Goldfinch Calling

I float, my oxygen running out, but my breath fogs against my helmet. The ship is hiding the view of whatever's on the other side, but I'm too weak to move. I could just end it, take off my helmet. One swift move and I'd crumble like a long dried-out petal, though I'm already as brittle, aren't I?

Ten years.

How many years I spent studying while cradling my newborn child, having to juggle being an only father, and getting my qualifications to work for NASA. I stayed as strong as I could, never letting her see me cry when I had to ask my parents for help paying the bills.

Now, the lack of oxygen is making my eyes droop. My throat is burning unpleasantly. What does she look like again?

I try to remember my girl. Her face is blurry, her golden hair fuzzy. All I can remember is her name. Finch. My beautiful, baby girl Finch Autumns. A girl who beat all odds of surviving, cancer at the age of seven, and now is living with a wonderful mop of silky blonde hair and too many collections of cancer support bracelets in her drawers to count.

I don't want to die here. My fingers crackle like potato chips, sore. So I reach out in my mind, my plea for the ship to move, so I can see my baby girl one last time. I know I'm not coming home.

I try to think of her again, but the frigid oxygen burns my tongue, and my head is pounding. I'm silenced verbally and physically. Tears threaten to fall as the realization dawns on me.

I tried, Finch, I tried, I'm sorry! I wailed in my head. Right now, I remember thinking that the sky and space above us was magnificent and endless. I still do. I just never knew it could do things to you like this. Make you forget your daughter, what she looked like, making her an orphan once I stopped breathing.

I remembered a quote she read aloud from some book;

"Time brings perspective.

Time eases the pain.

Time heals the heart.

Time revives hope.

In time, you'll learn to embrace life again."

I wondered if she would remember that when they tell her I died in space.

Then I wonder what the Earth looked like, and if the ship wasn't in my way, I would see Finch. She looked up when I showed her the stars in our backyard, thinking compared to this beautiful child the stars were so insignificant and dim. I'm going to die, God, so take me, I'm not afraid.

Yet I am. But I want to see Finch.

So I unclip the wire holding me to my unusable life source. The ship was shielding me, and I watch as the blue and green orb glows with the light from the sun behind me. It seems to make itself extra lovely as if it knows my hours are numbered.

Earth.

Terra.

Home to mankind.

And Finch was there.

Tears streamed down my face, into the helmet, trailing down my chin, like my home, my planet during a rain shower.

The golden acres on the planet was her rolling curls of hair, the cloud's shadows like her cheeks, the endless blue like those eyes that were purer than the Earth itself. Then she was everywhere. The thunder was her laughter, the rain her tears. The wind was her blowing on her straw in restaurants, making bubbles in her drink to piss off the old lady's next to us to make me laugh.

I remember her being the center of attention when I had to bring her to work, everyone gushing about how she looked like her father, and how she always wore rainboots and overalls with silly space buttons on them, and how she loved collecting little alien plush toys until she had so many she moved all of them to the guest room, or how she loved watching sci-fi movies with her dad until five in the morning. How she won the science fair three years in a row. She remembered every fact she read when she pored over any book I handed to her. I remembered she only hated books with the movie cover on it. It ticked her off, for some reason.

I loved her for everything, and then we fought.

She left.

And I realized I missed her leaving her metallic scrunchies all over the house, or how her room smelled like toffee apples when I walked in, or how her hair was always tied in long, golden braids that reached her hips when she'd work on the computer.

But my Finch, my golden girl, now had to live without me.

So I use every ounce of strength I have left. I tell her I'm sorry. That I miss her. I love her. I know she can't hear me. I know she doesn't even have the slightest idea my life is about to be smothered like the flame on a burnt-out candle.

And then she was there, right there. She held my hands, and I drifted back, holding each other to the end.

Birds can see more colors than humans know to exist. Sowe were goldfinches. And we drifted in this huge world we were about to leave, the colors of the Earth fading into a colorful abyss.

It's beautiful, isn't it? The stars glisten with every tear that falls down my face. Her hand goes through to my face and wipes them away with that hand that was gentle and never once caused any harm.

She smiles, and I smell toffee apples.

Everything goes black.

When I wake up, I'm sitting on the couch. The sound of popcorn popping in the microwave hits me. The smell grows stronger as she walks over with a steaming bag, and plops herself on the couch next to me, wearing her Ghost Busters sweatshirt. She smiles and turns on the TV.

" What do you feel like watching?" She asks, scootching over so I can lay more comfortably. " Interstellar, or Arrival?"

I gently grab her hand and squeeze it. I wondered what we were going to eat for dinner that night.

" Arrival sounds nice."