Capsule by Stephen Hastings-King

Inertia was broken when I walked in my spacesuit down the long white corridor toward the strobe-lights and launch pad.  I already felt weightless.

Strapped into the seat of the capsule I focus on the backward series of numbers, each of which shapes a dynamic of ignition sound.

With the zero arrives a shaking that is everywhere through the cardboard.

I undo the belt that holds me into the bucket seat of a disappeared Corvair.  Around it the refrigerator box cockpit is an array of crudely drawn dials and screens.  Traces of last night’s alcohol waft through my fishbowl helmet. The Mylar suit I am wearing could be tinfoil.  It is a hot summer evening.   I am not having fun.

I open the cardboard hatch.  In the odd geometrical shadows of the launch pad stand a few people wearing lab coats.  They want to believe they are scientists.   They want to believe I am an astronaut.

I look past them toward the galaxy of tiny multi-colored lights in the midst of which spin solar systems and Tilt-a-Whirls.

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