[ WP ] You were born on a colonizing spacecraft on your way to a distant star . You are the middle generation of history ; born to late to have seen Earth , and to early to live to see your destination .

In the bright, sweaty savanna, under white dome lights twinkling with the shadows of whizzing yellow pidges, Calla ripped the buckle off her jumper and smiled a crooked smile as she flashed me the crest of her cream-colored pelvis. 
 
 We were seven years old and I screamed and hid my eyes while she whipped me with the buckle, refusing to pull the jumper up, reveling in my discomfort. Laughing. We were both laughing. Hysterical and strange. In our grassland among the stars. 
 
 Nothing ever changed in those days. When we did n't have class, we swam in those great, cratered tubs of salted water and fought to hold our breath as we swam against the pressure in our limbs, descending towards a bottom we would never reach. Exhausted, we would splay ourselves like aimless star bodies floating gently in the still water, the enormous cannon bulbs above buzzing lightly as they rotated ever so slowly, washing every last corner with their warming gaze. 
 
 No new buildings. No new toys or tricks or gadgets. There was a lethargy to life that none of us seemed to recognize, but all of us felt. We marched as our world marched - straight and steady, towards a marked destination we could not see and yet could not avoid. 
 
 Powerless. Perhaps that was the feeling. After all, we had all awoken as passengers, in a way. None of us alive then had chosen to begin the journey. None of us would live to see the journey end. Our purpose, such as it was, was simply to live. At least for that moment. 
 
 Calla talked about these things often as we grew. In those days she felt them more acutely than I. As teenagers, I remember her lying nude once more in the tall grass of the domed savanna. I was lying nude beside her. The animals slept as they had been trained to do. We huddled close as the lights dimmed. 
 
 `` There's no place for us,'' said Calla, shivering slightly. 
 
 `` We have a home,'' I said, fumbling. `` We have promised jobs. We will be fine.'' 
 
 `` Everything is already made,'' said Calla. `` The path is chosen. We are no better than the lion. Trapped in our comforts by people who no longer exist.'' 
 
 `` Such is the way,'' I said, philosophical and ignorant. `` There's nothing we can do.'' 
 
 Calla hugged me tightly, squeezing my leg between hers. `` Why? Why ca n't we pick our own path?'' 
 
 I laughed, more nervous than amused. `` What? How would we? *Ceres* is pointed directly at our new home world. That is where we must go.'' 
 
 `` But it *isn't* our new home world, is it?'' said Calla. `` And not our children's. And not their children's. It is the world of strangers. *For* strangers. *Ceres* is our home. Why can we not make of it what we wish?'' 
 
 I had no answers then. I never had any answers. And that is how I lost Calla. Every unanswered question pulling us further apart. 
 
 We stayed together for those first few years. We were promised to each other. We were promised to our work and our home. We kept those promises. But the dissatisfaction in Calla's eyes grew only wider and more pronounced. And my sadness and ennui was not enough to match her anger and frustration. 
 
 She found like-minded allies. They met in secret. She did not invite me. And some days she did not come home at all. 
 
 I lost her long before she disappeared. 
 
 All I know is rumor and hearsay, but the whispers were this: that a group of dissidents attacked the control room. They tried to take control of *Ceres*. To plot their own course. To where - who could know? 
 
 Was Calla a part of this coup attempt? I do n't know. I hope not. I hope she is still alive somewhere on *Ceres*. I hope she has found some measure of peace. But I do n't know. 
 
 I still visit the savanna when time permits, but I have not swam in those bucket oceans for many years now. It is too painful. Though I like to think that one day I will return. One day Calla and I will both return and we will swim to the bottom. Through the pressure and the salty friction, we will descend to the very bottom. The first to ever do so. Our little mark. A notation in a log somewhere. 
 
 A reminder that we existed. 
 
 Some small evidence that we mattered.
