Chapter 4 continues the story of Jos, the first part of which was Chapter 3. Jos watched the chronometer slowly mark the passage of time. He had thought about sleeping but had given up. No matter how tired he was, he found sleep to be a coy mistress. He wanted to speak to Ammi, had wanted to ever since Jonah had been arrested - had that really happened? It all seemed so far away now, so unreal.
At 7:30 am CET, the starship entered its daytime cycle, and the world onboard seemed to wake from its slumber. Though he had made this journey many times before, Jos still found the lack of objective time somewhat disturbing - day or night, the world beyond the window was as dark as ever. He was finding these little adjustments harder and harder to make. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and could no longer shrug off the space-lag as if the time difference was nothing but a blink of an eye.
Ammi would probably be up by now but to be safe he waited another ten minutes. Was he afraid to call her? What should he say? It had all seemed so clear last night, so obvious what needed saying. Jos practised what he would say inside his head but was not satisfied with any formulation. At precisely 7:40 he gave up, resolved to just see what happened, and activated the computer. The display flickered into life, projecting the desktop directly into the air. Deftly, he manipulated the black keys before him, not even glancing down at the pad. This might have been a clumsy way of working but direct computer-mind interfacing was still in the embryonic stage. And anyway, the idea of such an interface, hacking a computer into your mind, was disgusting - he would use a keypad still.
Selecting off-ship communications and the address of Ammi, he sat back and waited for the computer to find the connection. Soon enough, an image of his wife appeared on the display - she had obviously just washed her hair, which looked dark and heavy. Her hazel eyes were warm and she smiled as she saw him.
“Jos! How nice to see you.” Ammi’s melodic voice filled the cabin. “I’m just going out the door. How’s the flight going?”
“Fine, fine. As good as could be expected.”
“That’s great. And you’ll be here in two days?”
“A bit less - we should arrive tomorrow night.”
“Great.”
“How are you?” he asked, but it wasn’t what he wanted to say - the words stuck fast in his throat and sat there smoldering.
“Fine. Nothing remarkable going on here. The usual bunch of patients - viruses, flu, ear infections - nothing in particular going on.”
An uncomfortable silence fell between them.
“Well, I must be off,” Ammi said, “busy day at the surgery.”
“Yeah. See you soon, have a good day.”
“You too. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Ammi’s image blinked out. Jos shut down the computer.
Something inside him was missing. He felt a hole and did not know what to do about it. He should have told her how much he loved her, how much he cared for her - at least he should have told her about Jonah. But no. He said nothing. He always said nothing. Why could he not talk to her? There hadn't used to be silences in their conversations, had there? There was always tomorrow. Maybe when he saw her it would be easier.
Jos felt a headache looming at the back of his skull - too many sleepless nights. What he really needed was a good breakfast, put everything else out of his mind.
The walk to the restaurant was not long but Jos found himself thinking about last night, when he had taken a similar walk. Jonah loomed large inside his head. The whole encounter had been so strange. Why had he poured his heart out to someone he barely knew? And some of the things he had said. Nonsense yet seemingly true. He could not explain it.
Considering that it was still relatively early, the restaurant was quite busy. Jos joined the back of the brisk queue, trying to decide what would be the best cure for a looming headache.
“I wouldn’t have the eggs if I were you,” came a low, murmuring voice from next to his ear.
