It’s only ten in the morning but I just can’t wait. I get the roast dinner out of the freezer and pop it in the microwave. After six months living on freeze dried meals this is going to be a real treat, one I’ve been looking forward to for weeks. Soon, delicious, mouthwatering smells are filling the small habitation module and I wait impatiently for the last few seconds to count down. Finally the microwave beeps and I pull the steaming meal out, carrying it over to the tiny two man dinner table.
I’m supposed to let it stand for a minute but I can’t wait. I tear into the turkey and roast potatoes, the peas and carrots, wolfing them down and savouring the way they burn my throat on the way down. Part of me tells me to take my time over it, to savour every mouthful because there’s nothing but hundreds more freeze fried meals to last me the rest of my time here. Tasteless pap, like eating wallpaper paste, and my shift doesn’t end for another eight months. An eternity before I’ll be able to eat proper food again. I know that, once the meal is over, I’ll just sit there for ten, maybe twenty minutes just staring at the empty plastic plate but I can’t help myself. I gobble the meal like a starving dog. It lasts maybe five minutes and then it’s gone.
I hate myself for eating it so fast. If I’d eaten it more slowly I’d still be eating it now. Still chewing on tender roast turkey, or piercing the crunchy shell of a roast potato with my fork. The meal is gone, and the history of the human race contains no greater tragedy. There’s no other real food for hundreds on miles around...
Except the other roast dinner in the freezer. Ted’s dinner. Ted’s still out gathering samples, he won’t be back for a couple of hours yet, and then he’ll eat his special roast meal while I stare enviously. Suddenly I hate him with a passion I hadn’t thought myself capable of. His special roast dinner still waits in the future. Mine is now in the past. Gone beyond the prayers and blessings of all the angels in heaven. Only a memory, and a fading memory at that. Joining and merging with the memories of every other roast dinner I’ve ever had.
That second roast dinner draws me like an iron filing to a magnet. I can’t stop thinking about it. In my minds eye I see Ted eating it. Cutting with his knife, lifting it to his mouth with his fork... But he wouldn’t appreciate it the way I would! He seems to actually like the freeze dried pap! He’ll grab a silvery sachet with relish and read out the label stamped on it, saying something like “Ah! Chicken curry today!” Or “Shepherd’ pie! Haven’t had that for a while!” It all tastes exactly the same, though! It doesn’t matter what the label says, the powder that comes pouring out, when mixed with hot water, always tastes like wallpaper paste!
An evil idea comes to me. I could just eat it. Right now, before he gets back. I could take that second meal out of the freezer, pop it in the microwave and eat it! Ted would be furious, but what could he do? The deed would be done. He could rant and rave, but it wouldn’t change the fact of what I had done. I stare at the freezer  visualising what’s inside it. I could do it! I could actually do it! I will do it...
I’ve actually put my hand on the freezer’s handle before sanity returns. Ted and I will be stuck here, in this tiny tin can, for another eight months. Constantly in each other’s company except for the occasional excursion by one or the other of us in the buggy. If he’s angry with me, those eight months will be unbearable! But those eight months are still in the future, the devil sitting on my shoulder whispers Insidiously, while that second roast dinner is right here and now. Eat it! Just eat it, and let the future look after itself.
I’m still wrestling with my conscience when the radio crackles and I hear Ted’s voice emerging from  the speaker. “Jack? Jack? Can you hear me?”
I press the speaker. “How you doing, Ted?” I ask, struggling to keep the resentment out of my voice.
“Not well, Jack. Ran into a crevasse on the way back. The buggy’s wedged in the rock about fifteen metres down. No way out. I’m... the thing is, I’m in a bit of a pickle. I can’t get out of the buggy, and if I could, there’s no way back on foot.”
I have to summon all my willpower to keep the elation out of my voice. “I’ll come get you...” I begin, knowing it’s impossible. We only have the one working buggy. The other suffered a wrecked gearbox two months ago.
“No good, old fellow,” says Ted, his voice full of cheerful gallows humour. “I’m a goner I’m afraid. I’ve only got a few more hours of air anyway. Even if I could walk across this terrain, I wouldn’t make it in time. I just called to say goodbye...” A screeching sound comes from the speaker, followed by bumps and crashes. “I’m slipping further down the crevasse,” says Ted, sounding as though he’s reading the weather forecast. “There are boulders falling down on me...” His voice stops suddenly, leaving only static coming from the speaker. One of the boulders must have crushed the buggy.  Ted’s either dead or beyond all hope.
I spend a moment or two mourning his untimely end, contemplating the eight months of solitude to come before the supply ship arrives. Then I pounce on the freezer and tear the door open...