“I can’t go on!”

“Lie down. Let’s not give up.”

In comes an ASM. “This must be what threw you, Carmen.”

An opal earring, the tiny rock that ended my first career. And a big rock has ended my second. Oh I must see the stars! Turn up my heating to warm the visor. The batteries will run down fast and shorten my life, but a life without stars . . .

Carmen moans, “Who dropped it? That toe-rag Amelia? Let her take over. Let them see what a clunker she is.”

“Turn over.” And after a few minutes, “Stand.”

She stands. “Not sure, Letitia.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Honestly?” On her points, testing.

“Carmen, honestly. Carry on.”

Five minutes into Act Two, airy grace is reduced to a heap of limbs. I rush on and rub her thighs in desperation.

She hisses, “You sad useless bitch.”

The lights blot out the audience, but tier upon tier of eyes watch my downfall.

When we trained for this mission we thought the more we talked about death the less likely it was. I remember laughing, “I’ve died already. On stage.”

✥

I can see the stars again! So clear I could almost reach out and touch them. The tiniest are like flour on a slate worktop. Ah, breadmaking . . . Yes, Mark, never forgave me, did you? Thought I should have married you instead of earning my PhD in astrobiology. Lived with you and made babies instead of doing astronaut training. But I thought when I came back to Earth there’d be time for that. And here I am, no bread, no babies. Driven by curiosity. Another dead cat.

I’m moving on, watching my feet because if I trip and smash my visor I’ll be dead, ha ha, but also watching the sky. There’s Rigel again, and Orion’s belt. The M42 Nebula in his sword is like brightly lit gauze in a theatre set. Betelgeuse, a brilliant red. The Milky Way over to the right. Lynx spread out further over. Oh, there’s Capella in Auriga. I want to seize those million stars for myself. Pour them into a magic bucket and clamp the lid on. No, no, that’s ridiculous. Stay there, stars! You’re just the jewels in my Granddad’s watch, the eyes of sheep in a field at night, the sparkle on waves.

The terrain is fairly even now, so I can bounce along quite—oh God. It’s Ernesto. Am I all the way round already? But how did I miss seeing Earth? Oh. Now I’m close I can see. Just another rock. A rock you could mistake for a frozen man. Oh stop it Letitia, EVA suits aren’t designed to cry in. Can’t wipe my eyes, damn it. I’m hugging this rock anyway. Leaning on it like I leaned on so many summit rocks on Earth’s wonderful mountains, gazing at other mountains, or at mist. I’m in sunlight again, it’s throwing my long shadow on the ground, sharp, the shape of the helmet somehow monstrous. Stage lighting—but no audience.

Moving again. Goodbye Ernesto-not-Ernesto. Is Mehmet still alive I wonder? Folks, please contact his family and explain what happened. The Agency will, but I’d like you to as well. When the rock struck, the mooring line tore loose and the crew capsule drifted off. Ballet in slow motion. Mehmet must have thought Natasha survived and could be rescued. He pressed down on his camera tripod and used it as a vaulting pole. Up, up, up he went, because escape velocity here is next to nothing.

He scraped along the side of our doomed craft, but couldn’t get a hold and floated past. I watched him shrink, only his sunlit side visible, the shadow side merging with the blackness, half of him gone already. How will he cope in that void? At least I have my world tour. He once told me, “Nothing in the universe is not Allah, nothing not Allah is in the universe.” Comforting, Mehmet? Using up your oxygen with Sufi chanting? Bless you.

A little further and I’ll rest.

✥

I see Earth! At last. A perfect opal laid on black silk. There, white sea-thrift will be stirring in the breeze. Drifts of bluebells will be a sapphire Milky Way. My parents will inherit my notebooks with sketches of seabirds—and Mark. Soaked from a sudden downpour we took refuge in a ruined barn. Pressed our bodies together and slowly Mark, with fingers like a blind man’s, unbuttoned my shirt . . .

The sun is high now. Harsh light, no dappled shade. On Earth are the woods where I walked beside rushing water. My little dog Sally panting in my tracks. Woods and water! None here. She thrust her nose into piles of dead leaves and scattered them. That ancient smell like no other. Sometimes the path veered off up the steep valley side. We didn’t want to leave the river. Sally kept stopping to look into it, whether she recognized her reflection I don’t know. But when we pushed ahead the brambles became too dense, and poor Sally was like the ram caught in a thicket. So up we went, and it was like my career, forced away from what I loved but ending higher.

