There's a lot they don't tell you about living in space. The men up top like to maintain the fantasy of space exploration. White astronauts floating serenely outside monolithic space stations. Technology triumphing over the universe by virtue of its ability to drift and observe. One small step equates to one giant leap depending in where and when you take it. What they don't tell you is how you feel when you break the atmosphere. What goes through your mind when you unbuckle your seat belt and begin floating away. The truth is, when you take that one small step, mankind is not with you. The shuttle door opens and no one else feels that dread. The emptiness is yours alone. Echoed and amplified by the sound of your breath and beating heart, it fills you and expands. You yearn for movement, for color, for anything that isn't silent, grey, black, and still.

We are not meant for space. The moon has no atmosphere and is 400 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and negative 300 degrees at night. You can only survive in twilight, the time between. To look at the sun is to never see again, to look towards Earth is death. For a long time, the major problem with space missions was duration. You cannot exist long above our world if you are of it. Earth pulls at you. Your friends, your family, your favorite places, the memories, they pull and pull, day after day, year after year, until you're so close you're almost back. You reach out and feel her hair and the warmth of her smile pushes out that emptiness and for a brief moment, you feel whole again. Then you lose grip and snap back into space and you're nothing. You never grasp them again. Those things become dull and grey and eventually black. You drift encapsulated, your useless feet sway gently and you feel nothing. The dread is gone. This is the state of life in space. To prepare us now, we take a special cocktail of chemicals that kill our emotions while we are still on Earth. You watch your life fall apart in front of your eyes, like a movie. You tell yourself that the pain in their eyes as they watch you fade is the price to be paid for protecting their future, for making sure every avenue in life is open and paved in government assistance. By takeoff you prefer not feeling. The pain of these memories burns so deep you frantically search for your kit and swallow your pills as soon as you feel the first embers of recognition.

As we drift toward Europa, I let the fire build. We taper off our dose as we travel deeper into space and these brief surges in current are not uncommon and usually pass quickly. But now, I hold on. It's so cold. I can't see her face anymore but I see her hair. I always see her hair. She floats naked in front of me and it sways gently in that windless way, each individual auburn strand being pulled by its root before becoming slack and drifting away again, all surging and rolling like ocean waves. A piece of debris floats by her face and when it passes I can see her mouth, the soft contours of her lips, that half smile she gives when she's tired and in love. Small asteroids pass silently all around me, fragments of the larger whole. I can see her eyes, finally her eyes. Those deep blue pools, flecks of emerald shining through. Her warmth fills me and I know she sees it, she finally sees it. She knows she's my light, she's my everything and it fills her completely and she wants for nothing but to keep seeing. Another head floats by, crimson strands hanging and swaying where it was once attached and I don't even try to name it. I look at her and bathe in her light.and smile for the last time. The sun rises behind her and the earth behind and I let go.