The New Tradition

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Me, Gerlinde, Marja, from Finland, and Bora, from Turkey, were all sitting around one of the dining rooms in the cafeteria, the remnants of dinner strewn across the table.
We had all eaten in silence, a cloud of despair hung around the table and every other table in the cafeteria actually.
This was because we were supposed to be celebrating, however there was little to celebrate.
Every Arkonaut was here, we had the night off courtesy of One. Yet the freedom he had given us was not stirring feelings of joy and merriment, despite the fact that it was the ‘most wonderful time of the year’. The meal had been nice, no doubt about it. The food trays were split into compartments each with a different part of the meal. One held potatoes - roasted. Another turkey slices, another Brussels sprouts and also pigs in blanket. Each portion had been generous and well cooked, my compliments to the robots who cooked them. Pieces of shiny cardboard and paper hats were littered across the table plus some bad jokes had been shared, that had caused everyone to roll their eyes.
By now I’m sure that you can guess what time of the year it is.
It was in fact Christmas Day.
But now was not a good time to celebrate.
Most of us had left behind families, and celebrations like this were usually spent with them. One had tried to encourage us with several other festivals over the last few months. None of them had worked. Christmas was no different. Everything we enjoyed about these times of years were gone, reliving them like this felt like a slap in the face.
I toyed with a final Brussel sprout on my tray chasing it with my fork.
In the end I dropped the piece of cutlery and buried my head in my hands.
“Arrgh, what are we doing celebrating this?” I said. “I used to eat this meal with my family.” I added and wiped away a tear.
“There was no snow,” Marja said.
“No church service,” Gerlinde said.
“No gifts,” Bora added.
We fell into silence again.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be celebrating these things, the Earth is gone and everything connected to these traditions, to our countries is gone too,” Gerlinde said,
“No more real Christmas trees,” Marja said, “The one One made us decorate was plastic.”
“There are no shops to buy gifts,” Bora said.
I rubbed my head with my hands messing up my hair, over and over and finally slammed them down on the table. “I know what you guys mean, however we all used to celebrate these things, we used to love them, why give that up? I just wish that we had a reason to celebrate.”
“Maybe we need a new tradition,” Gerlinde said.
“Like what?” I moaned.
“How about a new kind of Christmas food?” Marja suggested.
“Is there farm somewhere on the Ark?” Bora said.
“No I mean like when we get to our new home-world we find something edible and make it the new turkey or spouts or something.”
“What dry and bitter?” Gerlinde said.
“Plus it’s no use to us here on the ship,” Bora said. “We would have to wait till we got to the new homeworld and found a turkey like bird we can eat, if it has birds?”
“Ok the food was a bad idea,” Gerlinde said earning a scowl from Marja. “Why not a new decoration?”
“A new decoration,” Marja said, in disbelief.
“Yes and I think I have the perfect thing because it’s also creative, we have to make them ourselves,” she explained.
“I don’t think there are stacks of craft paper and glitter in the cargo bay that we can use,” Bora said.
“There definitely won’t be glitter, that was banned remember,” I said.
“Why?” Gerlinde said.
“It was bad for the environment,” I said.
“Fat lot of good it did,” Marja said, “It was like when they banned straws, didn’t they think that maybe they needed to do bigger thing. Like stop global warming.”
“They banned glitter,” Gerlinde said who looked shocked.
“Oh dear, I think Gerlinde was making birthday cards without realising she was breaking the law,” Bora said smiling. “Hey someone call 155,” he pretended to shout out.
“I mean banning straws did they seriously think that was a good plan,” said Marja, not letting go of her conversational thread.
“Look whatever, we don’t need craft paper or, or glitter,” Gerlinde began. “I’ve spent time in the engine room. A by-product of the engine’s emission cause multi-coloured crystals to grow on the wall. Now we have to remove them and grind them down and return them to the engine. However why not take the crystals, carve them and put them on the Christmas tree.”
“Carve them?” Bora said.
“Yeah into bauble shapes or whatever you want,” Gerlinde said.
“That won’t work,” Marja interjected. “I spend time in the control centre and one of the things we do is monitor radiation levels in the engine room, because the crystals are radioactive and if they become to big the radiation levels increase.”
“Wait I’m working in a radiation zone?” Gerlinde said.
“Don’t worry the crystals have to get really big for the radiation to be unsafe. In fact the engine room has the same levels of radiation you find in a banana factory.”
“Bananas are radioactive?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, supermarkets are death traps,” Marja joked. “The point is though, handling these radioactive crystals might not be a good idea.”
“Yeah I’m not up for that,” Bora said.
“So Gerlinde’s idea crashed and burned,” Marja said, earning a scowl from Gerlinde. “What next?”
“What about a new gift giving thing?” Bora said.
“Go on,” I said, liking the idea of a gift.
