In response to East/Sleep/Write's writing prompt Monday Master Class Door Number 4
Which Way is Up?
by Rose Ann Penney
He floated in space, there being no up or down… he could choose for himself… what would he like to be up? Maybe the luminous blue ball swirling in white clouds was up. Wouldn’t that be ironic, after eons of men looking up to the vast expanse of starlit heavens and praying, he would be looking up and praying to see the place where he was born.
He had once lived there before they chose him for the mission. Riding his bike on dirt roads at the farm when he was a boy. The summer of being the local big shot with the hot rod his dad and grandfather put together for him as a graduation present. He was the first of the grandkids to go away after high school and everyone made a big deal about it.
Going to the big city to a college would have seemed frightening to some, but he had always craved adventure and change. He came alive in the city going to parties with the guys, bar hopping on and off the trolley. But he was a serious student and never partied to the detriment of his studies. He knew what he wanted. Science was his best subject and he was determined to escape the gravity of life. Literally the gravity of the earth and he studied as hard as he possibly could.
Claps on the back and drinks all around. His parents could hardly believe that he had been chosen, but he believed it, in fact had expected it all along. He knew his grandpa who had died only a year ago, would not have been surprised either. Grandpa always said he was too good for this earth. It was their own private joke because Grandpa was the only person he confided to that he wanted to be an astronaut. He was a smart boy, smart enough to know that you don’t tell your dreams to just anyone, or take a chance on being held up to ridicule, and if no one steps on your dreams then they are more likely to come true.
He had been on the space station for three years now, preferring the cocoon of metal wrapped with the velvety darkness of space to that other place. The one where his heart had been broken and left in the dirt when she married Steve Brown. It was too hard she had said. She didn’t think she could stand being alone all the time while he cavorted around the stars. She didn’t understand what he saw in it anyway.
And it was not like he really had any family left, both of his parents having retired and doing their own traveling around the world. They could Skype if they really needed to talk with him, which apparently they did not. He guessed they had given up talking when they realized he wasn’t coming back down any time soon.
It was time now. He had completed his task of checking the seals from the outside. There must have been a bad sensor because he had told them he didn’t see anything, but he was staying out for a bit longer. They understood. It was one thing to be in space, spinning in the artificial gravity of the station, but they all craved that sense of actually being outside in space, thin walls of insulating suit the only thing between you and the black void, umbilical clipped securely at his belly.
He fumbled awkwardly with his heavily gloved fingers and unhooked the cord, lightly pushing with just two fingers against the door. He watched the red and yellow letters spelling out “Door Number 4” slowly becoming smaller and smaller.
by Rose Ann Penney
He floated in space, there being no up or down… he could choose for himself… what would he like to be up? Maybe the luminous blue ball swirling in white clouds was up. Wouldn’t that be ironic, after eons of men looking up to the vast expanse of starlit heavens and praying, he would be looking up and praying to see the place where he was born.
He had once lived there before they chose him for the mission. Riding his bike on dirt roads at the farm when he was a boy. The summer of being the local big shot with the hot rod his dad and grandfather put together for him as a graduation present. He was the first of the grandkids to go away after high school and everyone made a big deal about it.
Going to the big city to a college would have seemed frightening to some, but he had always craved adventure and change. He came alive in the city going to parties with the guys, bar hopping on and off the trolley. But he was a serious student and never partied to the detriment of his studies. He knew what he wanted. Science was his best subject and he was determined to escape the gravity of life. Literally the gravity of the earth and he studied as hard as he possibly could.
Claps on the back and drinks all around. His parents could hardly believe that he had been chosen, but he believed it, in fact had expected it all along. He knew his grandpa who had died only a year ago, would not have been surprised either. Grandpa always said he was too good for this earth. It was their own private joke because Grandpa was the only person he confided to that he wanted to be an astronaut. He was a smart boy, smart enough to know that you don’t tell your dreams to just anyone, or take a chance on being held up to ridicule, and if no one steps on your dreams then they are more likely to come true.
He had been on the space station for three years now, preferring the cocoon of metal wrapped with the velvety darkness of space to that other place. The one where his heart had been broken and left in the dirt when she married Steve Brown. It was too hard she had said. She didn’t think she could stand being alone all the time while he cavorted around the stars. She didn’t understand what he saw in it anyway.
And it was not like he really had any family left, both of his parents having retired and doing their own traveling around the world. They could Skype if they really needed to talk with him, which apparently they did not. He guessed they had given up talking when they realized he wasn’t coming back down any time soon.
It was time now. He had completed his task of checking the seals from the outside. There must have been a bad sensor because he had told them he didn’t see anything, but he was staying out for a bit longer. They understood. It was one thing to be in space, spinning in the artificial gravity of the station, but they all craved that sense of actually being outside in space, thin walls of insulating suit the only thing between you and the black void, umbilical clipped securely at his belly.
He fumbled awkwardly with his heavily gloved fingers and unhooked the cord, lightly pushing with just two fingers against the door. He watched the red and yellow letters spelling out “Door Number 4” slowly becoming smaller and smaller.