I’d been running, stupidly, for days. According to my chronometer, about five days. I didn’t care.

Every part of my soul that I could still hear rallied for my demise; it was by instinctive masochism that I made my way toward the southern dead zone.

What I hadn’t planned for was an encounter with God.

Truth is, those cold nights put me in a contemplative sort of mood. When a guy is alone with the unterraformed craters, staring up at the stars through a sky that’s barely there, dwarfed by the sparkling earthrise, he can’t help but gain a little perspective.

Did my parents’ opinion matter, really, in the grand scheme of things? No, probably not.

Was my life worth ending just because I had trouble holding down a job? Again, not really.

I sighed and stopped walking. It seems I had wandered into one of those abandoned landfills from the pre-colonial days when people dumped all their trash on Luna, out of sight, out of mind.

Suddenly there was a sound.

There was a large, old glass box. It was ringing at me.