Burnout/Breakfast

The troubleshooter exists in his chemical world. Cloaked in a heavy, yellow radiation suit, he spends days straight plunging into the high pressure task of fixing the overworked wiring in the battery center of an ill designed space station. Chemical leakages dance around him in the zero gravity hub of the information technologies where battery acids concoct the spark that keeps the place, buzzing, flowing with oxygen, aqua vitae, and toilets purging waste into the dark vacuum of space. The troubleshooter takes 3 pills a day with a full glass of water, and twice a day he will drop an effervescent tab of high concentrate nutrients into distilled water. He sleeps very little in a plastic tomb that buzzes him awake when tech trouble is detected. He is permanently on call, and will always be called for the space station was slapped together in haste to win the race, and again we must mention, ill designed. The troubleshooter will have one day off coming up this month. He will be dropped off to the planet Earth by shuttle and has 24 hours to do whatever the hell he wants. When inquired as to what he wishes to do on his day off by a colleague, he responds in a detached, hoarse voice, with eyes cloudy, trance-like and fatigued, “I want a big hearty breakfast: ham, bacon, egg and cheese on a biscuit, sausage links, some chocolate chip pancakes, a big glass of orange juice, and a cup of coffee. That’s all I feel like doing goddamnit!” A smile begins take lighten his eyes, for the pleasure of the sheer contrast between his work-a-holic drive towards burnout and his insatiable love of breakfast keeps this man from stagnation.