**Beep**
Drifting weightlessly is a feeling I don’t think humans have ever quite gotten used to. There’s just something about good, old gravity keeping you firmly in place on the Earth that gives you comfort even in the worst of times (or so I’ve been told), which is why traveling in space is never going to be something just anyone can do. For all the eye rolls “The Right Stuff” cliché gets nowadays, there is some truth to it.
As I drift farther and farther away from the station, watching the thin cable that was my lifeline float impotently along in front of me, I’m not sure exactly why this thought passed through my mind. Of all the things I could (should?) be thinking about, the traits that make a good astronaut shouldn’t logically be near the top of the list, but... here we are.
**Beep, Beep**
If you thought dying in space would at least be quiet, you’re wrong. With every piece of technology on my suit there seems to be a corresponding alarm that warns you’re about to die when it stops working. A bit unnecessary in my humble opinion given the assurance of a quick death in the vacuum of space should any of it break, but humans sure do like to know if something has gone wrong, even if they don’t do anything to stop what’s coming after the warning.
Peace, not panic, is settling in as the station and I get farther apart. This is the first time I’ve felt freedom from that cramped bucket we call home in a long while. I gather from what some of the old timers have said about the way things used to be that this must be what it was like to swim in the water.
**Beep, Beep, Beep**
As I drift out over what remains of Earth, I ponder why the past generations chose to ignore what was happening when there was still time to do something. Maybe we wouldn’t have had to evacuate to orbit or sacrifice so many lives just to flail helplessly along in this cold, mechanical void. Maybe I’d be down there on a beach somewhere or hiking high up in the mountains, soaking in the sun’s rays without a care in the world. Damn them for taking that from us.
“Oh, well” I think as I take another deep breath of sterile air pumped in from the can on my back and listen to the low oxygen warning kick on.
“I’m sure the next generation will make it right”
**Beep, Beep, Beep, Bee…
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