Introduction
(Note to the reader:
It is this authorÕs firm belief that all introductions to all works should be
read after reading the work itself, not before. So stop reading this and go to
ÒPart I: Liquid.Ó If you get lost, or you are not sure you Ògot it,Ó or you just
want affirmation that you did Òget it,Ó then come back here later and read this
introduction. And for those of you who hate having a work explained to you,
that the work should speak for itself, stop reading this, go to ÒPart I:
LiquidÓ right now, read to the end, and never come back to read this
introduction.)
Once there was a graphic novelist who worked for NASA but never knew it. That may seem funny, at least at first, until I tell you that you also work for NASA but do not know it either. It does not matter what company for which you work, or even if you do not work for a company—even students work for NASA.
So how does someone in—or studying to be in—agriculture, architecture, the arts (either performing or visual), communications, community, computers, construction, culinary services, education, engineering, environment, finance, health (care support, diagnosis, or technology), installation or repair, law or government, management, math, media, office or administrative support, production, protective services, personal care, sales, social science, social services, sports or fitness, or transportation work for NASA?
To make this idea seem less ridiculous, I should probably explain your education. You probably understand the word ÒscienceÓ to mean things like biology and chemistry. To grasp how it could be that you work for NASA without your knowledge, you have to understand what ÒscienceÓ truly means: Òknowledge.Ó Every class you have taken has taught you science, in the truest sense of the word. Science is all of humanityÕs prose, its story of itself. What we know and what we seek to know tells us more about ourselves than anything else. Keeping this in mind makes it easier for me to help you comprehend that you truly do work for NASA, whether they pay you money or not.
Surely there is more to life than just finding better ways of feeding, healing, and protecting ourselves just so that we can keep on finding even better ways of feeding, healing, and protecting ourselves. Surely that cannot be all there is to life. A sure sign of this is that people tend to feel a calling to a greater purpose once they are fed, healthy, and safe.
Why am I here? What is my purpose? What is my place in the universe? What should I do with my life? What do I really matter? Douglas Adams tried to provide the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. Or, rather, he tried to maintain that we did not even know the question. Or, more precisely, he ridiculed the idea of even asking the question, suggesting that even to think about posing it was silly and pointless. He was wrong, but that is okay because it renders the irony (a word he knew and loved well) that even he was working for NASA but did not know it.
What about people who lived and labored prior to 1958? Even they, without knowing it would later exist, worked for NASA. Or, more properly, they worked for Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton and Edwin Hubble and did not know it. From the first human who named the animals to the first grader scribbling away in his coloring book today, all work for one purpose, and that is so NASA can do what it does. Even the smallest, seemingly unrelated labor contributes to and assists the NASA cause. Gene Roddenberry had it right when he put the words together that sum up the collective purpose, as he labored to write a television show: to explore, to seek out, to boldly go. You labor for science, for knowledge, and there is no more dramatic and purer and clearer and obvious effort for this purpose than those things that NASA does.
Few people paid attention to the Apollo missions after the first couple of landings on the Moon (there were six total). After more than a hundred space shuttle missions, few pay attention because they all look the same. Most people do not even realize there is an International Space Station, much less what it does. We get lost in the details of our own lives and forget why we are here, if we ever knew; thus, I have a double-challenge for you: firstly, do not fall victim to the feeling that what you do in your labors does not matter, for it does, and, secondly, do not think what NASA, or whoever bears the torch that NASA currently carries, does is a waste of money and time and effort. Instead, as you study and as you labor, on occasion lift your head to take a glimpse at what those who are boldly going are seeing. Without you doing what you do, humanity cannot light the torch in order to see dark matter or to touch the face of Titan or dip into the oceans of Europa or live on Mars. If you end up believing that all you are doing is your job, it will seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things; however, if you look through the lens the right way, you see a true sense of scale and purpose and, that, really, when you think about it, we all work for NASA.
