[Chickpea]

username: Chickpea
name: Holly
gender: Female
prompt (max 600 words):

It was only meant to be a short trip. Just glide over a few planets down to pick up something— what was it? Supplies, a gift?—no, no that doesn’t sound right—It hardly matters now anyway. What does matter, is that it hadn’t been supposed to take the rest of her life. Holly was an excellent spacecraft driver, she never expected anything would happen. The trip went south. Well actually, there isn’t really a south in space, but either way things went bad. Quite bad.

The ship had crashed. It happened very fast, an asteroid field, Holly was dead before she woke. Aside from her newfound floating abilities and general transparency, being a ghost wasn’t too different. But what do you do when you find you’ve suddenly found yourself dead? Holly didn’t know. She felt embarrassed. There were no other ghosts to mock her for her lack of,,, ghost skills? Yes, she supposes that’s the term.
She didn’t do much the first night. She needed time to adjust. It was strange to float, it felt like wind lifting her up like a kite or a weightless cloud of dust, not like swimming through thick water, no it was easier. In fact too easy, Holly embarrassed as she’d be to admit it, couldn’t figure out how to stop for longer than a few minutes. Again, she felt other ghosts would mock her. She fell asleep floating in a corner of the cockpit. Who knew ghosts could sleep, I mean, there was no evidence to show otherwise, but it was new information either way.
The next day, after gaining new courage, she took to looking around the wreckage. The ship was mostly intact, aside from many punctures and being partially embedded in a meteor. She had a really nice view of the cosmos as it floated through the asteroids. It had a calm, lonely finality to it that Holly didn’t quite understand. She was alone now, she likely wouldn’t see her brother’s again, or her terminally ill mother, her dad and grandparents. Although they didn’t live on the same planets anymore, she’d still miss them.
She continued to just explore and float through the wreckage for several days before a curious thing happened.
She heard the ship’s telephone ringing. It scared her the first time she heard it, who would be calling? By the time she got to the room, it had stopped. She waited anxiously for them to call back. It felt like forever, but they finally did. The red phone rand on it’s post and she quickly snatched it. Which was something ghosts could apparently do.

“Hello?” Her voice wavered.

“Hello, Sweet pea!” A familiar voice answered, It was her mother. She was calling from the hospice, to say goodbye. Holly never would have been able to visit her again, they already knew this, the planets they lived on were just to far apart. They chatted for a time before her mother asked her a question she knew she could not answer.

“It took you along time to get to the phone, are you doing ok, Sweetie?” Her mother’s frail voice asked with a hint of worry.

Holly hesitated, tears welling in her eyes, she didn’t want to worry her poor mother, not at a time like this, not ever really. She put her paw against the window and gazed into the vast, infinite expanse of space, “Ye-yes, I’m doing fine, I love you mom.”

extra (optional, max 250 words or 1 art piece):