Lost in Space

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Still, I found myself wondering: if someone was watching from the sidelines, would they have heard my cries? I knew the truth. No one was watching me. No, no one was there at all. The results remain inconclusive. However, I can promise you this: as I tumbled through the infinite nothingness, my screams collided deafeningly within my own helmet. I heard them.

For once I would have liked to have been witnessed in my despair, even if only to know I wasn’t alone. Alone for miles. Alone for light years.

“Breathe”, I tell myself.

“Why?” My thoughts ask.

“Because: you have limited air. Use your oxygen wisely.”

“Why does that matter? It’s suffocate now or suffocate later. Might as well get it over with.”

My heart, which had been racing, stops. My eyes sting and I am willing myself not to cry.

“Pull it together,” I tell myself. “How are you going to blow your nose in this helmet?”

“I’m gonna die,” my subconscious responds. It is not listening.

“We are not going to die. Take a deep breath and stop the spinning.”

And with the left side of my brain bullying the right, my eyes clear. Still on the verge of hyperventilating, I spread out my arms and legs and attempt to thrust myself against the direction of my spin.

“Equal and opposite reaction. Slow things down. Steady. That’s it.”

And soon I am floating through space like I would through a pool on a summer’s day. Only instead of water, I am suspended in pure nothingness, and instead of the sun up above, I am surrounded by millions of suns all around. My eyes dart from one to the other and suddenly my fear is replaced with awe.

“We’ve all gotta go someday,” my left brain says.

“If you’ve got to go,” my right brain chimes in, “then this sure beats getting laid 6 feet under and eaten by worms.”

I chuckle. It’s true.

“How did I get here?” I whisper. The words, barely breathed, ring out louder in my ears than my screams.

My mind races and, before my eyes, I am bombarded with flashes of the past few months. All I wanted was to escape. I didn’t mean any harm stowing away. Now I wonder if I wouldn’t have had better odds facing the impending apocalypse. Even if Earth no longer had breathable air, at least it had tissues.

Suddenly my mind skips along through the flashing pictures and I am on the observatory deck in the ship.

“Do you know why it’s a vacuum?” He asked me.

I shook my head.

“Do you know what a vacuum is? In the scientific sense.”

“Not at all.”

“You see- we are all drawn to something. Air is drawn to a source of gravity. When gravity becomes too weak, the air leaves the space because it is drawn away. Space is a vacuum because it is empty. It is so empty, that is, until it is not. Then it is very full.”

“Of stars?”

“Yes. Stars. Planets. Meteors and asteroids and moons. Black holes. There is always something in the distance. Something within nothing.”

I smile, remembering. Something within nothing. A beautiful paradox.

I am something within nothing.

I am a beautiful paradox.

“If you are floating, not suspended still but moving, what does that mean?” He asks.

My brow furrows, though, because this is not a part of my memory. He had never asked me that. Still, I could hear him as if he were there.

So just in case, I answer.

“It means I am being drawn.”

“By what?”

“A source of gravity.”

My eyes dance around wildly because I am, in fact, moving. But my heart sinks still further.

“Right. Gravity here is like a tide on earth. There are waves in the ocean even when there is no land for miles for them to crash upon.”

But still, I keep repeating those words. Like a beacon, they sound in my brain: “A source of gravity. There is a source of gravity.”

And suddenly I realize I am picking up speed.

I struggle to move but I can not maneuver. My eyes dart around as I try to turn my head- as I try to see. When I finally turn over, my breath catches.

“Well then…” I say to myself, eyes wide. “Let’s hope this isn’t worse than nothing.”