Part I
Liquid
The blackness pooled, coalesced, and shimmered. The graphic novelist hunched over his Bristol board, inking in the lines he had penciled earlier. He dipped his brush repeatedly, his mouth partially open, his tongue occasionally touching his lips without him thinking about it. He rotated the board to get at the lines at an angle that would make his art easier to finish, cross-hatching a shadow here, leaving alone areas that were to show bright spots, finding the story he wanted to tell on the blank white sheets. He was near the end, glad to be almost done, despite the fact his comic book was a labor of love. Each drop he added to the page was like a drop of his own blood, each one meaningful, all of it self-renewing. He stopped, stretched his back, rubbed his eyes, and was glad to notice the waitress coming over to fill his mug with more black coffee.
Black coffee swirled and sloshed in the glass. The waitress returned the half-empty globe of a carafe to the burner and stopped to stare at it. Rarely was she not in motion, so she relished the moment of rest for her weary calves. The guy inking the comic book pages at his table was weird, but he looked very happy doing what he did, and that rankled her nerves as she faced the fact that she was very much not happy. She stared at the steaming carafe as if it were a crystal ball, and after a momentÕs contemplation she made the decision to go back to culinary school and finish her certificate. When her children had come, she had been forced to stop, but now that they were in school, she decided she could be too. She knew she would have to quit the job and live on her husbandÕs income for awhile, which was meager since he was a nurse at a local hospital, but he would have to understand that it would mean better things for them all down the road. Later that night, as her feet soaked in warm water, she told him. He argued at first, but as she pleaded her case and explained she was willing to sacrifice anything of herself to pursue her dream of being a chef, he relented. She quit the waitress job and registered for the next round of classes after she dropped off the kids at school and her husband at the hospital.
At the hospital, the nurse squeezed the plasma in the bag as if he were testing a piece of fruit for ripeness, this tactile feedback confirming what his eyes seemed to be saying, that the bag would need a change soon. This woman had lost a ton of blood in the accident. The paramedic who had brought her in said the accident was not that spectacular or horrific, but she had almost died on the way to the hospital because a piece of the frame of the car had pierced a major artery in her leg. As the nurse left, his shift over for the day, the womanÕs husband kneeled at her bedside and stroked her hand and called her name softly and prayed aloud, all while his two daughters stood with their heads on their fatherÕs shoulders, their voices occasionally joining his in a gentle murmur.
A gentle murmur and babble rose from the flowing water of the river, which occasionally collected in eddies along the banks. The manager did not notice this at first, for she was there to not think, just to feel, to absorb the tranquility of the place, in the shade of the trees along the banks of the river that was just a short drive from her office. She should be back at the office now, managing the flow of jobs that crossed her desk, advertisements for medical textbooks, which made up the bulk of her work. Since the accident that had almost killed her, she had found she needed to take breaks more often and could not work for as long and as hard as she had before. She did not share this with anyone because she felt there was no physical reason for it, but rather a spiritual realization that she had to take life in smaller pieces and step back once in a while to just enjoy living. That step required she do something she had abhorred before the accident, and that was to be alone, if just briefly, once in a while, to go somewhere where she could be unnoticed by anyone, like the eddies on the banks of the river by which she stood.
She stood in a way that made the policeman concerned. A bead of sweat dropped from him to the pavement. The policeman wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve, not for the first time wishing he could get back to regular squad car duty. On the bridge atop his motorcycle, he had been watching for speeders like a predator looking for his next meal when he noticed the woman by the bank of the river below. His mind shifted from ÒprotectÓ mode to ÒserveÓ mode, for he was concerned she might be a suicide. He was reassured when she disappeared up the bank and reappeared at the top and got her in her car and drove off. The license plate number was too hard to make out at that distance, but he noted the make and model of the car just in case. As he did so, he failed to notice a speeder shoot by in the far lane across the bridge.
