Final Transmission Jupiter 9 - 29.2.5

Houston, I’m experiencing a major anomaly with the oxygen system requesting guidance.

I’m experiencing a major anomaly with the oxygen system… 

Dammit Dale, this transmission won’t reach you guys for twenty minutes… 

Houston, requesting guidance. I’m experiencing a major anomaly… 

Yeah, you could call it major—a major screwup. I’d call missing the Kirkwood a major screwup, wouldn’t you, NASA? I don’t mean to be critical but which one of you morons decided to send me through the asteroid belt without an umbrella? 

Hey Daniel! Get SCOR back on the drawing board and add some Kevlar to the recovery units. The CRA’s history. I got a big hole in the hull, Houston, and that’s not a rap song. I got maybe fifteen minutes of air and I’m not happy about it! It’s gonna get real cold in here real fast and the suits were tapped out during that outdoor extravaganza before I turned this puppy around. The tanks are drained. The leak can’t be fixed and I’m a couple of AU’s from home. That’s assuming I wasn’t knocked off course by that damn rock. I’m screwed, Houston. I’d add some color to my vernacular, but this will probably be my final video transmission, and I got a little kid.

Oh my God…

Oh sh… This is it.

I need more time! 

More time…

Sorry for that moment of weakness. 

I guess I’m not as strong as you thought, huh, Heather? Your daddy’s just a big baby. I’m sorry I missed your birthday—birthdays, I mean. You’re a big girl now! You’re a whole six years old! One. Two. Three. Four. Five. SIX! See, I got this picture of you I keep here on my desk so I can look at you every time I get up and when I go to sleep. This was taken when you were just a little girl. You’re almost grown up, aren’t you? You’re so pretty! Just like your mommy. I’m so proud of you! I love you, Heather, feather. I love you, darlin.’

Sarah, I’ll let you decide if this is something you think she should see. I guess I should have mentioned this before but I’m not thinking too clearly. Sorry. I’m not sure when they’ll get this to you. Hopefully, in a day or two. I’ll be long gone before then. I leave it up to you. Maybe it’s better if she doesn’t see it until she’s a little older. You decide.

Guys, make sure my family sees this. Thanks. 

By the way—I guess now’s a good a time as any for confessions. It’s interesting how quickly your priorities can change when you’ve only got a few minutes to live.

Sorry.

I know how much you hate it when I exaggerate or when I’m sarcastic. I’m not being sarcastic, Sarah. You always said you thought sarcasm was the last refuge of the disappointed idealist. See, I really did listen to you! I don’t feel like being sarcastic or ironic or flippant or anything—any of the ways I hurt you. 

But, compared to what I did, I guess sarcasm would just be a little scratch.

I know it’s way too late to say sorry, but I’m sorry. Sometimes my judgment sucks. But you knew that. I can barely believe how stupid I am! I wish I could see your face. I wish you could find it in that overgrown heart of yours to forgive me. If it’s any consolation, I’ll never forgive myself. I never do anything halfway. That’s something else you used to say. I wish just this once it had been halfway or quarter way or not at all. I wish I’d-a been man enough to say no. I’ll regret that for the rest of my life, Sarah.

That’ll be in about ten minutes. 

Look. I never took it off, never stopped loving you. I’m gonna miss Valentine’s Day next week. If I promise to obey and love and cherish for better or for worse and especially forsaking all others, would you consider marrying me? 

Again?  

I’ve been afraid all my life. Sarah. Isn’t that strange? Big, powerful space daddy.

Afraid.

Afraid of being left out. 

Afraid of rejection. 

Afraid of being alone. 

Alone? 

Since Vince died, I’ve been in this metal can all by myself going God knows how flipping fast. An hour from now, I’ll have gone about fifty thousand miles. That’s fifty thousand miles closer to you and about thirty thousand miles away from when the air finally runs out.

