Those reading this likely won’t remember the time before the Exodus. Before the war. Already the young ones don’t remember, don’t care to remember. And why should they? It was a miserable time, and we’re safe now. But I’ll tell you now there’s danger in forgetting the past, forgetting the war that destroyed our galaxy and sent us running with our tails between our legs and painted the stars red with blood.

Log Fragment 64-A

Courtesy of the Alliance Department of History

Maggie’s eyes glazed as she stared at the textbook open on the counter, The humid warmth of the laundromat with its distinctive smell of laundry detergent and fabric softener was nap-inducing enough without reading through her professors summarization of Nietzsche’s theories on war and women.

Well, at least her shift was almost over, and with tomorrow off she could go hang out at the all-night cafe down the street. Her aunt had probably made her world-famous (really just famous in this town and the next over) apple pie, and she could trudge through the last of the chapter over a slice. With a groan, she leaned back, stretching her arms high over her head. Either way if she tried to read any more now, she really would fall asleep, and she had shift change duties to complete! Lint traps needed to be cleaned, the floor needed to be swept and mopped, and there were two dryers that someone had just left.

Might as well start now, it was better than reading one more paragraph of that textbook. Maggie sighed as she stood up and adjusted her headband. There was nothing that said she couldn’t have some fun while she worked though. A dance break was exactly what she needed to shake off the torpor brought on by the text book. She took a moment to consider her various playlists on her phone: would it be hip hop, alternative rock, or... oh who was she kidding? This night required electro swing!

With a decisive jab of her finger, the music started to blare out of the phones subpar speaker. She cranked up the volume as high as it would go, leaving the phone on the counter as she started actually working. At least she could hear it without any of the machines running, and more importantly there was no one around to see her try out some moves she had seen online.

By the time the the lint traps were cleaned Maggie’s hair was a red cloud around her head, and she was feeling alive with the energy of music and static electricity. She approached the last two dryers tentatively, eyeballing the metal doors.

She made a face, glancing out the large, foggy window, trying to peer through the layers of faded ads and out-dated posters to see if Bobby had arrived yet. But she didn’t see his beat up EV anywhere. He had probably stopped at the corner store to get pizza.

Well, no sense stalling any further.

She turned back to the dryer, taking a deep breath, and touched the metal door.

She could see the spark before her hand met the door, letting out a yelp as it jolted up her arm. Maggie shook her hand, glaring at the door. Well, that should be it at least, especially with the strength of that shock. Reluctantly, she touched the door again, pulled it open, and starting to haul the laundry into a plastic garbage bag for whoever might come and claim it later. How people could just leave their laundry was beyond her, it wasn’t like this was a private laundromat that you needed a key to get into. Even with private laundromats it was a risk to leave your laundry unattended. Heck, the one time she had done her laundry in the dorms it had been stolen, and it hadn’t even gone through the dryer!

Maggie shrugged slightly, almost missing the sound of something hitting the tile floor. If it was coins, she was totally going to keep them. Call it the leaving-your-laundry tax. She knelt down, retrieving a worn sock and what looked to be a paperweight. Another spark of static arched from the crystal and metal to her hand, and she yelped, nearly dropping it. Not a coin, which meant off-limits for keeping. She wasn’t above keeping a quarter or two, but anything more than that... well, she wasn’t a total bitch. And this thing looked fancy.

She held it up to the light, eyeing the miniature galaxy contained within it. It looked like something you’d find at the planetarium gift shop, right next to the freeze dried ice cream and bouncy balls painted to look like planets. Bobby would love it, he was all into space, extraterrestrials and stuff like that. Maggie slipped it into her pocket for safekeeping as she shouldered the bag of laundry, hauling it back behind the counter for whoever came to claim it.

It was weird what people left at the laundromat.

The door swung open with a jangle, and Bobby rushed in, surrounded by the scent of cheap pizza and carrying a backpack with a 2-liter of soda sticking out the top. “Sorry Mags!”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Maggie looked up and grinned at the boxes of pizza and the laptop perched precariously on top of them. “Hey Bobby, class run late?”

“You know it. Professor Dickerson is brutal. So much for this being an easy class! Did you know he has us studying the link between Nazis and ancient alien theory?”

“Really?” Maggie shook her head with a smile. She hauled the bag of laundry behind the counter, and tapped her phone to pause the music. Professor Dickerson was well known for weeding out the people that thought his classes would be fun and easy. Even Maggie knew that, and she had no interest in the theories of aliens. Life was complicated enough without assuming that aliens helped build the pyramids or whatever.

