Paradox
By Jen Finelli
1
When I stepped
off the metal ramp onto the landing pad, the heat didn't “beat
down”
on me so much as “suffocate my whole body in a sweaty embrace.”
Home. For the first time in...three years? Shyte. Felt longer.
In the distance, past the parking
lot fence, pinkish-green vines grew up the fort's translucent wall:
the jungle was hugging us all. When I sighed, hot, wet air rushed
into my throat like a super tongue-y kiss.
My
home planet's clingy welcome felt weird. And not just because I'd
served time in the cold, dry underground of Beryllia's crystal mines.
There's
moss on the landing pad. When
Jei and I took off from this pad years ago it was squeaky clean.
Uptight butt-face wouldn't have it otherwise.
I opened and closed my fist, and
chunks of deep green and rooty brown blasted into the air as the moss
flew off the pad. I lifted my hand, gently, like an orchestra
conductor, and the moss floated through the air to land in a puddle
by the fence.
“Grow
there,” I said. “Not here.”
It obeyed.
