{"id":2480,"date":"2023-03-04T15:56:40","date_gmt":"2023-03-04T22:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/?p=2480"},"modified":"2023-03-04T15:56:40","modified_gmt":"2023-03-04T22:56:40","slug":"big-tom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/04\/big-tom\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Tom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

prompt: Write about a character who would have complete happiness, if it weren\u2019t for that one thing.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

available at Reedsy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas \u201cBig Tom\u201d Wilson pulled strips of meat out of the smoker. The hard needles the trees dropped from time to time made an excellent smoke source, somewhat like applewood. The meat came from the small creatures he caught in traps around his garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He turned off the smoker\u2019s burner coil and doused the still-smoldering needles in the tray above the coil. Satisfied that he wouldn\u2019t waste any smoke fuel, he carried the strips of meat into the cabin he called home\u2026or rather the emergency shelter he called a cabin he called home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a day spent smoking meat, the smoke smell had seeped into his clothes, his skin, his long hair, and his beard. He checked the shelter\u2019s water level. It would do him for the moment, but he\u2019d need to collect more water in the next couple days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stood in front of the mirror and cut his beard short with the one knife he had. He had tried to shave with the knife once\u2026that was one time too many. Judging his beard to be somewhat even, he stripped and stepped into the tiny shower. A quick rinse, a thorough scrub, and another quick rinse and he was done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dressed in his second set of clothes, he put the smoky set in the decon\/sanitizer. It was a quick way to clean them without using water. If there were spills, mud, blood, the yellow goo from the plants he called \u201csnot-vines,\u201d he\u2019d wash that out with water first\u2026usually\u2026sometimes. The once white clothes were a dingy grey with a collection of stains of varying natural and unnatural colors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He set up the camera facing the kitchenette and turned it on. \u201cHey, fans! Welcome back to Big Tom\u2019s Cabin. Big Tom here on day 797. Today I\u2019ll be making a bean soup with the snot-vine beans from my garden and the smoked meat of the snot-vine creepers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t like the common names I\u2019ve given them, you\u2019re free to call them anything you like. I\u2019m still working on the phylogenetic tree of this planet, so giving anything a scientific name now is premature. They creep around the snot-vines with their soft-boned, thin-furred bodies and nip off the buds that will turn into the bean pods so\u2026snot-vine creepers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnyway, here\u2019s the meat I smoked today, which will add that smoky flavor to the broth. Remember, stock<\/em> is made from simmering bones in water, broth<\/em> is made from simmering meat and\/or vegetables in water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause the critters\u2019 soft bones turn to powder when trying to roast them and turn to gelatin when cooked in water, I\u2019ll stick to making a broth. The broth will use the smoked meat and these flowers that taste like onion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After talking through the recipe and preparation techniques which were of no use outside the planet Big Tom found himself, he set the pot to simmer and sat in front of the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile that\u2019s cooking, it\u2019s time for another Big Tom story, I guess. \u2019Course I think I ran out of stories to tell\u2026except maybe to explain how I ended up here in the first place. I don\u2019t mean the lander crash, or dragging the shelter to the nearest flat ground, or any of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomeone out there somewhere is probably wondering why I would volunteer to survey a planet so far away that it was a one-way mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom Earth\u2019s point of view, it took me ninety-six years to get here. From my point of view, it took seven. This message won\u2019t reach Earth for another seventy-four years. How long after that the colonists would\u2019ve come, I don\u2019t know. This planet is damn near perfect for it, except for one thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Tom heaved a deep sigh. \u201cI\u2019ve always been the DIY type and lived off the grid more than on it after getting my doctorate. Whenever there was a study that needed a biologist in a remote jungle, mountain, or desert, I volunteered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the Eden Project said they needed a biologist, you can bet the first name on the list was Big Tom. I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d have a chance, though. You know how many astrobiology doctorates were handed out while I was focused on microbiology? Too many.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Tom laughed. \u201cYeah. Imagine my surprise when I was the only<\/em> biologist that signed up. I\u2019m out here doing the first cataloguing of alien biology, and it\u2019s awesome<\/em>! I mean it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve found things that could be classified as Eukarya: plants, animals, and fungus. There are single-cell and single-cell colony species that could be classified as Bacteria or Archaea. I\u2019ll have to add a new one, though.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He moved a small clay pot in front of the camera, with what looked like tendrils of glass. As he placed a hand near one side or the other, the tendrils swayed and bent toward the hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese little guys convert heat to energy. They use that energy to build these long-chain silicates they use as cell walls for their specialized cells with organelles and no nucleus. They pull silicates from the dirt, leaving behind a carbon-rich soil, while pulling carbon from the air. Various fungus and bacteria rely on these guys to take hold before they can invade and make the soil fit for plants. Whatever we thought about the limitations of RNA stability versus DNA can be put to rest. These guys, unlike all the other life on this planet, don\u2019t have DNA, they use RNA. They replicate by fragmentation, the root system breaking apart when disturbed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pushed the pot back out of frame. \u201cSo far, every sample of this type of life is a variation on these heat-converter glass grasses, of which I have identified sixteen species so far. Oddly, every organelle contains a copy of the RNA.