“Really!” Bobby slid his pizza boxes onto the counter, dropping his bag with a solid thud next to it. She knew that sound, her aunt called it the sound of knowledge. She called it the sound of future back problems: textbooks. “And he assigned five chapters of reading tonight, on top of the individual research we’re supposed to be doing! And of course you know Theo is going to be following the alien pyramid line of study. I hope the professor flunks her for pursuing that old line of research! Everyone knows that theory was made by people that thought if you weren’t white you couldn’t possibly have had the ingenuity to create massive structures we still admire today.” Bobby rolled his eyes, and Maggie’s smile grew.

It was always a riot to listen to Bobby ramble about his passion, and even better to watch alien theory shows with him. She had never thought to see someone literally throw popcorn at a TV screen before, or shout about white colonizers and their biased views. Especially since he was as white as she was!

“What are you going to choose for your individual research?” Maggie asked.

Bobby straightened a little, looking just a little superior as he started to pull books from his bag. “Historical evidence of human abductions. Well, evidence is a bit of a strong word... there’s hundreds of reasons that people may disappear, but still, it’s going to be interesting to research different disappearances, reappearances, and celestial phenomenon around the time of some disappearances. I have a program ready to sift through some of the databases the university has access to!”

Of course he did. Maggie shook her head, smiling at her friend. “You would. Well, best of luck on it. Oh! Hey, I found something in the dryer that you might think is cool. Take a look.”

Maggie reached in her pocket, yelping at another strong electric shock. Damn! It had to have metal in it to keep shocking her like that, she didn’t think the air was that dry.

“You alright?” Bobby flipped open the lid on the pizza, pulling out a slice with more cheese and grease than was strictly healthy for anyone. He took a bite, gesturing for Maggie to snag a slice as well.

“Yeah, just got shocked, that’s all.” She pulled the pretty little paperweight out of her pocket, setting it on the counter with a smile. “Check this out while I get an envelope for it. I bet whoever left it is going to come back for it.”

Bobby looked at the paperweight, letting out a whistle of appreciation. “This is great detail! It’s an almost exact miniature replica of the Milky Way galaxy! Hmm.. or on this scale I suppose it could be any barred spiral galaxy with two primary arms, but why would someone make a replica of any other galaxy? They probably got it from a museum or something. I wonder if it belongs to anyone I know.”

If it belonged to anyone from the university, it’d probably be a classmate of Bobbies. Maggie grinned, pulling one of the envelopes the boss used for payroll from beneath the counter. “Ask around, see if anyone left their holey socks and a fancy paperweight in the laundry this weekend.”

“Maybe it was Professor Dickersons.” Bobby grinned, and pushed the paperweight towards her. “Or Theo’s, it’s the type of thing she would have.”

“Well, if no one comes back for it, it’s the type of thing I would have too. It’s pretty.” She picked up the paperweight, letting it sit in the palm of her hand a moment, smiling down at the intricate scattering of silver and blue. The core even seemed to glow a dim yellow! She hoped no one would claim it. “How long should we give them?”

“You know how often people come back for their junk. I say just take it, and if someone comes and asks I’ll tell them it’s at your Aunt Electra’s cafe, that we didn’t want to leave it here to get stolen.” Bobby shrugged, waving his slice of pizza at it. “Dad won’t care, it’s not like he lets anyone else have the code to the safe anyways, so we can’t put it in there.”

“True....” Maggie stared at the thing, imaging the tiny galaxy spinning slowly in its glass prison. “I’ll put it in Aunt Electra’s safe. I bet you a pizza someone will come looking for it before the night is over.” Her grin returned, and she dropped the paperweight into her pocket, snagging a slice of pizza. Then it was time for her to start gathering up her textbooks, shoving them into her bag with minimal grease stains on the covers.

“You’re on. If I win I’m getting one with anchovies, and you have to eat a slice.”

“Ew!” She laughed, shouldering her bag. “How you can eat those is beyond me. They look like worms and taste so salty...”

“They’re seafood, healthy protein.”

“Not with that much salt and grease they aren’t... see you later.” She snagged a second slice of pizza, waving at Bobby with it as she headed for the door. Anchovies... she was fine with seafood, but anchovies were different. So was anything that still had eyes when it reached her plate, which was why she would eat crab legs but no actual full crabs. And crawfish were a hard pass.

“See you later Mags!” Bobby laughed, pulling his laptop close to start working on his homework. The door swung shut behind her, the crisp wind carrying the scent of leaves and greasy pizza down the street.