A office flicks into view showing Tanker sitting in a chair leaning back with his feet up on the desk in front of him. On the wall to his left there is a old painting showing a man in ancient black armor on a white horse stabbing a black dragon that is on the ground with a lance. The wall on his right has a similar old painting though instead it has a women holding a ancient sword in her right hand and a ancient fortification in her left. Tanker is wearing his familiar dirty green nomex jump suit and black boots. Around his neck he has a yellow cord attached to a metal medallion that he is idly rubbing with his left hand. In his right hand rest a coffee mug.
O where to start, I guess I should probably start with my name, Adrastus Perturabo. I am 28 years old with a body that aches like a 40 year old and the maturity of a 14 year old. *chuckles softly* I am a pod pilot and have been for some time. I have lost friends and gained friends just like every other pod pilot I know. *Takes a sip of is coffee and looks at the painting of the man on horseback.* I don't know if it is me or if I just know a lot of depressed people but it seems like every pod pilot I have ever meet is depressed to the point that I want to put them on suicide watch.
When I ask them why they are depressed all they tell me is traumatic events that have happened to them in the past. On the occasions I have pressed for more detailed answers, I seem to always get a story about some friend or family member that they were very close to died. Now before I go any further let me set the record straight on one of my personal views. There is a heaven and a hell. That much I am certain about, now where am I or anyone else going when we die.........that remains to be seen. But from what the people I talk to tell me of their dead friends and loved ones they are most certainly going to heaven, so why aren't they happy? Most of my dead friends and loved ones are watching over me in heaven happy they died doing what they loved. Several of them died right next to me, and yet here I am with no hint of depression. Why? Because I saw them die the way they wanted to, not in a retirement home in a crippled body and a broken mind. But either in a blazing gun fight or apocalyptic explosion.
Am I sad they are gone and that is one less person I can talk to? Of course I am but I don't dwell on it. I remember them as they would want me to, full of youth and energy, I only hope that one day I can join them. Although that seems unlikely now that I am a pod pilot but one never knows.
I have one modo I try to live by. "Mourn the dead and live for the living." It is a very simple philosophy that I wish other pod pilots would follow.
*Takes his boots off the table and stands up tucking the medallion into his nomex suit and puts his coffee cup on the desk. He walks towards the camera and behind it, after a minute the camera turns around showing a wall covered in lettering. The wall is the only thing in the office that has no hint of dirt or debris on it and close inspection reveals that the writing is names in column and row format. On the top it reads "YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTON". Then the camera turns off.
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