Isn’t it the weirdest thing? I’ve done in fifteen years what it takes most people a dozen lifetimes to accomplish all because I was afraid. When I looked inside, I couldn’t find anything to love so I was afraid that everything dad told me about myself was true. I had to do the impossible and prove to him I wasn’t those things. To prove it to myself.

It didn’t work. 

What I didn’t know was that if I’d been able to keep you and Heather happy, I’d-a been a success. There would have been something inside that was worthy of love, worthy of you, worthy of Heather.

I’m gonna die in space. 

Alone. 

Really alone. 

And what did I accomplish? What did we accomplish?

Crap.

Sorry.

Sorry. 

If I feel sorry for myself, that’s understandable, isn’t it? My run is over. The show is closing despite rave reviews. The headliner’s dead. My star has supernovaed. It’s been a good life, but I must exit, stage right.

Adieu.

Adieu.

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

I’m young.

I don’t want to die.

But I’m a scientist. Everything is in transit. Everything is passing away. Everything that lives had a beginning and everything alive will eventually die.

Entropy.

Thermal Dynamics.

Newton. What a guy. 

I’m ending.  

I’m scared.

Or maybe I think I’m supposed to be scared. Out this port hole here, all I see are distant stars—lots of ‘em—and darkness. Seeing all this emptiness, you’d think my former atheism would have been confirmed. The fascinating thing is, I say I’m alone and you’d think being a gazillion miles from earth in a metal coffin would pretty much cinch it, but I feel another person. Like I’m not really alone. Like maybe Becky was right. Like maybe the whole place has been designed and there’s a Creator Who’s a loving Father—or Mother Who made me in His/Her image. Something. Wouldn’t that be interesting? Him or Her or It. No, it’s definitely not an it I feel. Let’s call It Him. I feel loved by Him, this Person. I feel something like compassion. It’s getting stuffy so I know the oxygen is being replaced by CO2, but I’m not to the hallucinatory stage.

Not yet anyway.

Hey, Holbrook, maybe you’d consider me unwise to establish a belief system of axiomatic philosophical principles on feelings alone but why not? What have all our highfalutin scientific materialistic theories of natural selection and Darwinist evolution got us besides situation ethics, hopelessness and clinical depression?

It’s always troubled me that the answers came before the questions, anyhow. 

I’ll miss talking to you, Joe. Adios, old friend.

I could’ve done without the double-barreled bible, Beck, but maybe you have it right and Jesus died for my sins.

Good trick; rising from the dead.

Hope it’s true. Wouldn’t that be cool?   

God, if You can hear me, I’m in deep trouble here and would appreciate it if You’d stay with me. If there’s anything afterwards, after I’m gone, I mean, would You consider being there for me? I’m a long way from anyplace except maybe heaven, if Becky’s right and Jesus really is the bee’s patella. If you can’t come personally, maybe have an angel or two waiting in the wings? Thanks.

The wings. Get it? Angels? 

So, here I come. Ready or not.

Fading away.

Here it comes, the fading away part. Sooner than I thought. 

These blankets aren’t keeping me wery varm.

Drain bamage. 

Not really funny, I guess. 

I’m having a little trouble with words.

It’s only words, but words are all I have to take your heart away…

Singing was never my… Strong. Suit.

Bwetter?

Whose playlist was that? Is that Mark’s down in the dungeon?

Fading away.

It was okay mostly. I liked some o’ the 70’s stuff. They sure did a lot of whining and sniveling. Do girls like that kind of thing? Apparently…

Fading.

Fading…

It’s cold.

I miss my kid. I miss my wife—my x-wife.

Wife. Life. Strife. Knife. Uh…

Pat-a-cake, paddy cake, uh… bake me a cake, a cake? Fast as you can…

Earth.

I’m gonna miss you most of all. Now I know I have a heart because it’s breaking.

Breaking.

It’s hard to breathe, hard to…

It’s gold, Sarah. Cold, I mean. 

Chilly.

Freezing. I can’t see my breath. 

It’s cold, Sarah.

Sarah. 

Sarah.

So cold.