In space no one can feel you dream
05 Jul 2020Grecale80
"Pack up all your thingsWe're gonna be leaving
Sooner than I thought
Take the things you bought
Clouds are gathering.
Say goodbye to all your friends
We're gonna be sorry
For a while, that's how it goes
But then again, who knows
About the rain." (Steppin' Out - Electric Light Orchestra)
...And suddenly some verses of an ancient progressive rock band comes to my mind while im preparing my Phantom for the trip; after one year from my last solitary voyage outside the Bubble (complete tour of the Asteroid Bases in the Galaxy, visit to Sag*A and return to Gantt Station) im here facing this personal restless again: i need to leave.
One of the weirdest thing you can hear from a Cmdr's mouth is: "I need space". Well quite strange isn't it? A man that work in space need space. How could it be possible?
I tried to explain this feeling many times to my ex girlfriend; she always blamed me for being a pilot: "Why u can't get a normal job on Earth?!". She accepted with a great effort my decision 4 years ago to become a pilot, and again with great difficulty accepted my decision to enlist in the ACFS squadron. "You love the stars more than me..." she was used to say, "..but if u will die in space no one of them will mourn for you!". We often argued about my job, but despite this she accepted it and keep loving me.
As time passes, she accepted my long trips for trading, and my prolonged absence for service duties for my squadron: election and wars can take you away from home for long time. But my exploration's trip outside the Bubble well...these absolutly no: was unconceivable for her risk my life just for see a star or a planet that no one have seen before. Two times i went out from the Bubble and back home, and two time she forgave me (and trust me that was the hardest part of the trip). But this time...no.
"I'm too full to swallow again my anguish for you, it's a waste of feelings" she said to me in a mix of sadness and sarcasm.
I tried to reply with soft voice: "You know perfectly that i love you, but i need it. I need to leave: once a year i need to breath.."
She watched at me directly in the eyes, and i felt my soul scanned: "I'm not enough for you isn't it? You need the universe for being happy and satisfied...", she said with the coldest voice i ever heard.
I replied firmly: "It's not matter of what or who is enough for me; is matter to be myself: as u need to paint for feel yourself alive, i need to explore to feel my self alive. I would like describe you that feeling...when you have the light of a Blue Giant or a Wolf Rayet star in front of your face...when your eyes are filled with the colours of a Lagrange Cloud. You feel so tiny and harmless in front of all this...but at same time you feel a joy like when you where child...a feeling of astonishment, surprise and wonder like if you are just born again...and your biological age doesn't count anymore."
She looked at me with pity...like i was a fool that need compassion. "Ok": that was the last thing i heard from her before she took his luggages and left my quarters on Gantt Station...probably forever.
It's strange but im not sad. I have analyzed carefully myself and i have to admit that in my heart and in my mind can't be place for sadness in this moment: i'm completly focused on planets, stars, and other celestial wonders. Can't be place in a Commander's heart for two passions, one of them will prevail on the other, it's just matter of time. In my case space won, and easily too. Other Commanders choosed relationship and left their carreer in space or drastically reduce it. I think i can't live without stars: i grow up with my heads up watching the sky, and wondering and dreaming about the beauty of the universe. Give up this passion means give up myself.
There's a quite common sentence between the explorers that say: "The stars are our mistress". Well, despite the questionable morality of the phrase, its absolutly true: when you are an explorer you switch from a star to another, more or less like an old fashion gigolò switch from a relationship to another, from a woman to another. It's the pleasure of the unknown, the anxiety for a new discovery, the greed for the beauty that make explorers a kind of galactic lovers, and for them there is not greater pleasure or love than leave and explore the unknown.
In the last year i helped my squadron grow, election by election, war by war, system by system. I have done my job and i've done well, as a part of group. But now it's time to put away the combat suit, it's time to retract the weapons for a while, it's time to wear the exploration suit and left the Bubble behind, becoming once again the lovers of the stars that i am. Just the time to fit my Phantom, complete some duties for the squadron, and next week end i'll say "goodbye" to any human face for a while.
A couple of my squadron mate comes to my quarter for asking if i was fine and if i needed a wing mate for the trip. I gently decline the offers: this is my moment, and i want enjoy it by myself. "Furthermore", I thought, "how i could explain to another person my feelings for a discovery? I wasn't unable to do it with my girlfriend, that was the closest and dearest person to me for 6 years, how i could do with someone else that is not so intimate?".
We must accept that there's not possibility for an explorer to talk about his feelings and share them with other people. An explorer have only himself, his ship, and the void outside the cockpit.
While i was checking my SRV for the embark i remembered a tagline of an old sci-fi movie that was very famous in the late XXth century - early XXIth century, and that i watched some month ago on my quarters computer while i was resting. The tag line said "In space no one can hear you scream".
Impressive but it's quite a mystification: the only truth is that in space no one can feel you dream.
Ready for launch in 7 days.
Commander Grecale80 (ACFS)