Justine found cyanide pills in the medical kit on the wall and took one out. Rory objected, “Don’t abandon us on our final mission! Don’t you want to feel it?” Justine smiled and caught the ball Costello threw towards her. She said, “I’d like to feel it right now, here, with you two blabbering, not starved, crazed and anxious, my heart beating some ungodly number.” But they drew her out. They charmed her. Rory read aloud from I Don’t Know Outer Space. Where is your trumpet? Why? New food? Hungry now. Cigarettes why? Me and Holly danced. My ball is lost. My red one. Cigarette please. You are my friend. Space? I don’t know Outer space. I know the trees. I know Martha.
Justine told them about her husband for the first time. He was an engineer. He was quiet. He was brilliant. When she met him he had a moustache, then he had a beard, now he had nothing. He was good with animals. He made great pancakes. The women wanted a buffet, to wander in a museum, to run down the street. It would be nice to fry some fish, walk a mountain, to get caught in the rain, to run into an acquaintance. A drink, a phone call, to read a newspaper! They wanted to climb trees with Costello. To take a shower, ice skate, to lie on a carpeted floor. Who is Martha, Rory asked. Costello did not respond.
Holly had broken astronaut code, and at first that had stilled her. Guilt had spread in full-body regret, but Dale had broken a code too, and space travel was so brash, space travel had broken some code as well. And all codes get broken, that’s why people made codes, but outer space didn’t have codes, outer space was still and waiting. It was quiet and watching. It was endless and neutral.
* * *
Outer space is not completely empty. It contains a low density of cosmic rays, plasma and dust. Different regions are defined by the winds that dominate within them. The Spec 5 swayed a few miles from the dislodge capsule. Dale had barred the door to the Sphere with the monkey handler stuck inside. The snack swarm had dispersed equally throughout the cabin. It had a queer, festive look. Dale drifted about the craft, eating whatever his hand caught. He watched the monkey handler from a very small window. At first, the monkey handler was interesting to watch. He cried and yelled, he exercised, he sang, he whispered, but then he got weak and listless. He drifted in and out of consciousness.
Dale’s breathing was repetitive. His mind, it was stuck. Every now and then there was the thump of the monkey handler’s head hitting the glass Sphere. To Dale, it was familiar, like a distant clock, a neighbor’s pet. Dale loosely held a rope. His eyes were shut, listening for the thump. He put a hand on his face, he forgot what he was listening for. He opened his mouth absently, then, there it was, there it was again. The sound. The sound reminded him of something he knew, that knew him. The food knew him, but only sometimes it cared. Sometimes he’d eat a bad something, a stale bit among the rest. He’d flinch and wait and not remember for what, and then the thump, distant but audible, and Dale was still and then waiting again.
* * *
Occasionally, astronaut crews attempt a reunion. A husband is sent out with the kids. Picking through her stack of CDs, an ex-astronaut decides on Brian Eno, then at the last moment, turns on the radio. Her astronauts arrive abruptly, spreading out on the couch, drinking wine, feeling the rug with their feet. They have all put on weight, except for Gordon, who grins at them from a skeleton head, his shirt hanging on his chest like a flag.
Someone makes a joke and the laughter elevates them. They beam at each other, waiting for the next joke, praying for it, but then silence. They look around the silence and grow used to this as well. They hope no one will make a joke. They wait expectantly and no one does. If they danced, the room would temporarily hold their energy, but no one much feels like it. They lie in the woman’s backyard and look at the stars. But the black of the sky is grainy. It always is, on Earth. The air smells too much like grass. Gracefully, one gets up to make an exit and the others follow in unison. It is pleasant to be near each other, but also pleasant to get in separate cars and hear their doors shut, to start their engines, reverse, brake, and drive away in all different directions.
THE SAD GIRLFRIEND
She and her analyst spend the nicer part of an afternoon analyzing a “l-o-v-e” stuck on the end of a letter. “Is it hyphenated for emphasis?”
“No, the dashes are sticks in the love. They cut up the word. They spread the love thin across the page. It is a weak love.”
“The hyphens are chains?”
“The hyphens are needles.”
“What if the hyphens are just playful? Maybe they are influenced by hip hop music.”
“They are needles.” A sigh escapes from the air-conditioner. “I am confident they are needles.”
Wednesdays are beginners’ class yoga. She sits in her spot. During a pause, she falls asleep. The others assume she is meditating. They try not to stare. They stretch. The sad girlfriend wakes with a start. She licks the drool on her cheek. “I was just meditating,” she explains loudly. The others nod.
“What did you see?” they whisper. “What did you find out?”
A portrait of a sad girlfriend can find shade in many silhouettes. Trying to cry on the toilet. Struggling with the passenger-side seatbelt. Scowling under the weight of an arm. Growing up, girls ambition to be girlfriends. Birthday candles die for it.
“At first it was black. I could hear you calling out downward dog. I saw numbers and the numbers were in colors. Then I was in a Starbucks, except everything was made of water. The floor was shallow water, the walls were deep. There were different cups and each one held inside it a joke.” A murmur moves across the class. “What kind of joke?” “Did you try the joke?” “Was I in your meditation?” The yoga teacher silences them with a hand movement.
Tim McWilliams eyes his girlfriend through his glasses. Sad again? And over what? Strawberry ice-cream thrown in with the chocolate and vanilla? Can’t a spoon spoon around it? “Strawberry ice cream tastes nothing like strawberries. It is just an unpleasant reminder.” Tim McWilliams has spent a fortune on Blockbuster new releases. Can’t the night recover in the dark?
It can seem that nothing is happening. The clouds do their thing over buildings. The commercials cue up at commercial breaks. A story meanders without any discernible plot. But behind these blinds, a world is breathing breaths on top of breaths already breathed. Brad Pitt is slowly falling out of love and into a new love. Matter into energy, energy into light.
The sad girlfriend paints her nails with polish. She decides to change outfits before the polish has time to dry. It smudges. She does not cry. She wipes the smudged nail on toilet paper and the toilet paper sticks. She uses nail polish remover, which gets her high. Or doesn’t get her high. Or does get her high. She checks gmail. She checks gmail. She checks gmail.
“A Kim Basinger movie made my relationship look boring.” The clock drags its minute hand constant and even.
“What first attracted you to Tim?” The analyst asks, searching her hair for split-ends.
The sad girlfriend waits for the subway pressing her Metrocard to her lips. She walks to the edge of the platform and peers down the tunnel. Where are the bright eyes of the train? A couple leans against the wall waiting, hugging out of boredom. The train comes. Everyone sits down. The train pulls out. Inside the car, no one moves. The eyes of the passengers roam uneasily over the advertisements, onto the other passengers, then quickly out the window to the lonely tunnels with their repetitive graffiti tags. “We were in a swimming pool and his eyelashes clung together like tips of a crown. That was attractive to me.”