A spaceship requires thrust from booster rockets and itself to break the atmosphere. The booster rockets do not make it into the otherworldly plane for they detach and fall into the depths of the ocean. More recently though, boosters come back to be re-used. It is not rocket science that detachment is necessary to truly realize if the attachment is real.

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Attachment is not a bad thing nor is detachment. They are like Ying and Yang or Ying Ying or Yang Yang. However, neutralization of both is necessary to understand and feel a sense of balance. Internal and External. Without balance we fall. A sense of grounding is necessary. Unless there is no gravity…what is grounding? What is standing? What is falling? Just words. They do not matter. Love is an ungrounded notion whose meaning resides in a zero gravity mental domain, and when you fall hard you just keep falling until you… the fall is the same whether you fall in a zero-gravity physical abysmal airless expanse known as space or on the earth near the lake while looking at the moon on one fine evening; followed by a harmonica concert in front of a crowd. A good day. A breathtaking day.

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Oxygen levels at 10% reads a sign on the hud. I am running out of air and there is nothing I can do about it. My eyes see the bleak airless expanse. A vacuum. In it I breathe. My lungs fill with air and for a moment I realize I am sitting on a garden swing swaying while atmospheric air combined with the smell of spring caressing my face and stimulating my smelling organ.  9%. The hud begins to beep turning red resembling the low fuel indicator in a car on earth. Yeah… I know…I am low on gas… I chuckle.

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I recall how I used to ask as a joke when ordering carbonated beverages while dining in or doing take out if the beverage had gas.  The look on their faces would surely make my day. Look at me now in my red suit in zero gravity approaching zero gas. I will look like a deflated 2L bottle of coke zero. I would always think of the possibility of what would happen if I truly ran out of gas, and this has been my imaginary conclusion. A sweet and healthy death that looks like coke zero. What more can someone ask for?

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With the sun behind my back, probably hot but I do not feel it. Space is cold. Sunsets…There are no sunsets in space. Just the sun, a fiery glowing celestial body.

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Just like that one hot evening while watching the sunset and forgetting I had picked up chocolate to snack on which would melt. She would say “well, hot chocolate it is” knowing the pun would only entertain me.  The evening of bidding farewells before her astronautical pursuit of some theorized space in Hindu scriptures known as ‘Vaikunth’, located just below the ocean of milk. It was one of those deep space missions some light years away in another galaxy requiring years of preparation. Preparation in every way, spiritual, mental, technical (spaceship stuff) and physical. She would say to me, “hon…I will be back, I am not going anywhere, we’re in the same universe and trust me it has our backs”.

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That smile of grace, her long tresses, calming voice, the voice of a singer, hands of a painter always coloured and that beautiful vibe. If I were to personify lo-fi music then that is her. I would think if there is ever a situation in space and her oxygen supply is depleting, I would gladly detach my gas (hahahhaha) gas…and attach it to hers while floating away into nothingness, detached from the physical, no longer dependent on air and becoming something else entirely with a smile of satisfaction on my face, knowing I would live on through her, in her mind as fragments of happy memories.

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8%. A drop of saline exiting stage right from the corner of my eye.

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She was getting ready for her first long distance mission wearing her custom painted space suit in Prussian blue and emerald green before being launched into space.  The space organization would provide white coloured space suits and she would say “I am going to paint this canvas like suit” to which I would ask why? And she would say “It’s a long trip, I need some colour” while moving to pack her space ready paintbrushes. The plan was to set up a full-on exhibit during the travels and film a walkthrough tour for earthlings. Occasionally there would be live tours Q&A’s and late-night community paint sessions with chill lo-fi music in the background.

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7%. I am used to having no lung in my airs. What am I saying?  It will almost be like being in deep sleep. After all in what is sleep deep, what are lungs what is air. Just a nap, a long one.  

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“Just a nap; a long one and talk to you in some time” was what she had said to me during that one video call and that we would not be able to speak for a year until the spaceship makes its way to the jump point at which point, she would wake from her slumber.  I wished her a good night, she removed her gear and made her way into her hyper sleep pod. I would remain awake for many nights.

6%. For six years I would not hear of her or about the ship. There was some chat at the space organization about the ship getting lost, losing communication and the possibility of total disintegration whilst travelling through the jump point. This was the first mission involving a jump point (point of entry for a wormhole), and according to her the jump would bring them into the solar system with the planet containing the ocean of milk. Super simple. Maybe something went wrong, or something went right.

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5%.  “Positive thinking is the key. Your mind must be conditioned to positivity, and you will naturally find positive solutions to the most difficult of problems. You may even realize there is no problem, its just how things are."

 

"Let it go” she would say running her hand through my fingers…I mean running fingers through my hair”

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My suit begins to glow. She provided guidance to the suit design team and called it, “spider-sense”. It does that when the suits A.I. senses objects in proximity. I hope its not a solar flare. Oxygen is already too low. I would rather die before getting burned. Well I guess, space cremation. Manikarnika…

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 Why Vaikunth? I would ask.

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“Well..”

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To be continued…