The excited civilian
crowd in the bunker stared through the heat haze at the rocket on the launch
pad.
“Houston
“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
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
N N N
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK AT THE SAME TIME FOR THE NEXT EXCITING EPISODE.
