my space camp

The first thing I thought of when Nelson said 'space camp' was the first time that I went to space camp in elementary school. When I was 9. (coincidentally)

Except this space camp wasn't about learning to be an astronaut or dreams. It was about the future. The future of space technology and fighting aliens. We all got assigned positions and stations and jobs.

I remember my first mission in 5th grade.
I was the captain, which was really strange because I wasn't the person that was ever known. I was the outcast. 'Outcasts aren't supposed to be the captain.' I didn't think that until many years later, because for me, anything could happen.

They led us into the training area where we got our little blue vests and instructions on the mission we were going to do that day. I was so excited. Our mission was something along the lines of 'try to convince these people to do something and protect these people and free the slaves' (I can't exactly remember how it went.)

We were originally supposed to be on the Odyssey but our crew didn't have enough people. So we were assigned the Phoenix. Which was a smaller ship with only 5 crew members.
they sent us through the 'portal' and then we were trained for our positions.

Since I was the captain and this mission was designed to test us I had this little device where somebody could tell me what to do if I needed help or advice. It was my conscience. And this person through the headphones had an Irish accent and would help me and my crew constantly get out of trouble. We did die a few times from spaceship malfunction and engineer malfunctions (like not being able to back out of the space port and blowing up, or not stopping in time and running into an oncoming friendly spaceship. yep as you can see we were experts at this sort of thing.)

I wish I still had a conscience helping me along every step of the way. (one of the rules of having a conscience be your guide was that you could never refer to it as being there. You couldn't say 'my conscience says that we should probably head north and maybe talk to the pirates.' even if you had a conscience telling you what to do you had to refer to those ideas that were popping into your head as your own.)
I guess that that rule still applies today, probably so people don't assume that you are crazy, but perhaps you are. (have I gone mad? I'm afraid so, but let me tell you a secret: all the best people are.-Alice in Wonderland.)


I remember being so frustrated, I wanted to just complete the mission because it really shouldn't have been that hard.
I remember after we ran out of time going back to school and the disappointment in everybody's eyes.
What would I do if I only had a few months to live, that's easy.
I would go back to space camp.
(I'm not sure I understood the prompt. But then again, I do what I want.)

I wasn't really sure where I was going with this at all. Apparently I wanted to jump around a lot.

-Alec Hardison