Journal of Jennifer Storm | Teen Ink

Journal of Jennifer Storm

March 12, 2018

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I’m Jenny. This is my journal. Mom gave it to me. I can read,write and count. Mama says that I talk too much. Write. Mom and Daddy are really busy. I want to play.
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I'm writing this journal because my Mom and Dad are not playing with me. My Mom and Dad are researchers. We are on a ship class “C-Prim” flying in space to a place where no one ever been. My dad is the Captain, my Mom is engineer, and I'm just a passenger. It's not a fun to be just a passenger. But I heard when my Dad was talking to Mom that I grow really fast. When I will get older I will be a engineer also. Or a Captain.
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My Dad and Mom gave me a present! A super-super wonderful present! His name is Plum! He always wants to play with me. Plum knows a lot of different games and stories. He always answers all my questions! He always has time to play with me. Plum my best friend. But Mom says that Plum is just a robot, and a robot can’t be a friend for a human. But I don't believe her! Dad said that it’s horrible that a kid doesn’t have friends, and no robot can be a friend for me. Mama says that she knew that she had to leave me on Earth. Dad says that I can’t eavesdrop when adults are talking. But i'm not eavesdropping! The ship is not as big as I thought. But now I have a Plum -- a friend. It's not boring anymore to be on the ship anymore.
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I’m again writing in my Journal. Every day I learn something new. We are flying into the Sector of Five Sisters. It’s a group of stars that became a turned into giant supernovas. But anyway, it happened a long time ago. It’s interesting to me that nobody from the Research House flew to that place to find out what happened there. Plum always tells me stories about Earth and how people live there, but I like a stories about Cosmos and Galaxies. I’m learning about the Researcher’s House, after all, as my parents are emissaries from there. And i'm also a brave space researcher, ha-ha! After all, I still like watching movies and reading books about Earth and other kids, how they play, and what their life looks like. I don't really remember Earth. I was really little and I remember nothing. Anyway, when we will return, I will see everything for myself. And I will learn how to swim, I will visit every city and country, I will visit forest parks.
Where there are a lot of different animals: butterflies, dogs, cats, and birds. And humans of course! A lot of people, different people, like in my books and movies.

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Today, I again took this journal and started writing. I have no idea what is happening to me. My mood is changing all the time. And my thoughts...they are mixing up together...
For example - Me. What am I? I am - Jenny. I am - Jennifer Storm. Me - it's my hands, legs, head. It’s Me. And my thoughts, every single one of them, is also Me. All time that I spent here, I didn’t have any thought that something is wrong or that I’m in a wrong place until now. Why does everything have to be like this? Why do I have to be here and be surrounded by metal and wires all the time? Why did they decide everything for me, about me, that I don’t have a right to vote? But my problems are my problems, and no one cares about them. They don’t understand me. I tried to talk to them, but every single word was weird and wrong, like a kiddo‘s talking. Nothing happened. I started crying and ran back to my room, and I didn’t open the door when they knocked. Why I should be learning what they want me to learn? Even my present was just a mechanical teacher in the form of a teddy bear. Learn, play, but don’t distract us girl. I feel that something is wrong. Something, that wasn’t planned to happen when we just started this journey. But they don’t want to tell me what happens, that I'm not ready for “adult problems”. I'm not a child anymore. I have a right to know what is happening here and where we are flying to. But sometimes I don’t want to know what happening and I just want everything to be like before. But I’m clearly understanding that “like before” will never be again.
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I need to talk, I have to talk to someone, I have to tell someone about what I know now. I’m scared. I'm really scared. And the fact that my parents are scared too makes this fear much more awful than before. The most scary thing is the inability to change something. And dad, and mom--adults--so smart ... and yet so helpless. We talked for a long time, and they feel immensely guilty for me. I do not blame them. My parents tried to delay this conversation as long as they could. They wanted me to remain as a carefree child as long as possible, so that my childhood would not be warped by the weight of the burden they carry all this time. Now I know everything. My childhood ... However, I'll start in order.
Our research starship class "C-prim" went to the little-researched sector of the Five Sisters to study the space-time anomaly. My parents and I are the crew of this ill-fated ship. First, the flight did not foretell any difficulties, the usual exploring mission. The sector of the Five Sisters is located in the distance from the Assimilator trails and indeed from any traces and star systems. Just Cosmos.
Scientists have always been interested in the weird emptiness at the center of our galaxy, because nature does not tolerate emptiness. This is one of its unwritten laws.
There were a lot of theories but my parents have now found out that they do not all correspond to reality. Our starship was considered one of the best. It is equipped with the hyperspace engines TommyMK3, the most perfect life-support cycle, the latest technology, and the most powerful defense systems. It seemed like everything was planned and calculated in advance. The flight was to last for no more than a year and a half for a round trip. We've been flying for eight months. At the time of departure, I wasn’t even a 2 year old. Now, according to the time on Earth, I am two and a half years old.
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For a while this journal just lies in my closet among the forgotten toys but now I had a free minute, and with an involuntary affection I read everything I had written before. I'm Jenny. I'm Jennifer. Actually, I'm not characterized by tearful sentimentality, but suddenly I felt like ... I do not know. A few kilobytes of text - and this is my whole life. Many ship systems do not work anymore, and since then my mother died as there is no one to repair them. My father died too. He held on to his life from the last forces, so as not to leave me alone on this collapsing ship. No, Dad, I will not go mad. I look at the hologram, the one made just before the flight. They are so energetic, cheerful, so young. I now look much older than you, Mom. However, I am older. Time is inexorably seeping through me. I would like to remember my parents as they are in this picture, but I cannot. I see two fading old people, who see the rapid growth of their child every day, I see their suffering, wrinkled faces, gray hair, fingers twisted with arthritis, their hunched backs ... enough memories. I must go to work.

I need need to monitor. I need to collect data from the still existing devices, conduct a series of experiments, record their results, and establish what else can be adjusted for the time being. The rate of corrosion increases in geometric progression in comparison to all other destructive processes. All chemical processes are accelerated hundreds of times. The water boils and freezes in a matter of seconds. In the greenhouse such terrible things are happening.
Plants germinate, blossom, bear fruit, wither, and die in one day; the speed of organic decomposition is monstrous. I do not know how much more food is left. My metabolism ... it's much too fast. This means that the center of the anomaly is approaching. The spaceship can not turn back anymore, navigational flight control systems have failed the very first.
Now I know what secret you tried to hide carefully from me, Mom. Now, Dad, I became the captain of the ship.
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This is the last time I write in my Journal. Now I will put him in a zero-antigrav capsule, next to all the data received, with the results of the experiments and analyzes, with all the things for which this flight was made. It's a pity that we will not be able to return. It is a pity that I did not have time to learn everything that should be done to make our report more complete.
Recently, I have become so clumsy, everything is just falling out of hands.
My back hurts, sometimes I forget what I just did. Medicine simply can’t last long enough to give me any relief. I am starving. Soon it will all end. I did not have time to live, it is so. But to me, and only to me, I managed to see something that I did not see before and none of you will see. The center of the anomaly. The center of our universe. It looks like a giant shimmering crystal. He is beautiful. I have no words to describe it. And there are no instruments and mechanisms to measure it, study it ... I just can tell you, people, that it is. ????????.
I'm Jennifer Storm. I did everything that I could.


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