The Peacock Cloak

making sure that she misses nothing and savours all that there is to see and hear. Snap. These are relatives of some sort, great-aunts and second-cousins-twice-removed and what-not, come over to try and talk to me.
    “Your father was such a wonderful man, Thomas, a wonderful man,” says an elderly aunt-type lady in a hat with a black veil. “You should be very very proud of him.”
    “Isn’t Tom like him?” exclaims a woman with sticking-out teeth.
    “What are you going to be when you grow up Tom?” asks the lady in the hat.
    Snap, I go, knowing that photographs will soon be all that’s left of them.
    Snap. Look at the grey clouds piled above them. Look at the wind whipping up those trees.
    Snap. Snap. Snap.

Day 29

    “Nearly Day 40!” exclaimed the Station Leader, heading for the cheap plastic armchairs she used for informal chats. “Well, well. It hardly seems yesterday that you first joined us.”
    Stephen did his best to ignore the farting sound that the chairs made as they seated themselves. It troubled him that she didn’t care about this affront to her dignity, but she probably thought such considerations beneath her. She was an Agency officer of the old school.
    “We’ll soon all be nothing but a distant memory,” Leader Wilson observed.
    Stephen leaned forward. His large, pink, painfully open face reddened, as it always did when he was the slightest bit angry or agitated or ashamed.
    “Yes, my Day 40 is just two weeks away, but I was wondering if it would be possible for me to continue working after that? To be honest I’d prefer to work right through to Day 1. It just seems silly to sit and twiddle my thumbs for forty days before my departure when I could be making myself useful.”
    Leader Wilson laughed.
    “God knows there’s more than enough to do, Stephen. But I can’t take up your offer. It’s a very strict Agency rule as you know. No one is allowed to work in the forty day countdown to transmission.”
    “It’s a bloody stupid rule,” Stephen snapped, his face now very red indeed, his scalp smouldering round the roots of his spiky yellow hair. “Surely it’s obvious that transmission couldn’t possibly act retrospectively to affect the quality of work done before the event.”
    “Of course not,” Leader Wilson was perceptibly irritated. “But that isn’t the issue, as you must know as well as I do. It’s about accountability for your actions. Suppose you were to make a serious error of judgement. How could you be called to account for it, if you had absolutely no memory whatsoever of your decision-making process?”
    “But I’m a data analyst for Christ’s sake!” Stephen burst out. “I process numbers ! All my work is routinely checked, and none of it involves any direct contact with colonists. There really is no one I could possibly hurt or offend in those forty days, and therefore no chance whatsoever that I will compromise the Agency.”
    His boss shrugged.
    “I admit the rule does seem a little overzealous for non-operational staff like yourself, though you’re the first one who’s ever actually complained about having to take a six-week vacation. But a rule is a rule, Stephen, and I don’t have the right to change it, or even the inclination to try, not least because your fellow analysts would howl with rage if I did. I’m afraid you’re just going to have to stop work on Day 40 and resign yourself to having fun for those last few weeks before you go, however onerous that may be for you.”
    She stood up. Stephen reluctantly also rose to his feet. The chairs made that stupid farting sound again.
    “You could get better chairs than these for ten dollars each,” he muttered.
    It was an odd comment. The Station Leader frowned and peered up into his face. (He was a very big man, and she was rather small.)
    “Are you all right, Stephen? In yourself, I mean?”
    “Yeah of course,” Stephen grunted.
    Then, realising it wasn’t in his interests to leave an impression of emotional maladjustment, he managed a sort of smile.
    “I’m fine. Sorry. I know you don’t make the rules. It’s just, you know, there’s so much I could be doing.”
    Mollified, the Station Leader smiled sympathetically as she showed him to the door.
    “You know, it’s really not a bad thing to recharge your batteries. Your work will benefit from it. Try and enjoy your last days here.”
    The door closed behind him.
    Outside the corridor window, a gardener was working along the