Zoom in, Zoom out

Lonely up there

At 50,000, the Spaceship-Two disconnected from its mother ship, Virgin Eve. David was amused by how silent it had suddenly become. Before he could wrap his mind around the emptiness of outer atmosphere, the hybrid rockets on Spaceship two ignited. David was subjected to intense gravitational forces that pushed him squarely back in his horizontal seat.

Inside the rocket, the speedometer indicated Mach 4 and he could see the altitude climbing rapidly. As the meter clocked over 340,000 ft, the rockets stopped burning. Quietness took on an entirely different meaning up here.

David was now officially in space.

Weightlessness followed, as David floated his way to large round window. There were five other’s on the spacecraft but each one had a window for themselves. Through this porthole, David’s eyes gleamed at the blue planet below. Earth had never looked like this. In the completeness of the sphere, the surprisingly thin layer of space and the eternal darkness that lay beyond the curvature, David was convinced that he was about to understand the profound meaning of Life.

That is when he spotted the brownish land mass of the European continent. From the bigger picture, his eyes zoomed into the Germany region. And through that porthole to infinite space, he could only see the very finite green eyes of Jennifer in front of him. He thought of her hair. Her crooked smile and goose bumps on the nape of her neck after a surprise peck. He missed her laugh, he missed her touch. He missed her words, he missed her warmth. How could he have lost her? And why was she so ok with it?

The autopilot reminded all of them to get back in their seats. Spaceship two was on its way back.

He glided back to his seat thoroughly distracted. No sooner had he got himself strapped in, he could feel his weightlessness go away. Jennifer’s weight was going nowhere, though.

320,000 feet reduced to 70,000 feet in no time. Space Ship Two was now pure glider mode, headed back down to its base in New Mexico. David’s few minutes in space hadn’t gone the way he had expected. He was hoping to move on. To realize the inconsequential nature of his troubles at home. He had expected that witnessing Earth in her entirety would make his piece-meal approach towards life meaningless. Space travel was his final checkbox in life. A life well lived! But instead, he had spent all his time thinking of a girl he had loved the most and then lost to her indifference.

In his mind, he had done plenty for her. He promised to stop stealing Aston Martins. He had promised her safety and stability. He was ready to move any where she wanted. All he ever wanted to was to lie next to her and wake up next to her each morning. But she felt otherwise. She felt he would never give up his strange ways. So she had left, on a random Tuesday afternoon.

Spaceship Two was now on its final approach. He could see the familiar colors of the tertiary. It was crystal clear to him, what was to be done next when he landed. Jennifer had invaded his space in space. He had to resurrect this situation. That his final checkbox in life wasn’t really ticked off.

So, when David returned to Earth, he immediately put down another $20,000 down to reserve a seat in the next available $200,000 space flight back up.

His resurrection would not come by zooming in on introspection, but rather, zooming out to a beautiful blue planet floating in a very dark space.