Writing Challenges
This week's Odd Prompts writing challenge at More Odds than Ends was from Padre: “The trip was fun, but it was good to be home at last.”
My thoughts almost immediately went to the second part of Mirrored Lives, in which Reggie Waite and Steffi Roderick take their children to Grissom City for the 50th anniversary of the original lunar landing. This is going to be a major peak experience for the kids -- so how are they going to feel when it's time to come home to their regular lives?
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No Place Like Home
Howie Waite's mind was still feeling very full after the family visit to Grissom City for the fiftieth anniversary of the original lunar landing. Now he really understood Alan Bean's remark about feeling overwhelmed by the endless series of wondrous sights on the Apollo XII flight to the Moon.
And the memories were still bright and clear: of the vast expanse of Slayton Field's checkerboard of landing pads, of the original Wall of Honor in the Roosa Barracks, of Grissom City's main concourse which was so vast he felt a little unease because it felt too big to be a pressurized volume. And most of all, the magnificence of Aldrin Park, with its profusion of exotic plants that were chosen not for edibility or ability to produce oxygen, but simply because they would look beautiful under that moonglass dome with Earth hanging forever overhead.
Now the trip was over, and Howie couldn't shake a twinge of letdown to be back in a crawler, riding from lander to airlock. Except it would look ungrateful if he let it show, considering what an incredible privilege it was to get to fly in space while still so young. The last thing he wanted to do right now was look like a spoiled child, whining because he wanted more.
Throughout the process of mating airlocks and equalizing pressure, Howie held his expression carefully neutral. Determined as he might be to betray no sign of wishing the trip could have lasted longer, he didn't trust himself to be able to put on a convincing display of cheerfulness.
And then the final hatch opened and Howie walked into the formal entrance of Shepardsport, saw the familiar squid emblem laid out in tile upon the floor before the Wall of Honor, the Stars and Stripes on one side and the NASA flag on the other. As they were paying their respects to those who'd gone before them, those who'd died in the process of opening the High Frontier, Howie realized that yes, it was good to be back home again.
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As always, if you'd like to participate in Odd Prompts, just send your prompt in to oddprompts@gmail.com to be assigned a prompt of your own. Or if you're not up to the commitment of trading prompts, you can always check out the spare prompts and see if any of them tickle your creativity.
In the meantime, keep writing.
My thoughts almost immediately went to the second part of Mirrored Lives, in which Reggie Waite and Steffi Roderick take their children to Grissom City for the 50th anniversary of the original lunar landing. This is going to be a major peak experience for the kids -- so how are they going to feel when it's time to come home to their regular lives?
=====================================================================================
No Place Like Home
Howie Waite's mind was still feeling very full after the family visit to Grissom City for the fiftieth anniversary of the original lunar landing. Now he really understood Alan Bean's remark about feeling overwhelmed by the endless series of wondrous sights on the Apollo XII flight to the Moon.
And the memories were still bright and clear: of the vast expanse of Slayton Field's checkerboard of landing pads, of the original Wall of Honor in the Roosa Barracks, of Grissom City's main concourse which was so vast he felt a little unease because it felt too big to be a pressurized volume. And most of all, the magnificence of Aldrin Park, with its profusion of exotic plants that were chosen not for edibility or ability to produce oxygen, but simply because they would look beautiful under that moonglass dome with Earth hanging forever overhead.
Now the trip was over, and Howie couldn't shake a twinge of letdown to be back in a crawler, riding from lander to airlock. Except it would look ungrateful if he let it show, considering what an incredible privilege it was to get to fly in space while still so young. The last thing he wanted to do right now was look like a spoiled child, whining because he wanted more.
Throughout the process of mating airlocks and equalizing pressure, Howie held his expression carefully neutral. Determined as he might be to betray no sign of wishing the trip could have lasted longer, he didn't trust himself to be able to put on a convincing display of cheerfulness.
And then the final hatch opened and Howie walked into the formal entrance of Shepardsport, saw the familiar squid emblem laid out in tile upon the floor before the Wall of Honor, the Stars and Stripes on one side and the NASA flag on the other. As they were paying their respects to those who'd gone before them, those who'd died in the process of opening the High Frontier, Howie realized that yes, it was good to be back home again.
====================================================================================
As always, if you'd like to participate in Odd Prompts, just send your prompt in to oddprompts@gmail.com to be assigned a prompt of your own. Or if you're not up to the commitment of trading prompts, you can always check out the spare prompts and see if any of them tickle your creativity.
In the meantime, keep writing.