After hours of padding around his quiet house, Joel Browning sighed and walked into his study to write about astronauts. The study smelled of old musty books and stale coffee, just like his father. His father always used to smelled strange. He brought home fragrant book smells from his literary travels. He smelled of yellowing used books, old and frail. He smelled of coffee shops and intellectuals, cigarettes and long night talk. He smelled of heady new books, sharp and earthy. Joel sunk into his father’s old writer’s chair. He felt its worn creases like the scrawled lines of an ancient tome. He languidly spun around in the chair, like when he was a child, then stopped at his desk. His fathers desk, with all the ink spills and pen gouges now covered up with a jet black holo-mat. Joel flipped on the 3-D projectors and waited as his PC holographic interface booted up.
The space above his desk flickered dimly with jittery shapes. It reminded him of static on the old TV he watched with his family. His father had a nostalgia for old-world technology, even as plasma screens became all the rage. Now look, dad! The future is here, hovering above the old desk in a brilliant light show. Just like the sci-fi movies we watched. The holo-screen coalesced into life and the virtual heads of the three Marx brothers appeared. They bobbed merrily, chanting, “Morning Joel! How are you today? Sleep well?”
“Fine, thanks.” he answered. “Bring up the word processing interface, and an image search.”
“Whatever you say Joel!” The smiling heads nodded as one, and disappeared, replaced by a floating blank page with blue editing icons hovering at it’s bottom. To Joel’s left an image search page flickered into existence. Joel remembered when he had to do this by hand, on the old desktop. He grabbed a transparent search icon and dragged it toward him, feeling it’s slight simulated weight. He tapped it, and a typing interface spread before him, unfolding gracefully into glowing keys. He typed in ‘astronaut’, and watched as his holo screen filled up with space wonder.
Joel thought of childhood dreams. Dreams of spaceflight. Dreams of feeling the heavy hand of G-force gripping him during takeoff. He switched over to the blank document and started writing.
Yuri Gordon fought for control of his landing craft. The planet’s atmosphere was thicker than he anticipated. Pressure dials spun frantic circles, and his ship danced a deadly jig in the alien stratosphere. He felt the air-scrubbers hiss, and he struggled for breath in the waning air.
Joel’s hands hovered over the keyboard as he swallowed hard. He remembered his embarrassing denial from flight school. Something about asthma. Being short of breath. He wanted to fly. To go into space. So badly. Joel moved the astronaut images in front of him with a swiping gesture, and spread his hands to enlarge a picture of a man in a spacesuit outside a space station. He imagined himself there. Floating serene, the only sound a faint radio trickle. He started typing again.
Yuri reached above him to switch off the atmosphere alarms. He needed to focus. The window in front of him burned brilliant white with atmosphere. He felt the G’s pulling at him...
Joel closed his eyes and envisioned himself jostling about in the crash seat of a gleaming space ship. He could see the ablative plates peeling of the nose of his ship. He could hear the screaming alarms blaring fiery death in his ears. He could feel the chaotic rise and fall of his own chest, struggling for breath in his space suit. His lungs failing him in the thinning CO2 mixture. He thought about his father’s death. How on return from a business trip on a lunar mining colony, the shuttle carrying his father burned up on a failed reentry. He could imagine his father there, being shook violently about in his crash seat while the other passengers screamed, quietly looking at a worn, wallet picture of his family as the cabin’s atmosphere ignited.
Joel opened his eyes and found himself breathing raggedly. He looked down and noticed he was gripping the arms of his chair. He slowly let go and sat back, sinking into the old leather. He remembered the leathery smell of his father’s jacket as they huddled together in the dark in the stands at Cape Canaveral. He remembered his mother and younger sister there beside him, wrapped in a warm blanket, waiting excitedly for the first Mars Mission launch. Three ships to travel together to the red planet for men to step out and conquer yet another impossible land. And there was the low thud, the series of concussive quakes as the enormous rail gun launcher belched one, two, three points of light into the clear, dark sky. The crowd cheered ecstatically as all three ships hit their rocket boosters in unison and soared off into space. Joel smiled in his old chair, ran his hands down the leather wrinkles, and recalled what his father said to him then.
He saw his father smile in the warm, rocket glow of the Mars Mission ships, and say, “Joel, one day that will be you. My bright star, rising into space. A space man.” Joel could see it vividly. His father’s smile, the cheering crowd, and his mother and sister pointing excitedly at the rocket trails. He leaned forward in his leather chair and started typing again. He looked at a faded picture of his family on the study wall and said, “Look dad, I’m already here. A space man.”
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