The bridge flashed by the speeding car in a glimmer of girders and railings. Gasoline gurgled in the near-empty tank, the float measuring its contents occasionally tapping the bottom. Not only was the programmer almost on empty, she was going to be late even if she did not stop to refuel. She was a genius when it came to computers and how they worked and how to make them work, but when it came to the physical and tangible, she floundered and failed at it like a deaf bat trying to make its way through the world. The latest game she had designed was still just design and a few lines of code, but it was revolutionary and groundbreaking and would turn the entire gaming industry on its ear, but she needed big funding to make it happen, for she was just a designer and programmer, not an artist or entrepreneur. If she could get backing, she knew it would transform an industry that had not changed fundamentally for over a generation. After narrowly escaping three accidents the rest of the way to her meeting, she successfully pitched her idea, after which the sponsor offered her a contract and a shake of the hand.
A shake of the hand forced shampoo to sputter from the bottle in gooey droplets. The hair stylist rubbed his hands together and then into the womanÕs scalp. She was the most demanding customer he had, but, because of this, not despite this, she was also his favorite. Every two months she would come in and expect him to have ready for her a different style and color. She said this was because before she never could afford to worry about how she looked, and now that she was a rich and famous game designer who had invented some kind of computer gaming technology that she said was now even available on his phone, she could not afford not to look good. Even if she had not paid so well, he loved the challenge of surprising and delighting her, for tending to her desires was like a workout, keeping him flexible and in shape, pushing him to come up with fresh ideas. He also liked doing her hair because she really listened to his stories about his family, which were usually about his son, and even remembered details from appointment to appointment and showed genuine joy for him when he told her things like his son had made the football team, which had always been one of his sonÕs biggest dreams.
Dreams came and went along with his consciousness. Beer swirled around and around in the bottom of the bottle. The athlete stared at it and thought it was his best friend. Beer never talked back. It always delivered on what it promised. It never got jealous. It was so patient that it would just sit there and wait until he was ready for it. More and more often he was more and more ready for it, and then and there he realized, with that last little swirl in the bottom of the umpteenth bottle he had consumed, for no particular reason at all, he realized it was his worst enemy and was not a friend at all. The coach was threatening to cut him. His girlfriend had left him. The last time he had spoken to his father, his father had not really spoken but more yelled at him through the phone that he had not spent his entire life cutting hair so his son could throw away his education and life. He took that last little swirl of gold and poured it out on the floor and swore to never drink again.
Again, tears spattered against the podium. The addiction counselor put her hand on the manÕs shoulder, and like a tide across an ocean beach, his sadness washed over first her and then the entire audience, so tangibly that they all began to cry, some audibly. Many people she had counseled did not get this part, why they had to share their pain, to make it visible to others. Actually, she believed, most people never got it, even after they did it, even if they completed their treatment successfully. She knew the public confession was necessary not for the people who witnessed it, nor for the embarrassment or shame the confessor would feel, but for the reality of it. By pronouncing it to others, freely, openly, and out loud, it gave the admission a feeling of reality it lacked when it was just in oneÕs head. Some of the tears she wept now were driven not just by this football playerÕs admission of addiction, but also by the knowledge that sometimes even this reality was not enough to make some people stop. She hoped it would be enough for this man and gave him an encouraging hug. Even after everyone had left and her day of work was finished, she thought about the people she had helped. Some left their work at work, but her work was people, and she kept them in her heart, all the time. She thought about the football player and prayed his confession would not only help him but also the others who had heard him, even as she drove home, looking for a place to get a change of oil.
Oil filled the pan in a slow, continuous stream. The mechanic smiled to herself. The customer had given her the look, even though she also was a woman. At first it had bothered her, that people expressed surprise that she, a woman, could work on a car, could fix it, or could even understand it. Now it just made her smile, especially when the person giving her the look was a woman. It even amused her, how people acted like a poker player caught cheating and tried to cover up their surprise when she stepped from behind the counter and they realized she was not just working behind the counter but in the garage itself. The blame lay with her father. He had five children, one girl after another. She was the youngest, and since her mother refused to have any more, he decided to teach her everything he knew about cars. Her sisters had trouble changing a light bulb, but she could fix anything, from the oldest petroleum burners to the newest tech that was more computer than engine. She even bragged to her family that one of her regular customers was a National Aeronautics and Space Administration employee, and he brought his car to her for service. She did not realize that even though he wore a NASA badge, he was not actually a rocket scientist, but the Administrator.
