In Space - Memories

Strapped into a hard metal bucket seat, a helmet around his head, going speeds he never thought he'd get to experience, Newt felt elated--so elated he instantly fell into a dream. There he was sitting at the kitchen table, all of twelve, wearing a tie, reading Sophocles, Philoctetes, as his stepfather, Bob, fixed a sink. "Eww," Newt said. Bob grunted. Bob's legs came out of a cabinet door, but his legs moved in such a way that you could tell he was prodding something with another something.

"This is sick," Newt said again, trying to get Bob's attention. Bob kept on grunting, moving his legs, and fiddling with what appeared to be the intimate parts of the sink. "This guy's leg is gangrene, and he's been all alone on this island. But he's got this bow that the Greeks want, it's Hercules', and they need it to win the Trojan War, and so the Greeks are coming to take it back from the guy."

More silence, grunting.

"But this bow is the only reason why he's been able to survive. It's mean, isn't it?"

Grunt grunt, hand out of door, grasping around on the floor for tools.

The hard metal seat shook. Newt came out of the dream for a moment, and wondered if he had some sort of bruise or rash or mark from sitting. "Why do you have these awful seats?" he asked the other astronauts.

"Low cost," one of them shouted.

Newt struck an "Oh right" face, and fell back into dreaming. Again: twelve, tie, stepfather, sink. "Do you think Philoctetes, this guy with the bow--do you think he'd resent that? People coming back to take the bow?"

Bob sighed and stopped moving around. "Might makes right, right?" he said, sounding strained.

Newt affixed a look of natural shock--Bob usually didn't actually respond. This would have made the first four words the man had said to Newt in days.

"I guess," Newt said, his eyes rolling into a thinking position. A clinking noise from under the sink meant that Bob was back at work, and Newt sat, almost frozen in his chair, wondering about the moral complications of Philoctetes' situation. And the metal seat smarted.