When I was doing my graduate studies in the U.S., I developed the habit of spending a lot of time standing on the deck of mechanical islands, thinking about nothing, or everything. When the spacemen came, they destroyed almost all facilities on the earth ground in a month. We got lucky, although I'm not quite sure whether this is lucky. The US government sent the students from top schools to the newly built floating islands, to continue our study, or to cultivate engineers to be sent to the War. Those islands are like huge planes and can move fast to dodge attacks. I heard some rumors that other survivors would be sent to live underground.
I lost contact with almost every family and old friend. I mean, I still have their contact information stored in my headset, just that the communication signals almost never worked. I should feel depressed. But my recovery from depression in my early years made me unable to sense extreme agony anymore.
We were "educated", or forced to give up our original research projects, and focus on technologies that can be used in weapons and systems. I don't personally hate such things. They are kind of cool. But this always makes me feel lost. Because this makes me think of some old questions we used to debate about.
Before I left Singapore, he used to ask me again and again, what do I believe? I said I believed in the elegance of math. How silly.
But I felt he was actually asking me another question, what do you live by? I was too young then to think about this. I was thinking of publishing more research papers, finding a good job, and marrying him. The secular life appeared so mundane but I still loved it.
That was a time before we were to be dominated by the War. Although the stars are often hidden behind the cloud and mist, we could still see them from time to time. I've never seen stars since I came to the mechanical islands.
We barely have any entertainment here. So many of the students and researchers hooked up with each other to pass by time. Some time ago they were still trying to 'help' me find one. But soon they lost this passion. The guys say I seem too distant, although still being nice. They don't want to date an iceberg.
Our restaurants sometimes serve wines. But the wines are usually too tart and taste almost like juice. As if they had just brewed wine, they couldn't wait to take it out. After one or two times I got bored. I'd rather grab some cheap beers when I want to get myself tipsy.
I literally lived like a walking dead in those years.