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Simon and Ava do not wonder about other lives, having stamped that impulse out of themselves with vitriol at a young age. All it does is inspire hopelessness and a jealousy for the past that they cannot understand. Still, the mind can't help but wander and wonder what they could have been. Privately, in the confines of their unconscious, they dream about a world with stars.
In another life, Ava is an astronomer.
In that life, the world does not need throat-cutters, and so she is not one. The thought that she would ever captain a ship does not cross her mind; there are people better suited to it. Besides, being in charge of that many people sounds stressful. In that life, she sits at crowded tables and does not worry about rations, eating to her heart's content. The organic, while cosmically rare, is abundant and mundane. She and her roommate, with whom she is in love, grow orchids together.
In another life, she studies planets. Exoplanets, which is a silly name considering the advent of interstellar travel (they're exo- only relative to our home solar system). You can see they're there by how they affect their star's light, called transits (thank the Greeks and the Islamic Golden Age and Kepler and all the Earthly astronomers who came before!)- though, of course, at these distances you have to consider that that was thousands of years ago- Stars expand in that time, dangerous habit of theirs. She does not consider the idea that the universe may be empty- that's a ridiculous idea built on the assumption that all that empty space between objects must be representative of the whole. The universe is full of things, and it's getting bigger by the day.
People ask her if humanity's smallness makes her feel insignificant. She laughs at the question. Why should it? All it means is that there will always be more to learn. She does not believe in god, but she toys with the idea in that life, and she'd like to think humanity was made so small and the universe big so that understanding the place they live must be a collaborative effort. Of course, god is not real, so it is merely happy coincidence that this is the case.
In that life, the physics is grounded, rational: Newton dictates that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, so she can rest relatively assured that in her lifetime, the sky will still be there, even if it changes. The bodies, while strange, follow their own logic as well: of course Titan has seas of methane, it's part of its weather cycle, of course Europa's inner oceans support life, its insides are warmed by tidal heating, of course the life on Gliese 12-b breathes carbon dioxide, Earth is an outlier for its oxygenated atmosphere. The idea of a blood ocean simply does not cross her mind-- it would be ridiculous to even fathom. Though, she thinks she's seen the image of red seas in art before, an interesting commentary on violence.
The most blood on Ava's hands is that of some grass, an orchid, a hasta plant, her sister's after she helped her pull out a baby tooth and she bled everywhere from the gums, and many hundreds of bugs that had happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In that life, once, she dreamt that she listened to a man die at the bottom of a hot ocean. She was down there in a submarine, looking for him, she had promised him they would go home, but she had meant the ship she was born in. There was bone-deep knowledge etched into each second of his screaming that this was her fault. When she awoke, she wept for the man. She felt she had no other choice.
Stress does strange things to the mind.
In another life, Simon wakes from a dream where he cannot move his legs from the ground and is drowned in red, burning, viscous liquid. In the dream he had been begging a woman, not god, for his life, though somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that at that point something bigger than either of them would remove her from the equation before anything of consequence could be done for him. The dream is left as a desperate haze the moment he tries to explain it to anyone.
In another life, Simon is a gardener.
In that life, the world does not need throat-cutters, and so he is not one. The thought that life would demand wreaking death on fellow man is a sickening thought, best left to the ancient history of humanity, when war darkened far more doorsteps than it ever should have. Besides, the world Simon knows has done away with the death sentence, so he thinks. In that life, he sits at crowded tables and does not worry about his brothers' stomachs, eating with abandon. The organic, while cosmically rare, is abundant and mundane. He has the world's smallest dog, whom he has spoiled rotten. He cares for his father, who has not lost his mind with grief for the world.
