Captain’s Log, Stardate 2022.2.9 Final entry. Mission to Red River.

We landed last night, and I made my way home. It was nice to sleep in my own bed. This morning, the washing machine is humming and I’m getting ready for a day in which I have nothing to do. That seems nice. I will probably listen to some of the music I collected on our mission to the valleys of the Red River and the mountains of the San Juan range.

Starfleet has also decreed that I take a few days off. My bio-metric sensors indicated over the last week that my average sleep time is around four hours and 42 minutes which is really too low for anyone much less a retired, aging Starfleet commander. So. I will do as I am told and shuffle around my house remembering the glory days and trying to catch up. As ordered.

It was a fun trip and I’ll do it again, or trips just like it. It’s nice to be reminded that it’s okay to age but not so good to dissolve into a puddle of nothingness. I guess that’s one of the good things about being human. We can understand things like entropy and realize that while all systems eventually want to come to rest, we have it within our power to get the ball rolling again. And that is what I’m going to do, after a bit of rest and relaxation. Not long, maybe a day or two. See you on the flip side as myself.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale