Emma is in a sleep capsule traveling to another planet.
Frog-Sleep
by Deborah Walker
I step carefully into the sleep-capsule and sit down into the thick viscous liquids that will keep me alive for the next few hundred years.
“Will there be any dreams?” I ask Mom.
“No. No dreams, Emma,” says Mom, smoothing back my hair. “When we wake, we will be orbiting Boreas.”
Mom was wrong, when she said there would be no dreams while I stayed in the frog-sleep capsule and traveled through the universe. I know I’m dreaming, but the dream feels real—a mind trick, the result of being frozen like a Popsicle and shot across space.
In my dream, I’m with my best friends, Ras and Micham, in the Triton Mall Eatery on Manchester Prime. I love living on Prime. It’s the center of the universe, as far as I’m concerned, with visitors from all the system’s colonized worlds. We’ve come a long way; humans have finally colonized the solar system, but everyone wants to come to Prime to find out what’s hot and what’s not. We’re drinking chocolate-soy-shake while talking about the latest fashion: virtual-shoes that simulate unique walking experiences: walking on air, walking on fire, and walking on water. We’ve been trying them on all morning, until the sour-faced assistant “shoed” us away.
“I wish I could buy a pair,” says Ras wistfully.
“No chance on an allowance,” says Micham, sucking up the last dregs of her shake.
“Maybe I’ll save up,” says Ras. I laugh. In the five years I’d known Ras, her allowance had never lasted more than a week.
“Who’s that?” asks Micham, nodding to a girl, sitting at a table by herself. She looks around our age, blonde hair scraped into a ponytail, kinda skinny.
“Hey, she looks like you, Emma,” says Micham.
Ras shrugs, “She’s just some new kid. Probably just arrived from a colony.”
The girl looks sad; it must be difficult coming to a new place, I think. Still, she’ll soon settle in. There’s nowhere better than Prime.
“Have you heard about the new colony on Boreas?” asks Micham. “Two hundred years in frog-sleep to get there.”
What event is happening in this passage?
Emma is dreaming in her bed.
Emma is talking with her friends.
Emma is in a sleep capsule traveling to another planet.
Emma is trying on new virtual shoes.
1 answer
1 answer