The Space Man

The weightlessness did not make him bulge. Tethered to a cord made of space-age fabric, he carefully wades his way towards the aging machine. A tiny puncture from a runaway debris would leave him gasping for air. His blood will boil as life seeps out from his bulky suit.

Approaching the ancient object drifting above the earth, he needs to work in a clockwork fashion. Prolonged exposure to radiation will cease his vital organs to function. Unseen rays venting from the nearby sun will fry his body in milliseconds. The lonely satellite, hurled in orbit by dreamy men serve as their eye to the stars. Its prismatic lenses send images of gaseous bodies more enchanting that what the earth-bounds fancy in their lifetime.

Tranquility beckons,

After eight hours of meticulous hand movements to bring back a dying machine to life.

Overhead, the mute heavens scream of a billion sunsets. While down below, where the blue waters of Oceanus embrace the edges of Terra Firma; where whirly storm clouds gather to assault a reclusive island; where the planet's night side glows from the patchwork of lattices scattered across a continent; and where a single human person, in his moment of hopefulness looks up to the sky and see a glint of starlight reflected from hundred feet long solar panels of the International Space Station, one would understand the reason for coming back,





Floating halfway between heaven and earth is the real meaning of life.



Entry inspired by this news article:
Hubble astronaut sends first ever Twitter message from space to say he is 'enjoying the view'