Alone in the Universe

"You know, maybe it's just me, but sometimes I feel I have to ask, was it my fault? Did I drive him to it somehow? Was I so bad to live with that he decided not to go on living?"

I said the words, the same words as every week, up to the artex swirls of the ceiling more than the shrink sat opposite me in her brown leather chair. I didn't really know why I was here, well okay, I did know why I was here, work had ordered it, said it was mandatory, but I didn't know what good it would do. I guess that's why the shrink can afford such a swanky office, no-one knows if this junk does any good but they pay anyway and sit for 2 hours talking about their mothers or something.

"And what makes you think that Tom?"

I sat up on the couch, crossed my legs and just stared at her as always.

"Because we've been working and living together for six years damn it, just us two. The whole point of having two of us was to keep each other sane. I guess I must have been a bad match."

"And how does that make you feel?"

I stared at the couch for a little while and then angrily walked over to the doctor and put my fist through her stupid holographic face. The damn cow wasn't even here, she'd left a subpersona to do the work and a rubbish one at that. Annoyed, I brought up a holographic panel and ended the transmission. Damn HQ, if there were going to go to the trouble of setting up tele-councilling, they could have at least made sure they got their moneys worth, it wasn't cheap to set up a holo-link over 22 light-years, even by wormhole link.

I watched the holographic office fade into the familiar matte blackness of the holocomm and then stormed out. Damn it, now I was alone and angry until my new partner arrived. Maybe I'd try and chill out in the observatory while I waited. Watching those little alien guys running around doing whatever they were doing always seemed to relax me.