Eventuellt Ring mig Mr Positive av Tom Barlow. Jag läste detta i antologin Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show redigerad av Edmund R. Schubert och Orson Scott Card. Enligt IFSDB har den bara uppträtt i den antologin.
Vi lär oss aldrig huvudpersonens namn, eller fartygets namn och detaljerna i den resa det är på. Allt vi vet att de har vaknat, eftersom det är deras tur att skippa mannen:
It was my watch ... This was my ninth awake period of the voyage,
Huvudpersonen gör en rutinmässig kontroll av de andra besättningsmedlemmarna och finner:
As soon as I saw the first body, I knew the rest would be dead. The readouts were there in plain sight, right in front of me when I woke up, but I hadn’t bothered to look. I had just assumed everything was all right. Things couldn’t be any less right.
I checked them over one at a time anyway. Every one hurt just as much as the first, or maybe more.
They weren’t smashed-faceplate dead. They were peaceful-sleep dead. They looked like they’d died at about the same time, and not too long ago; there wasn’t a great deal of decomposition
Historien är inte huvudpersonen som läser loggboken, utan snarare skriver poster i loggen. Historien är en serie loggar.
I slutet av berättelsen återvänder huvudpersonen till sin pod:
I hadn’t admitted it to myself yet, but I was finally ready to get in the pod. Afraid my courage would evaporate if I looked at it too carefully, I let my mind go blank as I dressed and prepped the pod. I slid in, and was about to close the lid, but I couldn’t shake the notion that I’d left something unfinished.
I got up and wrote these words so that the log has some sort of an ending, in case things don’t turn out well. I’ve always hated books that end “To be continued.”
I thought long and hard about these, perhaps my last words. I was looking for something profound, something you could carve on my gravestone if you want to, but couldn’t think of anything. Only that I’d rather be floating dead through space with five of my friends than be alive and alone.
See you in six months. Call me Mr. Positive.
The end.
You know what’s funny? The cabin? It has a night light.