Veronica Parsons was the first person to land on Venus. Well, the first person to survive. She went on to live an exciting productive life. Or so it says in the history files. There are lots and lots of files about her. She was quite a popular person after the landing. They say she was driven, eccentric, pretty. They say she compassionate, creative. People loved her. I’ve read all of the files. I guess you could say I’m a bit of a Veronica Parsons historian.
I stumbled upon her diary files by accident a couple years ago. It was the find of my lifetime. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them. There are lots of things that aren’t in the history files. Like that time she was raped by three of her classmates while she was at Mars Flight School. Or how she was passed up year after year for the Venus program, even though she was the most qualified. She never talked about these things. She didn’t complain. I’m not sure why. I keep reading the diary over and over trying find a clue as to why.
I guess history is never really in the files.