“Nope. Not doing it.”
“Come on, Tamsin. Millions of people travel like this every day.”
“If millions of people jumped off a bridge, would you join them?”
Clara lowered her head and looked at her friend from just under her eyebrows in that way that said, Don’t be ridiculous. “My point is that it’s perfectly safe.”
“Except when it’s not.”
“You have a higher chance of getting in a car crash.”
“But in a car crash I have a higher chance of surviving. Up there, there’s no hope.”
“Will you just get on board already? People are staring.”
“If people getting on that death trap think I’m the crazy one, they can stare all they want. I know who the crazy one really is.” Tamsin glared at a nosy passerby to emphasize her point.
Clara sighed. “Look, you knew when you agreed to come on the trip that this was the only way to get there.”
“You tricked me. You lured me with promises of fancy hotel rooms and drinks with little umbrellas in them.”
“Exactly. Just keep thinking about that and you’ll be there before you know it.”
“Keep thinking about the vacation.”
“Yes.”
“Instead of the fact that there’s nothing more than a sheet of metal between me and certain death.”
Clara’s head flopped forward and her arms slumped as the hope that had been building inside was quickly yanked away. “Actually, it’s two sheets of metal, a thick layer of insulation, and a whole lot of science protecting you. You’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“If I didn’t know we would be fine, I would not be getting on board.”
“If you jumped off a bridge, I would not follow you.”
Clara exhaled slowly, rubbing the bridge of her nose between two fingers as she prayed for patience. Finally, she said, “What if I give you drugs?”
Tamsin hesitated. “What kind of drugs?”
“The kind where you go to sleep almost as soon as you take it and wake up when we get there.”
Tamsin considered before saying, “Dying in my sleep wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Great, here you go.” Clara shoved two pills into Tamsin’s hand and turned and headed for the boarding ramp before Tamsin could change her mind again.
Tamsin looked at the pills in her hand for a minute, shrugged, threw them back and swallowed without water before following her friend onto the spaceship.
The end.