The Administrator knew--as he watched the fountainÕs recycled water shoot into the air as far as gravity would allow and then descend in a spray upon the very shimmering column that had given it ascent--that the splashes and ripples were intended to provide a last moment of peace, a soothing oasis, before entering the chaos and bustle of work, but today he was not conscious of it. All he could think about was the pictures. The first images a human had directly taken of the surface of Titan. They should get them today, shortly after his last press briefing. On his walk to Mission Control, he tried to think of something obscure to calm his nerves. He could not appear anxious. His team, his people, from those on Earth to those on Titan, depended on him showing confidence and a positive attitude. At times, he found this difficult. He knew it was important to retain the joy of discovery that he had first felt when he started walking down the long path that led to where he was now, but with the weight of responsibility upon his shoulders, he found taking even simple steps could feel Herculean. How to maintain the joy, and yet not lose focus? How to maintain the focus, and yet not lose the joy? If all went as it should, humanity would have first-hand images of a place it had never visited before, but only if things, in his fieldÕs parlance, were nominal. Who came up with that term? he wondered. Nominal? He tried to use this as his method of distraction to keep himself calm even as he nodded at guards and said Ògood morningÓ to folks as if it were just an ordinary day. Why not ÒokayÓ or ÒnormalÓ? I guess Ògoing just as we plannedÓ is too long. Does it have something to do with naming? We name something, which gives it power and life? With these meandering thoughts he managed to maintain at least the appearance of calm. At last, after much badge-flashing, he arrived, put on his headset, and took his first sip of coffee from his ÒI Need My SpaceÓ mug.
Part II
Gas
A bit of helium rushed from the neck of the balloon, making its rubbery neck splutter. The actor sealed the opening with his mouth and let his throat and lungs fill with the balloonÕs contents until it was completely deflated. He spoke some lines he remembered from a Dr. Seuss book that his mother had read to him when he was little. He babbled on and on until his pretense of a smile became a real smile because he saw his intention had succeeded--deflating the anxiety in his young child co-star much as he had the balloon. He rubbed the childÕs head affectionately as the lights came back up and the director told everyone to find their places on the set.
On the set, light shone brightly from the xenon as the electron stream left the face of the cathode. The camera operator adjusted the aperture on his lens in preparation for recording the next scene. She was impressed by the big name actor who was apparently as good with kids in real life as he seemed in his films, a welcome change from what she usually witnessed on set. She had seen many a Dr. Jekyll on camera turn into a Mr. Hyde as soon as the lights came down and the cameras went off. This actor was different; in fact, he seemed to bring it down a notch for the cameras, to rein it in, and in the off moments he seemed even more charismatic. After the scene, they broke for lunch, and she was even more impressed when the actor got in line with her and the other crew and sat down with them on the set to eat and talk. As the crew finished up and drifted away, she found herself still talking with the actor, and she wondered if he might even be flirting with her, not just trying to earn points with the film crew. The next week, he asked her out, and by the time the film released they were married. By the time his next film released, they had a son and every tabloid scrutinized their every move as if they insect specimens under glass.
Under glass, argon drifted invisibly over the fragile, aged papers. The teacher stood next to documents, with one eye on her students and one eye on the Constitution of the United States of America. She explained the importance of what they were viewing and hoped some of it would settle in, if not with all of her students, then at least some of them, and, if not today, then someday. When one of her students raised his hand and asked why it was kept under glass, sealed up, and under dim lights, she explained that it was like the freedoms it protected--fragile and in need of constant watchful preservation. The question made the teacherÕs day because it came from a student who was normally shy and quiet, the last one to volunteer and speak up, which she found particularly funny since he was the son of a famously outgoing and gregarious actor. Simple things like this made teaching worth it to her, the little daily changes of progress she saw in her students, the light going on, the small bits of change in them that were the signs of their healthy growth.
