Miles Perspective
"Fine, I accept it," I muttered under my breath, staring at the floor
in pain on every fiber of every muscle.
There wasn't enough Ibuprofen in the solar system to deal with this.
I didn't want to admit it to myself or anyone else, but my brother had been telling me for years that I was out of shape. And he was right. It took me a full day of assistance and physical therapy just to be able to go piss by myself.
My digestive tract took two whole days to adjust to gravity and keep real food down. But oh, how that real food tasted like ambrosia. Sure, it was bland boxed mac and cheese without any hot sauce, but it was still amazing.
"Come on, Miles. You can do this," the physiotherapist encouraged me as I struggled through my fourth day of therapy. "Remember to focus on your breathing."
"Easy for you to say," I grumbled. I'd fallen on my face more times than I could count.
The doctors and therapists explained my problem like this: "You have two problems that made the low G affect you so much and so bad. One, you are well over six feet tall, making it harder for you to change your center of gravity when moving from lying to sitting to standing position. Two, you have the muscle mass of a prepubescent grade-schooler."
Needless to say, I wasn't proud of that. And I should definitely think about working out more.
I still wasn't going to admit it to my brother, though.
"Alright, now try walking towards me," the therapist said after helping me to my feet again. He then positioned the granny walker in front of me for me to hold on to.
I took a deep breath and focused all my strength on taking one step forward. My legs shook, but I managed not to fall.
"Good job, Miles! Just a few more steps!" the therapist cheered.
"Thanks," I replied, gritting my teeth. Pain pulsating through my body with every step, but I pushed forward. My thoughts wandered to the engineering proposals I'd have to sift through once I was back on my feet - literally. There were over fifty of them, all vying for funding and attention. And no matter how many times I told them not to call me "boss," they still did.
"Alright, that's enough for now. Let's take a break before we try again," the therapist said, helping me back onto a chair by the observation window. As I sat there, catching my breath, Issac walked in with a stack of folders, looking around the room, smiling, then frowning, then smiling again when he saw Sarrah.
Looking at me, he smirked, waved, and sat across the glass from me.
"Hey, Miles! Take a look at this one," Isaac said, holding a proposal to the glass for me to see.
"Sure, what's it about?" I asked, squinting at the document and scanning its contents. It took effort to stop my eyeballs from vibrating from exhaustion.
"Advanced propulsion systems using data from the observations of Zenthara's ship. It could revolutionize space travel," he explained, eyes gleaming with excitement. As much as I wanted to share his enthusiasm, my body was still screaming for rest.
"Sounds promising," I admitted, making a mental note to give it a thorough read later. "But right now, get into walking form and dig through my own department's proposals and requests.."
"Understandable, but this is from your department. They have started hounding me to talk to you," Isaac said with a sympathetic smile. "You've got a lot on your plate. I'm happy I declined the extra team invitations. I'm happy with my telescopes and math."
