Rocket in the Sky

This was written mostly on the plane to and from Arizona, and finished the night I got back.

When the churning begins, the ship shakes, oscillating from side to side. You are about to take off, but I’m not sure when; I’m too far away to hear the countdown, much too far away to hear your lips listing the numerous mechanical tests as you perform them, double-checking all the equipment that’s about to carry you away. I am sitting on the roof of the car like we used to years ago. It’s dark, but if I squint, I can make out the small dent on the edge of the passenger side where you would normally be sitting with that look of awe and pride on your face. You would be there and I would be here, watching the space cowboys that came before you throwing themselves at the mercy of the void above.

“This is it,” you said to me while you were packing your suitcase, “I’m almost there,” grinning wide.

“Almost there,” I said as I drove you up to the security gate of the aeronautics building. Your excitement couldn’t be contained.

“I knew I could make it. I knew it.”

So did I.

The blue flares of the main engines light your ship up from the underside, casting dramatic shadows across the launch pad. I recall that day the trip you wanted more than anything came within arm’s reach, a day that is now buried some months back but still clear in my mind: an upcoming mission needed an astrobiologist and you were at the top of their list. Details were scarce except for the destination; all crew members assigned to the mission would be going to Mars. Your wildest dream come true, you broke the news to me and we celebrated. Family get-togethers and congratulatory parties. “What a wonderful opportunity,” everyone said to me. “He’s come such a long way.”

The light coming from the enormous engines is a brilliant white in the surrounding dusky night as you rise upward. Smoke and steam billow out across the tarmac. I watch your ship separate from the ground, imagining what it must be like for you inside.

Training exhausted you, but you couldn’t have been happier. Late at night, trying to keep me from waking up, you would slip into bed, put your head in the crook of my neck and sigh contentedly. Whenever you had a spare moment to talk, the subject of your mission would always come up. What little you could divulge to me I listened to with rapt attention, sharing in your enjoyment.

The crew members all around you, anxious and excited and afraid all at once. Wide switchboards laid out in front of you, the harness holding you in place. Gravity tries to pull you back down, but your determination overwhelms it.

You came home one evening and sat me down in the kitchen. “I have something to tell you,” you said. “You need to hear this,” you said. “This mission that my crew and I are training for, they told us today there’s no planned return trip.” I didn’t understand at first, but the grip of your hand was enough of an explanation. I held your hand in mine; you understood.

Cutting a path high up through the atmosphere, white and at an angle, your ship prominently bright against a nightsky backdrop. Everyone for miles around must be able to see you now. For some reason, I can feel you smiling, and this makes me smile in turn.