Closing the gap
It takes only the prospect of a few extra days off of my day job for gears to start turning in me. Making me wonder who I am, who I will die as. Nothing as dramatic as that, but essentially just that. I've been browsing through artists from the 80s and 90s who drew the glorious cover artwork for sci fi books and video games, notably John Berkey whose art to me is the epitome of my childhood. Ambitious, beautiful, stark white ships in the suns of alien worlds, more luxurious than practical - a future in which necessity has long since been surpassed and even a battleship might be elegantly designed. The spark of adventure. I frequently remember one of the most vivid memories of my life, outside of the home of one of my mother's friends, presumably. We were melting freeze pops on a hot car in the Colorado sun. Across the street, a grassy hill rose to a aluminum fenceline that stretched the entire block. On the hill beyond a clean, sterile building rose a few stories. The sky was scrubbed clean, and the contrast of the newish building and its handsomly austere surroundings as they faced the brunt of the summer glow under a perfect blue was and always will be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It was a representation of everything I thought was waiting for me. It, like an airport, represented a world of purpose and progress, a world moving forward. In the suspended animation of 2019, such a vision almost pains me to re-live.