“Well in honour of St Nick, who was Turkish, we should find a way to give each other a gift.”
“Like a giant secret Santa?” I said looking around the cafeteria and wondering how it would work.
“That’s been done, plus how can we make gifts here on this ship?” Gerlinde said.
“You can’t use glitter Gerlinde, give it up,” Marja said.
“We don’t need to make things,” Bora said. “All our rooms have things in them that we can just give away to other people.”
We all sat back and thought about it. “So we all give something from our room to someone else?” I replied.
“Yes,” Bora replied.
“So like we wrap up a book we brought with us and give it whoever we want?” Gerlinde said.
“Where are you getting the wrapping paper from?” I asked.
“She’s making it out of craft paper and glitter,” Marja sniggered.
“Look I mentioned glitter once,” Gerlinde shot back.
“Still this idea could work,” I said.
“I don’t think it does,” Gerlinde replied. “Cos when you think about it we’re just giving up things we know we like and getting things we aren’t familiar with. If we keep doing that year after year, our rooms are going to be filled with stuff we don’t need or want. Plus what if the book you hand over is in your country’s language, I can’t read that.”
“Yeah and I don’t want to give up my clothes either, I mean they won’t fit other Arkonauts,” I said.
“You assume we want to walk around with your fashion sense?” Bora said.
“People might not like the sweets I have,” Marja said.
“You have sweets?” I asked.
“Which ones?” Gerlinde asked.
“Please tell me it’s dark chocolate,” Bora said.
“They’ve almost all gone,” Marja said. “You wouldn’t like them anyway, erm, Fins put, err, grass in our sweets.”
“Blatant lie,” Gerlinde said. “But I suppose there aren’t enough grass filled sweets to go around. No sorry Bora that idea is not going to work.”
All three of them then looked at me.
“What?”
“Come on you need to contribute, what new Christmas tradition can we invent to re-energise the Christmas spirit on the Ark?” Gerline said.
“Oh right,” I began. “How about?” I lapsed into silence, because my mind was blank. “…a new type of Christmas song.” I said.
“Go on,” they said.
“So…” I began patching this thing together as I went along. “We’ve had Carols, Hymns, x-mas number ones, how about every year we have to invent a new song that we all sing.”
“Pass,” Gerlinde said.
“Same,” Marja said.
“I can’t sing,” Bora added.
“Aren’t we going to at least talk about before you shoot it down?” I asked.
“No,” Koyla said from over my shoulder.
“Hey you’re not on my table,” I said.
“But I can still hear your plans,” he said and he turned around in his chair.
“Face it Christmas is dead,” he said.
“Thanks Scrooge,” I said.
“Who is Scrooge?” he asked.
“You don’t know who Scrooge is!?”
“Oh that gives me an idea,” Gerlinde said.
“We are not putting on a stage production of a Christmas carol,” I said to her.
She closed her mouth and drifted off into silence mumbling, “I was thinking pantomime version actually.”
Just then all the cafeteria lights started to dim.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Please don’t tell me there is a power cut,” Bora asked.
The lights stayed on, however they remained dim, then one of the overhead light trails came on. These were like laser beams hanging in the air, trails of light we were supposed to follow to designated areas. One used them to direct us all to places in emergencies.
“What is that for?” I asked. For some reason the light was made up of red, silver and gold light. It went out of the room and down the corridor.
“One are we supposed to be following that?” Gerlinde asked the air, assuming he was using the internal communication system.
There was no response.
“Do you think this is a prank?” I asked.
“I don’t think One does pranks,” Bora said.
I got up out of my chair and walked to the door of the cafeteria and looked down the corridor. It appeared to be heading in the general direction of the observational deck.
I started following it. The cafeteria erupted in a cacophony of scrapping chairs and footsteps as all the Arkonauts got up to follow me.
I led the crowd to the observational deck. Once we entered the Christmas themed light overhead disappeared.
“Why are we here?” Illarion asked.
I looked around and saw that there was a piece of paper stuck to the observational window a giant panoramic sheet of glass that showed us a sea of stars.
I walked over to it and took it off the window.
It had writing on it, very neat handwriting.
“What is it?” Gerlinde asked.
“It’s a riddle I think,” I said.
“Read it,” Bora said.
I took a deep breath and held it up as if I was a town crier. “On your first day you all arrived here, then you went to where you would find Shakespeare.”
“That’s terrible rhyming,” Koyla said.
“You can’t blame One, he’s programmed to protect us not write poetry,” I said.
“What does it mean?” Marja said.
“I think he’s telling us to follow the clue,” Gerlinde said.
“Where would we find Shakespeare?” I asked.
“Oh, oh,” Maiara said and bounced on her tip toes in the middle of the crowd with her hand raised.
“We are not in class,” I said.
Maiara ignored my comment and said, “He’s telling us to go to the theatre, where else would we find Shakespeare.”
