Moonage Waking

Charlotte closed her eyes and she was weightless again. Her hands and feet and face all felt some cool, cruel, weightlessness. Stars flashed and blinked and stared at her. If she opened her eyes, she would know how totally and completely alone she was. Best to keep them closed. 

Waking up was always hard for her. So was sleeping. Dreams would envelope her in their half twisted realities and make her part of everything everywhere until she knew nearly nothing at all. Once she dreamed she was the smallest grain of sand clung to a surfboard. The rider felt such joy and for that she was happy. If she stayed a speck of sand too long though, the surfer would fall off their board. The wave would crash down and tear her and the surfer and the board apart casting each part of their togetherness into the vastness of the Ocean. 

Charlotte didn’t want to open her eyes. If she did, it would all be real again. How can a speck of sand become something smaller than sand? How could her weightlessness be even colder than her dreams?

“Charlotte? Charlotte, you need to come with us now. We need to get you ready to launch.” 

Charlotte opened her eyes. There were so many of them. White coats, suit coats, jumpsuits, hard hats, and wide eyes all around. They all looked at her with a hungry fascination, like she was theirs for the taking. Raggedy breaths blurred Charlotte’s thoughts. Her fear of the nothingness to come crashed down on her chest like waves that broke her apart and left her wanting for anything to hold on to. She was a speck of a person, a grain of sand under a scientist’s microscope. This was waking.

She nodded meekly and stood and let them lead her away.

Charlotte had once dreamed that she was a snowflake. She had been forged in the turmoil of the troposphere, a swirling rage of cold and rain and wind. The sky had cooled and heated and slowed her journey until she floated gently down to a pile of snow where each flake was alike and apart in their own brilliant existence. She loved the way that chaos could create something as small and gentle and brilliantly unique as snow. It was a hopeful dream.

“Charlotte we chose you for this role because unlike many of your peers, you seem to have inklings of psychic premonitions. That is to say that you have a mind that lets you see and understand spaces in a way unique among most. You will be a credit to science by spending time on the moon. We believe you can give us insights into how lunar spaces function and influence the human mind from a psycho-analytical perspective. All this to say, you are the perfect candidate for the Moon Program. We believe we can learn a lot from your experiences.” 

In a dream Charlotte had once been a leaf pulled from a sapling tree on a breeze. She had fallen through the air for what felt like an eternity. She was apart from her tree but had become part of the breeze. The breeze had made her part of the universe and the sky and the air for just a moment. She was seperate from her branch, but real nonetheless. The ground had woken her. What could become of a leaf apart from its tree and no longer in the breeze? Charlotte dreaded the answer.

“We have provided you with all the supplies you will need for one year on the Moon base. Food, water, toiletries, even some entertainment options. We do of course expect you to keep a video log of your experience and check in often with the researchers to update them on how things are developing.” 

The cold weightlessness of presence flashed back to Charlotte. She was nothing and no one and everywhere all at once. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak. She could barely tell what was a dream and what was real anymore. 

The light above her flickered. 

“Charlotte, if you will follow us, we will take you to go put on your space suit. You will be launching in just a few hours and we need to do all the final checks.” 

Charlotte had once dreamed herself as a particle of dust floating through a sunbeam on a Sunday morning. She had danced in a golden glow until the sun outgrew her little window and left her quiet and gray and nearly invisible. 

“Charlotte, please come with us, we need to get you seated in the shuttle.” 

Charlotte felt the world shifting beneath her. She was skipping between skies and the emptiness and the fullness of it all. She felt bright shafts of light and submerged herself in the rage and the apartness and all the grief of leaving. Afloat in the vastness was a dream turned real. In a dream she could accept everything and nothing in all the same moment. She was here and then she would be elsewhere. Perhaps the Moon was like dreaming.  

She was Charlotte and Charlotte had been a speck of sand riding on a wave, she had been a snowflake forged in a cold fury, she had been a leaf pulled from her tree, and she had been dust in a Sunday sunbeam. Now she was Charlotte amidst the vast cold emptiness of space and the cosmos and the moon.

Perhaps it was a fitting fate for a girl who dreamed of being close to nothing. It felt like a cruel irony though. 

The lights above her in the shuttle flickered and then Charlotte was nowhere again.

She was the light. She was the dust. She was a flickering gas on an indigo night. She was weightless.  

Charlotte opened her eyes and she was in the sky. Her helmet and gloves and moon boots floating away to nothing. Her hair fanned out behind her, reaching towards the cosmos. She closed her eyes and she was one of the stars. 

She was radiant. She was no longer afraid.