Friday Story — I.F.O
You would have been twenty years younger than you are now when it all began. Me, being launched from Cape Canaveral. The pomp, the lights, cameras, cheers from the crowd, all lost to the sound of the engines starting. Huge black exhausts that trailed smoke as they heated, sparked, then glowed orange, turned a molten white before roaring as we took off. Upward. Leaving a jagged line of white-light blazing through a bright blue sky. I could see it all, the blue turning darker, the flat plane of the Cape becoming circular as it fell away beneath me. The heat of the rocket warming me as the temperature fell with it. The twin booster slowing, then disconnecting from either side of us and plummeting back to the ground. We’re lighter, faster as the second engine kicks in. We’re in the outer atmosphere, the Earth is shrinking below us. Countries become continents, then oceans, still we keep going. The shields of my casing are glowing, a deep-orange, like coals in a fire pit, though I’m comfortable. Enjoying the rush as the next set of engines die and the last ones propel me forward, through Earth’s orbit and into space. I can almost hear the roar of the approval from Earth below.
I have three green lights on a simple mechanical dashboard. I’ve been programmed to know what they mean. I’m good. Now beyond a critical point in what could have been a short journey. I look forward, through the darkness, everything I have known recedes in my rear camera. The Earth, a ball of bright blue water, patches of greens, of browns sprinkled across it. Colours my cameras capture and broadcast back to my controllers, a punctuation mark of success. The moon appears ahead of me, rotating upwards to greet me as I pass. Its pocked and cratered surface flawless. Then I’m past it, outside of any field of vision, unseen by the naked eye.
Three hundred days have gone by and I’m gliding past Mars. The red planet, smooth, a golden light that seems to be trapped within it. Even at this distance, I can see its dust shifting, restless. I’m surrounded by stars, by silence. The mass of Jupiter and Saturn with its glorious rings, follow. Still, I forge on, deeper, further from home, into the black. I have a counter on my dashboard. Minutes, hours, days roll by. I’ve hit 8,760 days, though time no longer feels like a factor to me. I’ve lost track of the distance I’ve done. No, you’re right. I haven’t. I can’t. 930,070,400,630 kilometres.
And I see it. The deep blue, the reds and browns of land. White clouds drift across its surface. Earth. Marblesque. An old friend. A homecoming. Is that what this is? Or will I slingshot around it and be fired back from where I’ve come? Another tour. I have the capacity for more. Though I feel it. The gentle tug of orbit and I smile inwardly. I’m being pulled in. Earth rolls like a bowling ball beneath me as I pass above it. My speed slows, the blues get clearer, the land bigger as I approach. How good it will be to land on something, to be connected having drifted untethered for so long. To be celebrated for all I’ve done, for all I’ve seen and captured.
Something sounds on my left panel. One of the three green lights on my dashboard turns red. I’m heating up. I search my screen for answers, though realise it’s locked. I check my mapping system, the trajectory they have me on is set. The trumpets and fanfare I departed with, won’t be there on arrival. A second green light turns red as my casing begins to glow, then catches fire. My speed has slowed though I’m still moving quickly. I can see cities now, tracts of land, the tops of trees before my final green light turns red. Now it’s hard to see anything through the flames and the heatwaves coursing off me. I’m a fireball. Though I do see cars, now people pointing at me, their heads following as I scorch the sky with my death spiral. I clear the land, the ocean beckons as debris from my casing falls away. I think about all I’ve seen, of the distance travelled one last time before my fire collides with water.
