Air
20 Sep 2021Iridium Nova
I guess I've been reminiscing a lot lately, probably because I've had a lot of things to think about lately.I remember my first visit to Earth. My dad had decided I needed to see Earth, where we all come from. Not a lot of people care about stuff like that anymore but my dad was a traditionalist. I didn't want to go through that airlock. I was 7. I knew enough about Earth from history lessons to know it was a big chaotic mess. I couldn't understand why my parents wanted me to experience a place where we had no control over the environment. But I trusted them and so eventually I started walking through that airlock. I held my breath and closed my eyes. I heard the airlock open and weird noises and my remlok didn't activate. I tensed up, expecting to be hit by lightning, or blown away by wind or my face to burn off, or some kind of horrible creature to attack. But none of that happened. Eventually I opened my eyes
I nearly fell over. The flood of sensations hit hard. The way the light scattered through the clouds, the way the trees rustled in the breeze, the colors of the setting sun. I gasped, and the smells of the air flooded my lungs. My mind span, trying to process everything. My mom was right behind me and caught me as I stumbled backward. My dad just chuckled. When your whole life is spent inside a metal can breathing recycled, artificially created air, surrounded by a deadly void that wants to tear you apart, an experience like this will change everything you thought you knew.
There's nothing like real air. Every planet with an atmosphere has different air. The breathable planets are all different. Even the terraformed and Earth-like planets are different. No planet has air like Earth, but they all have character. Air is like a planet's personality. And it's always interesting. The only air that's boring is the air on space stations and ships. That odorless, plain, artificial air that's been scrubbed of all personality and recycled a thousand times. You don't even know you're breathing it.
Some people think it's funny that me, being a spacer, finds planets so fascinating. I know many spacers don't like planets and many have never set foot on one. But maybe I'm different because of this experience I had when I was 7. I fell in love with Earth then, and developed my love for other planets as a result. Even though I never got the chance to ask him, I think maybe that was what my dad wanted.