aboard the space shuttle Ernesto Cardenal
well, the story is nearly done.
here's a bit of it (contains swearing - and some mice)
The Solar Windmill:
It was an old tradition of course; messages in bottles. Adventures and secrets or just wild hellos written down and flung into the loam, into the Sea...
And romantics might think of space the same way.
They put ships in bottles too, or used to, but that would create something of a paradox - how in hell could she fling the bottle out if the ship was in the bottle?
Mathematically it could probably be done - an Escher reality, dimensions flipped inside out at just the right point...
She hefted the bottle in her right hand as the airlock door hissed open.
"Eva, are you drunk?" a voice asked.
What would the stars make of such an oblique communication, a glass relic spinning slowly onward to nowhere... what would it signify?
Pathetic fallacy, well, obviously so - but still, there was some sort of sense, something almost ritualistic in this, as they approached their destination, that great abandoned hulk...
If there was a meaning to be read from THAT (as many insisted there was) and from her actions, her mission of repair, then surely this dark glass set tumbling was punctuation, a comma maybe, or an emoticon?
Perhaps not, coming from her this small scene was more like a parody and most of the discs in the bottle were blank, so much for her log, so much for the journey.
"What?" she asked, as her arm rose and her hand extended.
"I said are you drunk?" a tongue was clicking over the shuttle intercom. "What I meant was - Are you nuts?!?!?"
And here was she thinking - what, that this was ‘fitting in’? She would never understand people. Oh well.
She let her arm fall back.
“What do you want Leb?” It was her turn with the questions.
Lebedev was making squeaking noises over the com, setting her teeth on edge. Oh. Right. The mice.
Sigh.
Pets, well that was a responsibility but who didn’t love pets, they were practically de rigueur - good for morale. And on the boat, Mickey Mouse and Microgauss had proved very effective in their role of light relief.
“You know how it is, they wanna see the mice.”
“Those fucking mice, Jesus it’s just so tacky, Mood Mice, I - no, OK so they’re insanely cute I’ll give you that but… c’mon, I did the zombie grinning already with Landis.”
“Landis? Don’t you mean…” The build up had become a real in-joke to the boys now, cue fanfare; “America’s next Astronaut?”
“Whatever, look - the point, I’m done OK? Johnson can go make nice with the mice.”
“Now who’s being cute? See? That’s why you’re such a natural on camera - the wit, the razor wit.”
“And a major lack of social skills.”
“Let’s keep that between ourselves, yeah? Just don’t insult the funders, that would not be smart.”
“As if I” -
“Or the mice.”
“I love my mice.”
“Well OK then. Get to it - let’s get their show on the road so we can…” he scratched his brow, “ah… no, I got nothing.”
“Your words Leb, your words.” But she’d raised a weary hand in any case.
"Alright already," she gave up, "but next time I’m the one talking Doppler shift and sail lightness and you're the one talking fucking mood mice."
"Yes, I have a love for abandoned places." Leb mocked her dour tones.
Her retort was short and sharp - but she was already in the side compartment, the mice lounge as they liked to call it. As usual when she entered the mice looked curiously up at her from their luxury abode and its soft straw and the silky hair on the pair of them turned a deep chilly blue.
"Right guys, sure, very funny."
………………..
She was still scowling some considerable time later, well after the interview was over - and when the shuttle departed she didn’t stop to see it off, her helmet mounted lamps were on and slipping through the maintenance hatch she was in.
For Eva, the Cardenal was already old news.
…………………