Healthy growth, in the form of new buds, shot forth from the plants, which exuded oxygen while continually drawing in sunlight and splitting water molecules fed to them by the personal trainer who kept the plants in her training area for aesthetic reasons. The woman she was training was more pragmatically and subconsciously grateful for the extra assistance in trying to catch her breath. The trainer encouraged her to breath deeply through her nose and to push through, to not give up. This new client was a teacher, used to standing around or sitting at her desk, and not accustomed to being told what to do. When the personal trainer ended the session, she offered her a new protein bar of which she had grown fond. The teacher accepted it readily, tore the wrapper off, and ate it greedily. The trainer made a mental note to pick up more of them soon, for she was almost out.
Out of the nozzles and into the wrappers shot nitrogen. Then the wrappers were quickly sealed. The financial analyst watched the protein bars march further down the assembly line like soldiers obeying orders. As he watched the bars drop into the boxes and move down out of his sight, he was startled to find the chief financial officer slapping him on the back congratulating him on his suggestion that they use nitrogen to preserve the shelf life of their new hot product. The analyst appreciated the praise, but did not need it. He did what he did because he wanted to make the world more efficient and make tons of money doing it. Now he could not worry about the house payment, and he could probably afford that new car he wanted so urgently.
Urgently, neon sizzled with its reddish-orange glow, attracting the eyes of those passing by. The sales representative walked out onto the floor to greet a new potential customer, but she did not want to pounce to early and scare him off; plus, like a pro poker player reading a rookieÕs tell, she could see this guy was more than a potential customer, but a ready buyer, eager to drive off with a new car. Today was her last day of work before a planned vacation with her husband of five years, an anniversary celebration she relished because they were going to ride across the country by train and end up at a ski lodge that she had always wanted to visit that used an old-fashioned type of train to deliver skiers to the top of the mountain. Her husband thought it funny that someone who sold cars hated car trips, but she told him that part of the point of the trip was the time they would have on the way. She could think of no better antidote to the daily stresses of making her quota than a leisurely romantic train ride and some skiing. She tried to put these thoughts out of her head as she sidled up to the customer. Within two minutes they were test-driving the car the customer had come to see and within two hours he drove it off the lot as his own and within two days the sales representative was making reservations for her ride up the mountain.
Up the mountain chugged the train, water vapor pushing against the face of its pistons then shooting out the blastpipe and up into the air. The locomotive engineer leaned out off his window to glance back down the line. All seemed as it should as they approached the top of the mountain. They came to a slow stop and let out the skiers. One couple caught his eye as the woman pulled her man to her and gave him a long romantic kiss. The engineer smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling with age like old paper. His eyes had witnessed the death of steam trains and the rise of diesel, and he was very glad in his semi-retirement to be back with the chuffing of the old type of engine he had grown up with and grown to love. No one got off of a modern train and then kissed like that, he thought. He pulled his head back into the locomotive cab and lost his smile as he remembered his wife, dead now for five years. He missed her, but he found solace in watching couples like the one kissing so fervently outside his window. He looked forward to visiting his granddaughter at Christmas and her new baby, his great-grandson. Maybe I should bring her the old train set to put around her tree, he thought.
Thought after thought bubbled to the surface throughout the session, much like the carbon dioxide that bubbled to the surface and dissipated through the mouth of the can of the psychologistÕs soda. She reached for her can of soda and took a sip, picked up her pen, and added to her notes. Clearly her patient had issues with her parents, but she would not admit them. The train of their sessions ran around and around on a closed track, always going by the same station, but never stopping. When the psychologist tried to convince her to face the responsibility of her having left home at an early age despite her fatherÕs protests, the patient emotionally reacted as if the father had rejected her instead. When their session ended, the psychologist took fifteen minutes to meditate before going home. She needed this to purge herself of all the voices that ran through her head after the dayÕs work. When she got home, she was surprised to find that her husband was not home. She smiled when she noticed that he had put up the train set under the Christmas tree. It was beat up and barely worked, but she knew her husband loved it, for it was his connection to his own family, who had run the train, a gift from his grandfather, given to him when he was just a baby, every year for as long as he could remember. Soon he called and said he had run out to a hobby shop to get a new engine for the train set since he could not get the old one running, but on the way back home he had gotten stuck in some unexplained traffic jam.