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Tom stretched and groaned. \u201cI have a lifetime of work to do here, and a lifetime to do it. I\u2019m healthy, I\u2019m happy, and I couldn\u2019t have asked for a better life. That\u2019s right, fans. I am the happiest person in the world\u2026or out of the world, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The timer dinged and Big Tom rose to take the beans off the heat. \u201cI\u2019m going to let these cool down before I dig in, but I will have a little taste. It smells like heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He dipped a spoon of the broth out and blew on it to cool it before tasting it. \u201cOh my god\u2026this is the best batch yet. The onion flowers made all the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy life would be perfect, except for one thing.\u201d He moved to the camera and picked it up. He carried the camera outside, past the garden, to the well-worn footpath that led to the crashed lander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed the camera at the path. Along the edges of the path were freshly picked flowers of the type he had used in the soup. Following the flowers, the camera focused on a snot-vine creeper, tied in a plant-based rope. Beyond that lay a basket filled with snot-vine beans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He zoomed the camera in to a footprint. It was small, and similar to an opossum\u2019s rear footprint with five well-defined toes and an opposable thumb. \u201cThese guys do this every twenty-four days. Considering they have six digits on their hands?\u2026paws?\u2026whatever, it kind of makes sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right. It\u2019s now been long enough since the first, encrypted message to control that if they haven\u2019t made it public, I will. There is sapient life here. Our little crash-landing got their attention, and now there are two factions in this area. One leaves these gifts every twenty-four days. I only see them briefly, though. He zoomed the camera to a small quadruped that reared up on its hind legs and spread its fingers. There were symmetrical designs on its face and body in the bright yellow of the snot-vines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the little guys there.\u201d He waved and called out. \u201cI\u2019m not a god, you know. You could just come say hi.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The creature disappeared into the brush without a sound. \u201cI think they\u2019ve taken to worshipping me or something. They started doing this every twenty-four days since I buried Karina, the geologist. That was on day 509. The other group\u2014ouch!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He turned the camera in a circle as small figures rose in the tall grass on the other side of the path and flung rocks at him with slings. \u201cKnock it off!\u201d Big Tom took a deep breath and let out a loud roar that sent the creatures running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese little shits take every opportunity to throw rocks at me. They know it doesn\u2019t do anything except piss me off, but they keep it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou may be wondering how I know it\u2019s two different groups. I\u2019m not an anthropologist, or whatever the equivalent would be, but I\u2019ve seen enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first group decorates the trail and the graves of Karina and Hassan. They bury their dead there, too, and leave grave goods with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe other group throws their dead into a cave a little further on after stripping them of any tools or weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth groups live in shelters built from grass and have equivalent technology. The only social difference I see are burial rites and personal decoration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth groups are tribal in nature and seem to be led by the strongest. Of course, the strongest of them can, at most, give me a little boo-boo. The rock-throwing group seems to be doing it to show off their bravery or something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He walked to the lander, showing the graves of his two former crewmates. Their helmets sat atop their graves, and fresh flowers and beans had been sprinkled around them. He rotated the camera to show the small mounds of the creatures\u2019 graves, marked with round stones, about the size of their head, similarly adorned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI fear that I\u2019ve inadvertently introduced religion to the little guys. At first, I was worried that the aggressive group would just wipe them out, but they\u2019ve never come to blows. In fact, I\u2019ve seen members of one group move to the other with no friction whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Tom sat against the side of the lander and pointed the camera at himself. \u201cSo, you\u2019re thinking that the one thing I don\u2019t like is being alone, with Hassan dying in the crash and Karina dying almost a year ago. That\u2019s sad, but not it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou might think that if I could hear their speech, I might be able to communicate with the little guys\u2026let them know I\u2019m not a god or a devil or whatever. Unfortunately, their speech is all in the ultrasonic range. I\u2019m not even sure whether they can hear me, or just feel the vibrations of my voice. That\u2019s still not it, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not even that they figured out pottery by watching me. They can be incredibly sneaky. I realized they\u2019d copied what they saw me doing when I saw more of the clay dug out by the river, and a new fire pit there with a few broken shards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of them made a little lop-sided pot and painted designs on it with the goo from the snot-vines and left it just outside the garden. By the way, they\u2019d already figured out gardening by themselves, both groups. I copied their design.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He brought the camera closer, so his face filled the frame. \u201cNo, the one thing that gets on my last nerve is what will happen in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLong after I\u2019m gone, the lander and the cabin will still be around. They aren\u2019t going to deteriorate much in the next thirty or forty-thousand years. That will be enough that someday, they\u2019ll be watching their tiny little TVs\u2026and some nut with wild fur will be going on about how \u2018Ancient Aliens\u2019 were responsible for every great thing they ever achieved, and I\u2019m the asshole that gave that fire fuel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He laughed and moved the camera back before doing a slow pan of the graveyard once more, before turning it back toward himself and the lander. \u201cWell, that\u2019s enough of that for now. Those beans are cool enough to eat, so I\u2019m off to do that. Thanks for watching. Big Tom signing off for the day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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