Teachable Moment

Vacuum cementing. That's what it's called. Vacuum cementing.

When I was a kid, my mother used to pick me up after school every day. Always at the same time, always at the same spot, a smile and a wave, leaning over to push the door open for me, asking me about my day. Then one Tuesday afternoon she got a flat tire and couldn't get dad on the phone; I sat for an hour, panicked, alone, wondering if I'd ever see home again. It's the things you take absolutely for granted that, when they fail, can absolutely ruin you.

Doors are like that. You open a door, you go through; you think nothing of it. If it's locked, you use a key. If you have no key, you knock, and someone lets you in. If no one's home, no big deal, you come back later.

In space, the air is inside and you need to get inside with it before your tanks run dry, and there's no coming back later. If the hatch doesn't work, because the parts have cold-welded together, you are well and truly fucked.

Anyway, I'm attached to the umbilical. Come get the body when you can.

Three Line Thursday: "A Hole In The Water"

You know how seasick I get, remembering our honeymoon well,
Yet you spent all that money on that damn boat;
I can only assume it's to sail away from me.

Comrades-In-Arms

I wonder what  became of them all, the little army men from my childhood; I don't recall their fate. They're not to be found in any of the boxes containing the rest of my childhood. Did they end up in a musty shoebox in the attic, were they spilled across the floor of the garage and eventually swept out with the dust and leaves, were they left in the backyard between the blades of grass to eventually sink into rain-softened soil?

We won so many wars together, victories snatched from the jaws of ignominious defeat. I could use them, now.