Jam the reset button down again--maybe that is all it needs, the mining engineer thought, but even after he double-checked the monitors, they read the same as they had the last time he had read them. No doubt about it--radon permeated the ventilation shaft. Something had caused a spike, but he and his peers had yet to determine the root cause. He lifted his head, rubbed his neck, and looked out the office window. A line of cars from the mining complex poured out of the exit, creating a traffic jam on the outer road and highway that was unusual for this time of day. His secretary asked him if she could talk to him, and he figured she would ask to leave early as well. Instead, she broke the news to him that her husband had been transferred across the country, and that she was going to have leave in two weeks. He reassured her that he understood and told her that he would be glad to write her a glowing reference, although he would be very sad to lose her.
Her face glowed in the krypton fluorescence of the bulbÕs light. The secretary to the Administrator pitched the old used bulb in the trash next to her desk and then reached to her belly. She felt another sharp pang, but this one was so strong she could not stand. Her boss walked by sipping his coffee from his ÒI Need My SpaceÓ mug and told her to relax, that he had just forgotten something he needed from his office and was headed to the last press briefing before the landing. When she just nodded silently with gritted teeth and he saw the look on her face, he asked what was wrong. She told him she thought her water had just broken and asked him if he could call her husband. She reached under her desk and picked up the overnight bag she had prepared for this day. When the next contraction came, she dropped the bag and yelled. Her boss hung up with her husband, and then came around the desk to put his hand on her shoulder. She apologized because she knew today was a big day for her boss, for the whole world, in fact, but he shushed her and said what was happening to her now was far more important than anything that would happen at the office today or even on Titan.
Part III
Solid
The dirt broke into smaller and smaller chunks. The crop farmer turned his head to look over his shoulder at the soil to make sure his disc was operating smoothly, turning the big clods of earth his plow had turned up into small bits. At times his mind wandered and he imagined he was on a boat, not a tractor, as the dirt fell away from the disc like water in the wake of a ship. This drove him to thoughts of his actual boat, which he had not used in quite awhile. He had no time for fun. The price for corn had dropped so much, he could barely afford the payments on his equipment, so even in the slower times on the farm, he had to serve as handyman in town to make ends meet and pay the bills.
The bills and other mail fluttered to the floor. Paper rustled over paper. The architect could not find the plan she had sketched that she needed for her presentation tomorrow, and it was leading her to uncharacteristic anger and frustration. The plans she made echoed the style of her life, which she kept in a calendar, on a to-do list, and in a contact list. Even the organizer in her closet had smaller organizers in each of the cubbyholes. The papers she no longer cared about fluttered to the floor like enormous dead butterflies until she finally reached the layer on her drawing board where she had accidentally lay her sought after plans. She breathed a sigh of relief, picked up the discarded papers gingerly, and put everything back in its place. Now she could strike one more thing from her to-do list and move on to another item: farmerÕs market. She needed to get there before they closed and pick up some of their fresh corn on the cob. She was doubly delighted when she got there to find out how low the price was, so she bought double what she had intended, as written on her to-do list, picking up eight ears instead of four.
Four more to go, and then he would be done for the day. The wood fell to the floor in curled, warm shavings at his feet. The carpenter lifted his router and ran his hands along the cut he had just made to the molding. Nothing about this job was easy. Clearly the company who had commissioned the work must have told the architect that money was no object. Everything was custom-designed, so he could use virtually nothing off the shelf, having to form everything himself. Fortunately, he had good help so that they could copy and replicate the work once he had made a model, a perfect template, so that each piece made afterwards came out like cookies made by a cookie-cutter. He wiped sawdust and sweat from his brow and packed up his tools for the day. He had skipped dinner and worked straight through the evening, so, when he got to his truck, he reached into his glove box for a pack of beef jerky, which he kept in there in case of situations just like this and because his wife abhorred it. He bit a piece off and grimaced. He needed to have that tooth looked at, sooner or later, he knew, but he was too busy and did not like to visit anyone who brought him pain.
