can make it five years I can accomplish some of my goals concerning me and Sharon my girl back on Earth.
end Part 1