Pull

Lana takes a deep breath and really tastes the air. She lets it wash her through, touch every cell in her lungs, holds it there, three… four… and then exhales, expelling all the carbon dioxide from her bloodstream back out into the atmosphere, three… four… She spins in place, eyes closed at first — savouring the feeling of terra firma beneath her feet, the reliable pull of gravity keeping her from drifting away into the great nothingness — and then eyes open, taking in the stars, the constellations as they are from this planet at this time at this moment. Right here, right now.

She sinks to her knees and digs her fingers into the cool, damp soil. She tries not to think about the fact that she is literally clinging to the skin of this tiny planet — hanging off the bottom of it just as much as she is standing on top of it, the nothingness below her waiting patiently for gravity to fail so it can claim her as she falls away, away, away…

She’d had a similar realization standing in her mag boots on the hull of her ship where up and down were directions that held no meaning. Lana had donned her suit, struggling with the zips and velcro in her solitude, cycled the airlock, and stepped out into the deep dark. What a difference the atmosphere makes. Lana feels safe, secure down here on the ground, protected by that invisible bubble. The stars look and feel far away, far above. Not below, not beside; above and away.

Lana had stepped heavy and careful, fighting the magnetic tug back to the hull, the methodical pull of the boot — it was strong enough to fool her legs into believing she was climbing a staircase. Left foot secured safely to the hull before lifting the right one, displace, replace, repeat. Lana’s movements were painfully slow, her limbs moving through space in the same incremental, forced way they did in the nightmares she had where she was running as hard as she could but her feet barely moved; each step requiring monumental effort to shuffle it a mere inch through the molasses she was stuck in. She knew she should adjust the magnetic setting, ease up the strain on her knees a little bit. She told herself she kept the pull at this level because she needed the exercise. But deep down it was because she was terrified of being cast adrift with no one to find her and nothing but nothing to catch her. This way each step was work. Each step required thought and intention and focus. Each step earned her continued survival. She could barely feel her tools through the thick gloves, could hardly hear anything with the suit sealed up — silence besides the gentle hiss of oxygen, the rhythmic rush of blood in her ears as her heart pumped hard, boot up, kashoosh, boot down, kachunk — but the pull of the magnets she could feel. The pain just behind her kneecaps, the gentle ache of her tired thighs were the only sensations she had, and she clung to them.

Lana looks up at the sky and imagines she can see the wrench she had dropped, drifting out there. She had fumbled it as she’d reached into her pocket for the bolts and washers, and the next moment it was spiraling end over end just out of reach, and then more so, and then it was a world away. Lana had tied everything to herself after that. A collection of tools strung tight to her arms, legs, waist; tucked into pockets as often as possible — but always tethered; just in case.

Lana had never felt tethered. Not to one place. Not to one person. She had stepped into the slipstream of life one day, and when she looked up again she was here. Alone. As she digs her fingers into the soil, brushes her hand across the sharp grass, she wonders what it would be like to come home. Sure, she was back on Earth, back in the house she’d bought years ago to store her things while she was away. But it was little more than shore leave quarters now. A home, she thought, was more than steady gravity and a place to store your belongings. It was belonging. It was the people who love you. The ones who look at the stars and imagine they can see you in them. The ones who wait for you to return. The ones who pray you won’t just float away, away, away…

Lana closes her eyes and a soft face with a kind gaze imprints itself on the backs of her lids. The one person who had nearly been home to her. But that tether had wrapped too tight, it had become a noose rather than a belay. Carol hadn’t prayed for her to come back; she’d asked for Lana to stay. To kiss the stars goodbye so Lana could kiss her goodnight. Carol had wanted Lana’s dreams to be smaller. To be containable to earth’s atmosphere. And Lana had tried! For a little while… to be smaller, to dream of more mundane things — farmers markets and a dog to walk day in, day out, three… four… — than standing on the hull of a ship, her own two hands holding the difference between it running again or her dying far, far away from a place she wished she called home. But the gravitational pull of the stars was too great, her dreams too big, and Lana had let them take her. For a long time she’d drifted. Long enough for her own body to become home to her in a place hostile and deadly enough that touch starvation became the smallest threat she faced. So miniscule it hardly registers to her any more, that gentle ache just under the surface of her skin that longs to brush against someone else’s.

But it registers to her now, that longing for cell to cell contact, as Lana crouches here in the dirt, in a body that feels simultaneously like home and exile, savouring the smell of newly cut grass and the threat of rain. It sparks a feeling deep in her chest that promises to suffocate her. And as she looks back out at the stars, gently calling to her, Lana knows she needs to get back out there — out beyond the protective cover of the atmosphere, out beyond the safe pull of gravity, out to where only a thin layer of fabric protects her from the great vacuum, and there’s no tether to keep her from sailing away, away, away…