Science. I’ll die for science. Of what, I wonder. Cold, when the batteries fail? Oxygen deprivation? Asphyxiation when the canisters in my backpack stop absorbing CO2? Why have I never thought about people who wait to die? Túpac Amaro the Second in the plaza in Cuzco, when they roped his wrists and ankles to four horses, and he waited to hear the whips that would drive them to tear him apart? How did resistance fighters feel, in total dark in a basement waiting for the Gestapo? I will face this waiting, I will. I mean to know every moment, to the last.

Four years to this asteroid’s next approach to Earth. Will you find this recording then? If so, here’s how I’d like my funeral. Forget after-life, and that soppy stuff saying I’m the wind rustling the leaves. Say I never reached the big four-oh, which saved me feeling depressed about it. I’d like Mark to come, and if he doesn’t shed a tear I’ll haunt him. I’d like some everything’s-OK music. George Winston playing Pachelbel’s Canon?

Oh Anna, when you lost Sammy I stayed away. Couldn’t face your suffering. Tried to write but couldn’t think of anything real. Now I would know what to write. That crater I fell in—I name it after you. Maybe at my funeral you could read ‘Ulysses’ by Tennyson (yes I know it’s about exploring in old age). Or anything to say the world is fine without Letitia.

✥

I’m cold. Can’t remember where I said I’m going. I seem to be in a ravine. Am I supposed to name these features? The Valley of the Shadow? It must be late—the sun has gone and the stars are out. I think the others are expecting me. Ernesto is quite a character. When he retires he’s going to teach skydiving. New Mexico or somewhere. Natasha’s lovely. She wants to raise a big family. And Mehmet is going to create a garden. He says a garden is a mirror of paradise.

Here it’s very bare. No trees. And I can’t walk properly. I just float, it’s quite distressing. But I must press on before bedtime. Keep going, Let—whatever your name is. Oh, this landscape. How to describe it? Strained. No, that’s not the word, strange is the word. Shallow ridges, like the beach at . . . Oh come on, Daddy, you remember the one. When I was down and angry just after I left the ballet? I didn’t confess my failure, and you didn’t press me. We walked dodging waves, you talked about shells. You called mussels bivalves of the subclass pteriomorphia. You said spiral shells grow around a columella. I felt the poetry of science. When you showed me the spiral moon shell I knew I’d found my calling.

You said, “A beach is the only place in the universe where solid, liquid, and gas coexist.” I can hear the sea in my earphones, Daddy, but it seems to have gone right out. I’m scared. Freezing cold. Who am I and where do I belong? Anna, that monk who taught you meditation sends loving kindness everywhere. Everywhere, you said. Does it reach me?

These ridges. Long slanting shadows. Keep . . . what’s the word? Going. Keep going, Let—whoever. Don’t get your boots wedged in the gaps. No Daddy, I won’t.

✥

Ernesto’s coming! At last. Walking towards me with that what-the-hell macho stride, arms out like a gunfighter. Waving hello. Hello, Ernesto! If I didn’t have this weird thing in front of my face I’d kiss you. And here’s Mehmet showing me his garden. Beautiful peach colored tulips and purple roses. How did they grow so fast?

I hope he won’t think I’m rude but first I have to greet Mummy and Daddy. Hello! Hello! Oh, and Elsa and Earl are with them. And Anna. Oh, Anna! And who’s that in the distance? Surely not Mark? It is! What are they doing? They seem to be chanting, and Daddy’s leading them. It’s the names of shells. I’ll join in.

Lu-na-tia her-osnorth-ern moon snail

Tect-ari-us pa-go-das

pa-go-da prick-ly win-kle

My-tilis e-du-lis

blue mus-sel

Ne-ve-rita he-li-coi-des

lovely lovely spi-ral m . . . m . . . m . . .

……………………………………………

Alex Barr’s latest publication is Take a Look at Me-e-e! a book of stories for children (Pont Books 2014). He came second in the Willesden Herald story competition 2011. His stories have been on Radio 4. His maths was too weak for astronomy (his first love) but fine for architecture.

Symbiosis