We all looked at each other. “Sounds right,” I finally said.
“To the theatre,” Koyla said.
A few minutes later we were all in the theatre.
“Look for another note,” I said.
We searched the seats spreading out to check. Some people raced down the isles wanting to be the first.
“Got it,” Gerlinde said, from the stage.
“Read it out,” I said.
She projected her voice over the whole room. “After learning all your names, you were forced to go where you would never find flames.”
“He’s getting worse,” Koyla said.
“Flames, flames,” I said turning the word over in my brain, I wanted to be the first to get the clue.
“The water recycling room,” Ogwambi said. “Don’t you remember we were all in here then the alarms went off and we had to go there to fix the leak.”
“And you won’t find flames where you have water, we’re good at this. Let’s go.”
We all ran to the water recycling room, which was huge. “Spread out find the note,” Illarion declared.
Everyone check the walls, the pipes, everything.
I opened a cupboard and found it on one of the cabinet doors. “Got it,” I said.
I turned around as the Arkonauts gathered. I cleared my throat. “Some of you here, some of you there,” I read.
“He’s given up on rhyming then,” Koyla commented.
“The control room, some of us were in this room sorting out the leak, some of us were in that room monitoring the progress,” Gerlinde said.
The note in the control centre was easy to see, One had programmed the dome ceiling of the room to project the words.
“The next place to visit is where you will find, all the things that weren’t left behind,” I said.
“We can read Callum,” Maiara said.
“That’s the best one yet,” Koyla said.
“Are you a literary critic, he’s doing the best he can,” Marja said.
“The cargo bay,” Bora said. “All the things that weren’t left behind on Earth are stored in the cargo bay.”
The cargo bay was sealed by a large door that looked like a giant cog. Since it was sealed most of the time One had stuck the note to the door, rather than inside the room, which was good because searching the cargo bay for a note would have taken ages.
Illarion read it out. “The servant’s quarters,” he read.
“What? That’s it?” Koyla said.
“What servants?” Bora asked.
The word servant was repeated over and over by the crew, we were all saying it in the hope it would jog a memory or thought.
“There are no servants on this ship it’s just us, one…” Koyla said.
“One! One is a servant,” Gerlinde said.
“Does he have quarters?” I asked.
“Does he even sleep?” Koyla said to general laughter.
“Wait what was the third thing you were going to say?” I asked Koyla.
“Erm just us, one and Nemo,” he finished, talking about the crew’s pet fish.
I waved a hand at him, “Ok you weren’t on the right track,” I said.
“No wait he was, there is one more group on board the Ark,” Marja said.
“Who?” I asked.
She led the way back up the stairs to the floor above, then to another flight of stairs on the edge of the residential area.
We went up to the robot storage area.
“Servants that’s right,” I said.
“Impressed?” Marja boasted, as she pushed the door open to the giant space that housed all the robots.
The last time I was up here they had all been arranged in rows, now though some of them lined the edge of a large rectangular area. Two giant construction machines were projecting beam of light down onto the space.
One was standing in the middle of the space, like a performer at a rock concert.
“Welcome to the party,” he said and more lights came on. Christmas lights lit up the space with blues, greens and reds. A fake snow machine came on and ‘snow’ started to fall across the dance floor.
“You did all of this?” I asked One.
“I thought that we needed to do things differently, so I created a new Christmas tradition. The Christmas Riddle Quest,” he said in an awe inspiring voice.
We didn’t react to it.
“I admit the name needs work,” he said. “However, every year we will play this quest. You have to follow the clues to find the party. Fail to find the party and you don’t get to dance to the music,” he said and he pointed at a robot that gave him the thumbs up and started playing classic Christmas songs.
“Congratulations,” he declared to the assembled crew. “You found the party, Merry Christmas and a happy new year,” he bellowed.
Arkonauts streamed onto the dance floor and started dancing, soft drinks were spread around. The crew finally started enjoying themselves.
I didn’t join in immediately I just walked around the dance floor smiling at dancing antics and watching the fun.
“Not joining in?” One asked me.
“What you did was great One and it was fun, however I still don’t know what we’re celebrating.”
“The birth of Christ,” he said. “The Birth of the Prince of Peace.”
“I know that, but you know, what are We celebrating. We the last surviving members of the human race, everyone we knew is dead. What are We celebrating?”
One stood with his arms behind his back and surveyed the crowd of dancing, cheering, happy Arkonauts.
“We’re all alive,” he said. “We all have lives that need to be lived, not wasted drowning in sorrow, that’s something to be grateful for. We are at peace,” he added.
I looked at the assembled crew.
He was right, that was worth celebrating.
I shuffled onto the dance floor and started to join in. I let my despair melt away I lived in the moment.
Everyone was happy, I was happy.
Maybe this is the most wonderful time of the year…