In another life, Simon tends to the fragilest of plants. The martian fern, which one would think should be quite hardy, considering Mars's harsh environment that struggles to hold any life. It was one of the first species of plant to develop off of Earth, though it adapted in an odd time in Mars's life where the winters were unusually warm, and so now it rarely survives the winters now without intervention. He does not consider the idea that God may want everything dead- that's a ridiculous idea built on the assumption that the point of life is death rather than everything that exists between that and birth. Sure, death is part of life, he knows that well, but that's no reason to hasten the process, now is it?
People ask him if it disconcerts him, the fact that if not burned, his body when he dies will be food for the soil. He scoffs at the question. Why should it? It happens to every other animal. It's nice even, to think that after he goes, he might live on in the beings he feeds. He'd like his final act to be one so kind. He and God have a complicated relationship, but he'd like to think that that detail was intentional. It is nice to think that you are never quite so separate from the world as you may think. Of course, God never explains themself, so it is a comfort for Simon alone to indulge.
In that life, religion is not a cudgel to beat compliance into him, it does not demand he tether himself to death like a ball and chain. It demands of him an open heart, an open mind, open hands. Martyrdom does not appeal, and never did. The idea of meeting God in this life simply does not occur to him- God, if they ever were there to begin with, speaks only through the other. Though, he appreciates the power of the Word of God in art, an interesting commentary on necessity.
The most blood on Simon's hands is that of some grass, a pothos plant he tried to save when he was young, a dying snake he put out of its misery, his brother's when they roughhoused a bit too hard and he bled everywhere from a skinned knee, and the many multitudes of weeds that had threatened his garden.
In another life, The Grove is the affectionate name Earthlings gave to the largest structure they've made to date: a giant greenhouse of a station that dutifully orbits around Mars. To astronauts like Ava, it is a lighthouse, a sign that you've come home, the second-to-last stop before Earth, part of a long pilgrimage that all born away from humanity's first home take. To Simon, it is home. It has been since he was eight.
The long, tall layers of glass tower over The Grove and reflect the artificial sunlight spotlights hanging from the rafters, shining down onto the garden in simulated spring. It's real enough to Simon, who is knelt over the ferns, checking their growth with care and watering them. It's not an uncommon experience that he overhears a conversation or two while he works, so it does not surprise him when two women's voices drift through the dome over to him. One of their first times here, it sounds like.
One woman balks with faux incredulity, "What do you mean you've never seen daffodils? We grow flowers, how have you not-?"
The other woman laughs, "I don't know! It just.. wasn't in any of the botanical gardens I checked out?"
"How?"
"I mean, most of the stations I've been to have gardens for other planets, not Earth or Mars, and, I don't know. Filament's botanical garden was just kind of lame?"
In that life, Simon has heard of Filament station, too. Technically, it's an international military outpost at the edge of the Kuiper belt. But there's not much need for the military out there, so it's been overrun with researchers and stellar sailors in these later years. It's an odd mix of people stuck on such a little station at the fringes of the solar system; every once in a while you'd hear news of some fight breaking out on Filament. Though, the people who've grown up there insist it's the greatest station in the solar system, so long as you steer clear of the cops. Simon finds it a little silly.
Two women wander out of the thicket, one short, with dark hair weaved into thin braids, and small, thin glasses perched on her nose, the other a bit taller, blond hair shaved at the sides, the rest pulled back into a utilitarian braid, and a thin scar across the left side of her face. The second woman strikes Simon as familiar, though he couldn't say why.
She seems to pause, too, giving Simon a once-over. "Sorry," she begins, "do I know you?"
Simon finds himself relieved to say, "No, I don't think so."
She nods, "Sorry to bother you. Nice ferns."
"Thanks."
In that life, two ships pass in the night and never even learn each other's names. In that life, they were never each other in the first place.
In this life, the dream where they do not know each other is lost to the forgotten haze of sleep, a kind conjuring of the subconscious that means nothing substantial. In this life, they are themselves, complete and total in their blood red horror at each other, at themselves, at the world that has become pinhole small. In this life, the unstoppable force and immovable object collide-- and neither could tell who was who.