The doctor checked Jimmy during his morning rounds. “Doc, I’d like to thank you for all you’ve done for me. Please tell the staff thanks for me too,” the brave boy spoke in a breathy gasping voice. Then he turned and smiled at his ever attentive mother. “Mom, I’ve fought this cancer but I know I can’t beat it. This will be my last morning and I want to die on my own terms. I don’t want to be hooked up to machines. All that will do is make my pain and yours continue. Doc, I’d like you to witness mom signing DNR paperwork for me, now, before it’s too late. Also Mom, I want to donate my body to the medical university where student doctors can see what the cancer has done to my body. It might help in finding a cure for others. Mom, those are my last wishes, please sign the donation paperwork.”

In tears Sally at first refused but seeing that Jimmy was so serious, she sadly acquiesced, signing the paperwork so that when his heart stopped, his epic war would be over and no attempts to revive him would be made and his body given for research. The grieving mother had no choice but to agree to her dying son’s adamant demands.

“Thanks, mom,” he smiled wanly. Exhausted by the exertion, Jimmy closed his eyes for a nap. Sally knew she had to stay strong for her dying son and stifled her anguish to sit by his bed holding his hand.

“Crying in a spacesuit is… ill advised…”

“Fuck you.”

I suppose that was the start of a eulogy, incongruous as it was.

He was right though. At least we weren’t in microgravity so the tears traced a sluggish path down my cheeks and into the collar of my coolsuit instead of becoming little floating globules of nastiness.

The sun burned down upon us, casting every pebble and microcrater into sharp relief as the regolith crunched under our feet. The sky was the black of space, even the stars washed out by the fierce furnace which lit our way.

It was just another Monday at the office, and I’d popped out for a cigarette. Sarah was there, she works on a different floor to me, but we’re smoking buddies, so I went over to chat. Sarah is drop dead gorgeous, and she told me about the new cosplay she was making. Like me she’s a geek, although I’ve only ever worn fancy dress for parties.

Her and Jane, her housemate, had been making Sucker Punch costumes for the London Comic Con. I couldn’t get tickets to go with them, although without a costume I may have looked out of place walking around with them.