Groundsky

By: Zachary Hoehn

Fiction, 2019

Black.

All I can see is black while I feel my bones pulling and pushing outside of my skin. The faint glint of iron and silver shine in my eye as I spin around, stuck watching the ground I was born on, go back and forth from there to gone. I’m enveloped in the cold warmth of the sun that is keeping my old home alive. All of my friends sitting at the local pub waiting for me to come home to join them in another drink and tell those corny jokes and spill the bar food onto the floor. Another glimpse of the sun flashes across my screen almost blinding but wonderful at the same time; the dancing flames crawl across the giant suspended sun perfectly to keep me, my friends, my family…

You know, while I’m floating farther away from salvation my memories drift just like me, floating around my mind like a void just waiting to disappear, like the oxygen supply that’s filling my lungs with both lies and salvation. My eyes are wet from tears and the way that’s let me see my whole life… ironically. But besides the poetry and all the melodrama I’m going to have to accept this inevitability. Maybe I’ll float endlessly and be hit by an alien ship and carried off to another planet and live a new life.

But let’s be honest, there is no other way this is going to end. Where will my body end up? Will I be sent to a black hole, or be torn up on Saturn’s dust storm to be turned into human dust soup – fun, right? I can’t help but laugh as a second beep sound echoes through the helmet, telling me I’m at less than 15 percent. I can feel my brown hair starting to form small frost bits as if my forehead was a cliff side and small icicles grew off the ends of my hair. I can feel my cheeks turning red, trying to warm up my face, and all I can do is sit here on my back looking up to the groundsky thinking if I could have changed anything in my life and if I had any regrets  to fix morally.

You would think that from this event I would learn something, but what’s left to learn? I passed all my exams, was told to find a nice girl, had kids, and all I’m left with is groundsky. I can’t blame anyone but myself; I was told curiosity killed the cat. My dream was to go to space and now that’s all I’m left with, my dream. I’m afraid to laugh because I’ll be killing myself faster. I mean I’m already dead so what’s the point?

Two hundred thirty miles from earth going about the same speed as a professional pitcher’s baseball. Another set of beeps echo in my head, are they real anymore or am I imagining things? Must be real because I can feel water pulling away from my body. And the bubbles forming in my stomach don’t help either. I would say it hurts but I’m past the point of feeling anything in my body. As if my brain told my body that nothing is out of the ordinary, despite the immense heat filling my suit from direct sunlight. At least I’m getting a great tan for how pasty I am.

While all these things are happening, though, I can’t help but remember the first time I saw Apollo launch and land on the moon, I thought it was so cool and now I guess I’ll be the first person to go wherever my body lands. Given – I won’t be alive but hey, it’s still cool.

The last set of beeps echo and I can’t feel any air being pushed into the suit. So I guess it’s the end… A few moments and I’ll be another piece of space junk floating around waiting to be hit by any sort of astral object. I guess this was a fun ride but who’s to say I’m right or wrong?

All I know is that the stars in the groundsky look beautiful tonight.