Was a Diary, This

Paper. Precious paper. I feel I am committing an unforgivable crime even writing this.

Crime is not the right word. Crime implies a moral code created by someone else that one must abide by. Sin, perhaps, is the correct replacement. “Sin” is going against the standards and life-sustaining choices I have consciously adopted to further my life goals. So, yes, it is a sin to be writing on this paper.

What’s the expression — I paid an arm and a leg to procure this diary. It came from Earth — humanity’s home world. Those who are not born on Earth and have never visited do not know what paper is. For that matter, they don’t know what trees are, or wood pulp. Here, in the asteroid belt, all writing is electronic.

For those who will read this diary — and I hope many hundreds of years from now this diary will get passed down from one hand to the next until even these words will start looking archaic and crazy to the reader — they will find a lot of gems like this expression, “pay an arm and a leg.”

Anyway, after the large haul of rare Earth metals — even the term is so Earth-bound — we had in the Jupiter trojans, I was able to afford — heck, whom am I kidding; I blew a large part of my bonus on purchasing — this diary. I was down Earthside for shore leave after that haul. I purchased this diary on a whim as I walked and browsed through a quaint market in Gold Canyon, Arizona. It was the baggage fees to get it up the gravity well with me that cost a pretty penny.

As I am writing expressions like “pretty penny,” I chuckle not knowing whether such old-English expressions — old even now; what’s a penny anyway? — will make any sense decades and centuries from now.

My hand is cramping as I am writing this with a ballpoint pen. I bought the pen with the diary — it inserts in the clasp. I bought the pen knowing it would not work in zero-G. It will work under thrust or in spin gravity — not otherwise. Eventually, even this pen will dry up — or people will forget how to use it. We are so used to “writing” by typing out words with fingers — or even voice to text — or with intelligent lenses that take eye movements and eyeblink input — that writing by hand has become a lost art.

They used to teach writing by hand in school — everyone’s least favorite subject, even mine. I eventually came to love handwriting. It keeps the writing fully mine, away from clouds and servers and prying eyes.

Anyway, too much cramping of my hand muscles — I will come back and write some more. Until then, yours truly, Aisha Sundaram.

Space debris killed one of the workers today — today, I know, is an Earth concept; bear with me — I was born there and the old habit has stuck. That’s why people prefer inside cabins — better protection that way from debris punching through the outer hull. Once one gets past Luna 1, the space debris goes down drastically — Luna 1 is an imaginary sphere with Earth at its center whose radius is the same as the distance between the Earth’s center and the farthest point of the moon’s orbit from Earth. I am grateful I can afford an inside cabin.

Interesting tidbit — Earth cruise ships — ships in the ocean — have inside and outside cabins too. But the outside cabins are much more expensive than inside ones because of the views. It’s the opposite for spaceships. Later — Aisha.

I made compressed graphite in the lab on the ship today — I suspect that would be a more durable method to write than the ballpoint pen that dried faster than I thought it would!

Anyway, I must not waste this paper. I must use it to write something momentous. A manifesto perhaps — or a memoir — a thriller, or a diary spilling my deepest, darkest secrets to nobody — or a history of current events — or a political magnum opus. I don’t know. Writing by hand is hard in zero-G! Oh well. — Aisha.

Is a prized relic of the asteroid belt, this paper diary.

Was found at Jovian Lagrange 4 sorting through abandoned property, the artifact.

Is bleached out completely by cosmic radiation, the original ink.

Were able to photograph the words, the historians.

Are transcribed from the photographs of some pages, these excerpts.

Handwrote in linear sentences, Aisha Sundaram.

Was not used hundreds of years ago, modern mindmap writing.

Are the same as modern langue, many words.

Are a mystery, some Earth expressions.

Gives a glimpse of analog records and linear writing of classic-period humans, the relic.

An eight-year-old child pinched and dragged the glowing ball of mindmapped sentences visible to him through his corneal implant while he stood in front of the protective case containing the diary. The ball of writing thinned and stretched when he pulled on the words “Aisha Sundaram” to show another ball depicting a short biography of a person who was touted as having popularized the precursor to three-dimensional mindmap writing — the excessive use of asides separated by em dashes.

But the child’s parent was more keen on herding the child to the next museum exhibit. The child made a mental note to look up linear writing and analog records. I am that child, just a few years older, re-popularizing linear writing in the old langue. — Ollie Yan.