The Most Important Thing

 

by T.C. Anderson

 a rum and coke on the rocks

 

The expanse of blues and greens and oranges lay before me beyond the window, a painting crafted by some worshipped artist with many forgotten names.

I didn’t see the beauty in it like the others did.

There were whoops and hollers resounding in every ear drum, a toothy grin splashed across every face, a chorus of congratulations and job-well-dones passed around like a hefty blunt. The stale lights of the ship flattened the colors of the balloons. The stoic speaker announcements for our upcoming landing were drowned out by the ambience of chatter.

This place was far from a home – we were mere test subjects in a floating hospital, sent with little more than a wish and a prayer to find the next generation’s safe haven. The palette of colors beneath us seemed to be what we were looking for. But nobody seemed to remember the most important thing.

We were the aliens.

 

About the author 

.C. Anderson is a Texas-based writer and artist with work published in Capsule Stories, Pages Penned in Pandemic, The Raven Review, and more. Her poetry collection, The Forest, was published by Riza Press in 2021. More of her work can be found on Instagram, instagram.com/thetcanderson, and her website, www.thetcanderson.com.