Stardust

Chapter Three

"Saturday! Saturday! That is in three days!"

"Two days, actually."

Thomas paced around in his parents very minimalistic living room as he got ready for his now unimportant Stardust appointment. But Oliver stood to the side, still wearing his ruffled clothes from the night before.

"But it's nearly 4-thousand light years away. It will take years, no, centuries to get there! Literally 80,000 years to get there, Oliver!"

"And see? You learned this stuff in college. Stop overreacting." Oliver was nervous himself, although he didn't want it to show.

Thomas turned around, frustrated, "Oliver, listen. There is so much stuff I still want to do. Get my degree, a girlfriend, a family, a life! Either way if I stay or go, I would be dead! Why is it so sudden?"

"A life, jeez. You have serious overreacting issues," Oliver muttered. "I'm sure you passed college. If you go on that ship or whatever thingy to go to that planet, you'll get a girlfriend. I'm your family, and you have a life. You're living it!"

"Yeah, well mum is not here, yeah? She left years ago and never came back."

Oliver frowned then shook his head, walking towards his brother while holding a waffle, "I know this departure thing is very sudden, but-"

"Yes, VERY sudden. What if you don't even get on? Me? We are both Stardust patients, we entered when we were both five years."

Thomas started his direction towards the door, grabbing his car keys.

Oliver took a bite of his waffle and stopped him, speaking with his mouth full, "But just remember, whether you go or not, I'm always here for you. I know I've been a douche and picked on you your whole life, but that was because I cared about you." He sighed, "Mum said you were special, and you should always remember that, mate. I believe you are special as well."

Thomas waited before answering, fixing his orange trench coat, "I'm going to be late for my appointment. Be back around noon."

Then, with that, he walked out the door and slammed it shut.

Driving through the traffic in the city of Leicester, he thought about the sudden departure on the news that was announced the night before.

"What am I going to do?"

He wasn't too sure. Whether he got pulled to go to Proxima Centauri or not, he would die either way. What he was more surprised about was how much people were not freaking out, like they haven't heard the news yet.

And how sudden it was.

Then, he got a call on his cell phone. Clicking it open, he struggled to put it on speaker as he found a spot in the backed-up traffic, "Yeah?"

"Yo, Thom! It's Pippi. You heard about the departure thing happening Saturday?"

Thomas sighed while stopping in the traffic, only a few more miles to the doctor's office, "Yeah, I did."

"So strange; the one time you'd think it would rain in England, it's not." She paused. "So, what do you fancy?"

"Fancy?"

He stepped on the gas pedal a few times to get around the traffic. He swerved and drove around various cars.

"Yeah. It's the end of the bloody world, mate. I was never a Stardust patient, my parents never agreed to that shit. And frankly, neither do I.

"But you took the same space class as me."

Thomas sputtered through the traffic.

"I just took it to get good money, ha! I fancy a beer now, come join me."

Thomas pressed his foot on the gas pedal as the traffic got more diverse, "Pippi, I am not-"

"Come on, Thomas Thomson. Double T. Thom. It's the end of the world here; either way, you'll die."

Thomas already knew that, but he wasn't planning on being a drinker any time soon.

"All I fancy is getting my bloody appointment done as soon as I get past this bloody traffic."

"Wow, even in all of this, you are still such a citizen. So lame. My friends and I are gonna' rob a bank, you know end of the world and all?"

"I know, you mentioned it already. Three times."

"Yeah. After you get your ID tag from the mail, come and join me in prison, yeah?" Then, she hung up.

"ID tags?" Thomas didn't get time to ask about that. He wasn't so sure what she meant by that.

But frankly, he didn't care. He just cared about his Stardust appointment and whether he passed college or not.

It wasn't expensive.

Cruising through the traffic downtown Leicester, he neared the local doctor's office to check his last ever Stardust count. But on the corner, he saw why the traffic stopped; a person on the curb held a sign saying, "A hoax! Proxima Centauri is a hoax! Stardust is a hoax!" The police struggled to get him off the curb as he drove past the scene.