Flash Fiction, August 2021.

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Of the one hundred billion people to live and die on this earth, I count myself among the seven hundred and eight who’ve stepped out of bed and into the great beyond among the stars and moons and endless, catastrophically infinite depths of outer space.

That means seven hundred and seven others have had the view I have now in front of me – a planet wrapped in patched fog, bleeding blues and greens into browns and whites, the signature of man blinking up in a jumbled Morse code of lights. It’s a cosmic canvas where science and art splatter together to create one big fucking bang of a masterpiece.   

It doesn’t seem real at first. I mean, it goes against every rule of survival hardwired into us. We don’t belong up here. Our feet need the ground and our lungs need the air and our entire sense of self depends on not being so damn miniscule in the grand scheme of things. Up here, we really are grains of sand. Even tinier than that.

That might make some people panic. But I think it’s comforting. I like being insignificant sometimes, even if my mind short-circuits.

I must have really put it out today with my stargazing because it’s fighting back with low, low blows. I mean below the belt. Planet fucking Earth is right outside my window, no bigger than a pancake, and all I can think of is her. Charlotte. Blonde, beautiful, planted firmly to the dirt Charlotte. A woman I’ve known for three months, and miss like it’s been thirty years. A woman who doesn’t bother with any stars or existential dread because there’s a life already laid out right in front of her. A 10-K business to run. Pilates twice a week. Hot yoga and conference calls and ignoring my texts because she’s too busy ruling the world.

I’ve never met anybody so singularly and unapologetically focused on themselves. It’s hot. God, it’s the hottest thing a woman has ever done to me. Maybe the second hottest, after the time Charlotte brought me home on our second date and told me, straight-faced, she was too old to wait for sex. No sense in dragging it out, she informed me over a glass of Merlot with a label I couldn’t pronounce. She wanted me to cut the bullshit and prove myself, so we went upstairs and I did. Three times.

We fell asleep when the sun came up, and I woke up later to coffee in a French press and brioche French toast with honey butter. And that was that.

Charlotte is in Orlando right now, giving a keynote speech at a conference for female entrepreneurs. She gets asked to speak a lot because she does it with such certainty. She could calmly, firmly declare that two plus two is eleven, and the room would erupt in applause for her insight. I don’t know how she does it – how she’s hardened herself so securely against doubt. I wish she’d teach me.

I wish she was here.

I look out the window again, knowing damn well I can’t pick out Orlando, Florida all the way up here. I know she couldn’t see me either if she were to look up at the sky and squint past the sun. Still, I want her to. I want her to look up so much that I smile and wave and recount the days remaining in my head until we’re breathing the same air again. We’ve been thoroughly trained to reduce our entire lives to countdowns. I close my eyes and can see the numbers in neon green, ticking away one at a time.

Sixty-one days, eight hours, twenty-four minutes.

Twenty-three.

Twenty-two.