Space Geographer Part 7 Morgan Hannah Life & Style Editor There’s something very human about this thing that stands before me. This idea is incredibly unsettling, but it lands hard and sticks like rubber cement to my brain. I can feel anxiety seeping into each fold of the greyish pink organ resting inside my skull. I’ve got to shake this off! ma goddamn Space Geographer! It is my mission to explore new landscapes and report back on what I find. It is my mission to bridge the knowledge gap between man and unexplored territory! Opening the makeshift sack full of supplies I piled together, I find the translator. It’s a sleek grey remote-like rectangle with a half-moon glass panel and a faded persimmon dial. I’m more relieved than ever before that the device has a microphone and speaker built-in for listening and interpreting languages, as 1 wouldn't even have the faintest idea where to begin when trying to decode something that sounds like what I imagine a cockroach on AMR would sound like. It is such a completely perplexing noise that it almost seems fitting to belong to an alien. Aiming the microphone at the gaping maw of this life- sized pickle of a creature, I fiddle with the dial, hoping—no, praying—that something will come of this. What I find is even more unsettling than the distinct thought that this brined vegetable-like creature is quite human... “Mask... quick... mask...” daily dairy diary White like the tiles in the bathroom or on the kitchen floor. Cold, my toes press against the tiles as I traverse towards the fridge. Exuberant in youth- fullness with strawberry, chocolate. Not soy. Plain was silk enough so good I'd say; downing one two three twenty— far too many. My toes have had enough of this bathroom floor. The tiles are cold. Soam I. Illustration by Morgan Hannah 10n tohn revious so