Pain, subtle and dull, shot through the anesthetic. The bone shone white in the glare of the super bright overhead lights. The dentist thought she could save the tooth. The patient would lose quite a bit of the top of the tooth, but she believed there would be enough left for her to crown it and help the man avoid a root canal. He was her first patient of the day. Her last patient of the day was new, so she spent some time getting to know him. She asked him what he did, he said he was a mathematician, and she could not help but laugh and admit she had never heard of anyone giving that as his profession. She apologized, but he said it was no big deal and that he got that reaction quite often--his actual job was as a research mathematician for a maker of 3D-visualization software. She wrapped up his checkup, telling him that he was blessed with good genetics, for he had enamel as thick as armor plate, a fact for which he should be very thankful.
Thankful for clear, haze-free skies, the mathematician wrote furiously in his stargazing journal, using his red-cellophane-covered flashlight to see his notes, etching the graphite deeply into the paper. He could not wait until later to record this experience, excited as he was, like a kid let loose in a candy store with a twenty dollar bill. His new eyepiece had finally arrived, and, fortuitously, Jupiter was high above the horizon on this clear, cloudless night. He had never seen the bands of eternal storms so vividly or been able to make out so distinctly the startling jeweled necklace of moons around the largest of the gas giants. When people first met him and found out he was a mathematician and an amateur astronomer, they figured he must still live in his parentsÕ basement, doomed to bachelor nerdhood forever; however, he had beat the odds and found a woman who loved him despite his geeky tendencies. He had trouble getting her, and his two young daughters, outside to look through the telescope, but they respected his passion. He just wished the new nearby landfill would respect his and other community membersÕ request to reduce their light pollution by covering the tops of their lamps since he knew his glimpses of Jupiter would be even that much more beautiful and distinct.
Distinct odors of the decay wafted here and there, a hint of rotted rind in the air. The landfill operator stood several feet above the fetid stinking pile, on top of layer after layer of the waste that had been collected and contained and sealed beneath. She checked her gauges, recorded her readings, and moved on to the next station, looking like a doctor making rounds with patients. Her primary responsibility was making sure the structure was secure, not emanating levels of any gases beyond what was normal and allowed. She wrapped up her duties toward the end of the day, when the lights kicked on automatically. They looked different somehow, and she realized the new covers had been placed over the top, to make them more efficient, she guessed. When she got home from work, she noticed the lawn was far too long and fretted that the neighbors might start complaining. She had not been able to get her lawnmower started this season, and even if she had, she knew the blade was dull and needed sharpening; however, she had no idea where to take it to have it fixed, and had put off buying a new one. She recalled hearing there was a neighborhood kid who had just started working at the local hardware store and that he was pretty good at fixing up lawnmowers as well, so she thought she might give him a shot.
Shot through with rust and corrosion, the lawnmower blade looked hopeless. Steel shavings dropped and bounced on the ground like miniscule bits of popcorn. The toolmaker ran his file along the blade to bring it back to fine, sharp edge. His day job paid well enough, but in the summer it was hard to resist the easy weekend work at the hardware store. His first job as a kid had been at a hardware store, and since it had inspired him to become a toolmaker in the first place, he savored the sense of nostalgia he felt now as an old man, almost near retirement, doing the same work that had set him on his path. Plus, his granddaughter was getting married next year, and he knew his son could use some help paying for the wedding.
