Episode 8

 

 

 

The excited civilian crowd in the bunker stared through the heat haze at the rocket on the launch pad.

“Houston, we have acceptable confinement. Initiating fusion reaction. Muon feeders on line and firing.”

“Check that Mother One. We have a clear board here.”

 

Her husband had been a senator on the Federation Council. Rose, a primary school teacher from a small town, had had to adapt to the rarefied air of the high hewn walk-ways and precipices of political life. She never felt at home there, always scared of making a wrong move. She never got used to the genteel art of doing nothing but be a decoration for her husband’s career, where a wife was merely an ornament that he wore around him in public.

She had to mouth his opinions and beliefs, not that she didn’t agree with him, but she was interested in other things – like a home and children (of which she had only managed one), of country walks and gardening. All the things she hadn’t done for 25 years since she got married. Instead she had to continually host huge gala events at which pompous people partook of far too much food and wine and talked about politics and foreign and marital affairs. She found this kind of life tedious; always living in some hotel conference venue or space cruiser.

Her son had grown up in the corridors of power and was quite at home there. He never knew what he was missing, so he was never unhappy. He never shared any of her longings and feelings. But it was for his sake that she had persevered until her mind had atrophied and her soul had shrivelled. She had become a lonely and irritable old hag. Because there was no-one who found her beautiful, she had let herself go. Now she was just plump and ugly and old. In short: she hated herself.

As if in sympathy with her miserable thoughts, the wind picked up suddenly and the day darkened over. Thunder rumbled and people scurried from beneath the threatening skies as the first great drops plopped down.

It was steamy hot under the marquee with so many people. Rose watched the scene as if from down the wrong end of a telescope. Everything seemed preternaturally distant. Even the sounds were dull and far off. There were still the other speeches to come…then the toasts. She didn’t think she was going to make it. Thank god she was off her feet though. Those new shoes were killing her. She rubbed her stockinged feet together under the table. There was yet another torturous device: support stockings. They were tight and hot and the humidity today made them intolerable. Barely a breeze blew through the marquee under which the reception was being held, and sweat was now running in rivers down into her Titanium reinforced bra. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and tried to hook her fingers under her corset to move it around a little because the pressure on her internal organs was immense, some of which were in desperate need of emptying.

The speeches were done and she hurriedly put her shoes on under the table, a task she found more difficult now that her feet had been given free reign to swell. When she finally managed to stand up to go to the loo, she found nearly half the ladies there in the queue ahead of her, and of course as usual, there was only one toilet for the ladies. She tried to ease the pressure in her bladder by moving her weight slowly from one foot to the other but the shoes bit cruelly into her ankles.

And that’s when things got a whole lot worse. The band struck up a lively Tijuana dance and the best man appeared obligingly in front of her to do his duty and dance with the bridegroom’s mother. He stretched out a hand and whisked her onto the dance floor. Thereafter followed ten of the worst minutes of her life. All in all she danced through three songs. One with the best man, one with the father of the bride, and finally, the only one she had wanted to dance, with her darling son. Once in his arms she realized it was the first time she had held him since he was a child, after which they had reverted to a peck on the cheek as their only physical contact. She melted into his embrace and let herself be enveloped by his warmth and the feel of his suit against her skin. For several blissful seconds she was in heaven, until an urgent and stabbing pain in her bladder woke her from her delicious reverie and she tore herself loose with a weak excuse and ran for the loo.

She sobbed aloud with frustration and relief once she finally got to sit down on the toilet seat. There was actually a breeze coming through under the door that blew blessedly over her legs and feet. She lifted her dress up to give it more access. She sat for ten minutes in that shady bower, reliving those few moments in his arms, trying to chisel them into her memory.

It took her another fifteen minutes to compose her mind, clothes and makeup well enough to venture out again. Even her shoes didn’t feel so bad.

Her son was waiting there for her.

“Are you alright? You disappeared so suddenly.” Oh how she loved him. Oh how she wished she could tell him. But she just stood there with tears in her eyes.

Before he could help himself he was giving her a desperate hug, as if he could never let her go. But he soon put childish things behind him, and broke away kindly.

 “We’re on our way pretty soon…just saying the goodbyes and thank-you’s.” He looked into her eyes as if trying to gauge if she was going to be alright.

“Bye, bye darling. Have fun,” she said.

And then the happy couple were off for a night of wedded bliss.

 

The solid rocket booster provided 12.5 million newtons of thrust.

“We have launch minus thirty seconds. Stabilizers uncoupled. Bleed chambers open and fusion inhibitors retracted.”

The spaceship stood proudly upright on the launch pad.

“Check that Houston. We have a go for launch.”

N   N   N

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK AT THE SAME TIME FOR THE NEXT EXCITING EPISODE.