Dokeosphere part I

Behold the astronaut, who's forced to leave the earth staring out the porthole at the beauty below while knowing that no matter how diligently he works, nothing will bring him back before he's due to return.

So to fill the time, he busies himself with experiments, goes through motions and tests alternatives that are ultimately meaningless. To him, he knows his time is being wasted but the voice that crackles over his radio insists that it's all important, that he has no choice but to remain apart from the things that until now made sure he stayed firmly on the ground. Sometimes the antenna picks up a songs from the radio, and the cabin is filled with the woeful sounds of an old standard, and the astronaut reminisces on the last time he heard this song, long ago.

Suddenly his mind conjures up that time when the song meant the most to him, back to when night only lasted so long, and young bodies huddled together in twin sized beds to warm chilly sheets. And how they'd cram as much excitement into those fleeting nighttime hours! When intimacy was as foreign as the deepest unexplored regions of space, when everyone played Ferdinand Magellan on an insatiable quest to understand their immediate world. And as the sun began to rise, how they'd all pretend that they didn't notice, how they'd push on until their limbs grew weary and their mouths were parched from innumerable heavy breaths. Oh, and how they'd collapse, never to rise before the sun reached its daily apex in the sky above!

And now, how' he'd kill for just ten minutes of true daylight.