OPPORTUNITY COST PART I

OPPORTUNITY COST PART I

short story Theron Camp // 12

Montana, 2019

Her parents were wrong, she sole dream in life to explore that new decided as she flopped down amongst frontier herself. So she devoted herself the long grass by the riverbank, but to the study of space exploration, of its she couldn’t seem to convince them history and mechanics and economics. of this. It wasn’t that they were While her parents had encouraged unreceptive. There were simply her in learning about her passion, plenty of other bright, young, they had made it no secret that they mechanically-minded American expected her to grow up to work explorers who could go to Mars, the farm alongside Peter when they and they didn’t see why their retired. As she grew older, her parents daughter should have to be one of and her brother taught her the running them. Besides, they would miss her of the farm, the business behind it, dreadfully if she went away, perhaps the various tools and machines, their never to return. uses, and how to repair them. In this

Annie Zimmermann would not last task they found Annie a faithful mind this. She thought life on the student; she knew it was important to farm was boring, domestic, and be a capable engineer if she was to limiting. She’d made up her mind survive on another planet. at a young age that she would grow Matters came to a head that up to live beyond the limits of afternoon when a letter came back civilization, where no one had gone from a prestigious Institute of before, and when civilization caught Technology on the east coast, up with her, she would move again. congratulating Annie on being a Naturally, she’d been disappointed finalist for a particular scholarship. when she’d learned there were no She was ecstatic, but to her dismay, more proper frontiers on Earth, her parents didn’t share in her glee. It but then, in 2011, she’d stayed up late “She was ecstatic, but to would always be, her father emphasized, (with her parents’ her dismay, her parents her decision in the approval) to watch the Mars landings. spark didn’t share in her glee.” end, and Annie was a smart kid and surely From that point forth, it was her deserved the scholarship, but they

reserved the right, as her parents, to try and persuade her to stay nearby. They’d had a frank discussion about it, after which Annie’d come here, to the riverbank, to reflect.

The sun was settling into the blue silhouettes of the northern Rockies, painting their tips shades of red and gold that reflected up into the western sky. Annie arose and scrambled to the top of the riverbank for a better view of the sunset. For all that she was eternally bored by farming, Annie loved the land itself-- the mountains, the plains, and the beautiful big sky. It’d be a lot to give up for her dream. Were her parents right? Was her place up there among the stars or down here among her family?

Eventually, as the watercolor sky grew dim, Annie Zimmermann turned and headed for home, mind resolute at last. Behind her, the sun dipped behind the mountains, its glowing orb red-orange as the dust on Mars.

Continued on page 30

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