The wedding continued with the pastor raising bread over his head with both hands. The loaf ripped down the center, leaving a ragged edge on both halves. The pastor placed the halves on a silver tray and raised a wine-filled chalice in front of him. He was glad to do communion at a wedding, although it was rare that a couple requested it. He tried to keep his mind focused on the service, but he had performed so many weddings that he found it difficult to not let his attention wander like a lost sheep. He knew the bride well, as she had been a member of his congregation since he baptism, and had gotten to know the groom in the marriage classes he required prior to the ceremony, so when he gave his message he had been focused without a problem since he had tailored it to them. Later, at the reception, he stayed a bit longer than he normally would because of the duty he dreaded the following day. One of the inmates he had been counseling was up for sentencing, and he was sure the man would get a life sentence without parole because he had previously seen many strict sentences handed down by the judge.
The judge turned her robe over and then over again, checking to make sure the stain was gone. The cloth swirled like a billowing cloud. She never would have guessed that coffee could make such a mess on a black robe. She took one last look at the front to make sure she was presentable and then put them on before leaving her chambers to re-enter the courtroom. Once everyone was seated, she read the sentencing statement she had prepared, the entire time staring the convicted man in the eye. As she finished her statement, the man lowered his head, as if accepting the inevitable. It was then the judge noticed tears falling from the eyes of the man standing just behind the convicted man. She recognized him from previous trials and knew he was a clergyman who made regular visits to some of the rougher types she put away. When she finished reading her prepared statement, she continued, now looking at the clergyman, but still speaking to the convicted man, speaking from her heart not her script, telling him that this was a judgment not on his soul, but on his past deeds, for all humans could do was judge outward actions, while it was left to God to judge menÕs hearts.
Hearts in a gaudy pattern shimmered on silk in the morning sunlight. The reporter wore her bright red silk scarf around her neck not as a fashion statement as much as a way of attracting her subjectÕs attention. As ever, it worked well, for the lawyer turned to her first and spoke into her voice recorder, answering her question regarding the life sentence without parole his client had just received. She filed her report with her news agency, but when she did so, she was told her editor wanted to speak to her. When he picked up the connection, he told her the best news she had ever received--he had decided to approve her request for transfer to science news. Less than a year later, as she had speculated, NASA announced its intent to send the first manned mission to Titan. Less than five years later, she found herself in the final press briefing prior to the actual landing on Titan. After reading his prepared comments, NASAÕs Administrator took a sip from his ÒI Need My Space Mug,Ó asked if there were any questions, and--with her garish, heart-covered red scarf still doing its magic--called on her first. After answering her and several other reportersÕ questions, the Administrator concluded the briefing after receiving word from CAPCOM that they were about to make first contact with the commander on the surface of Titan.
Part IV
Plasma
The astronaut stopped, stretched his back, squeezed his eyes open and shut several times since he could not rub them while in his space suit, and was glad to notice he was almost at his first key objective. He thought about all the people who had made this simple, yet amazing, task possible, and, as he had throughout most of his career since he left the Air Force to join NASA, he marveled at how fortunate he was to have the best job in the world. Each step that brought him closer to his goal was even more meaningful than the last, and each one felt as if it were self-renewing, giving him energy back with which to fight the fatigue. For the first time in months, he thought beyond the mission and realized that each step also brought him closer to getting beyond this goal and back to his wife and kids again. He was glad to be almost done, despite the fact his mission was a labor of love, despite the fame he would have as the first human to touch the face of Titan. He thought about all the people who had made this simple, yet amazing, task possible, and, as he had throughout most of his career since he left the Air Force to join NASA, he marveled at how fortunate he was to have the best job in the world. As he wrapped up his activities, the CAPCOM came over his headset and passed on the AdministratorÕs commending of him and his fellow astronauts on Titan on their nominal success. With a smile he contradicted CAPCOM, saying, ÒNo, Houston, not nominal success--fantastical success.Ó He rotated the visor on his suit to get a better view of the rocky slope at his feet. He sucked at his water tube repeatedly, his mouth partially open in between sips, his tongue occasionally touching his lips without him thinking about it. The astronaut hunched over his first key objective, a large area of methane beneath the surface of Titan. The blackness pooled, coalesced, and shimmered.