girl.
All these nevers are what I’m going to take away with me.
I am clipped into a harness which is fastened by another clip to the end of the rope. Then the sandbags are attached to the harness so I am weighted down. A man in an astronaut suit and gravity boots like our moon man wears, but a lot cleaner, enters the room. His face is lost behind the shimmer of a golden glass visor. He, too, is being attached to something. What, I can’t see.
A man in a white coat tells me, “You must pull up and down on the rope when we say so.”
I do and I see why they wanted me. My feet leave the ground. The astronaut at the other end is suspended from the rope by nearly invisible wires. I’m not sure how, but by pushing my weight up and down the man rises from the floor just enough to make it look like there’s no gravity. The rope glides this way and that along the beam.
After a bit I feel too thirsty to go on. It’s hot in this harness, I can tell you. I stop. I am not jumping up and down anymore. A guard comes over to me. He might be Mr. Gunnell’s twin brother. That’s if Mr. Gunnell had a twin brother, one that doesn’t wear a toupee. They both have the same “I will kill you” look about them. They both have flat backs of heads.
“Move.” He pokes at me. Meat hung up to be screwered.
The astronaut stands waiting. I don’t care. I want a glass of water.
What am I doing?
I ask myself. For the guard looks ready to make mincemeat of me. I have ruined my only chance of carrying out my plan, my one and only chance of showing Gramps’s words to the world. Fool. For what? A glass of water.
This is what I’m thinking as the astronaut leaves the room. A white-coated man appears. He calls the guard over. The guard too leaves the room so here I am, just the white-coated man and me. He stands there staring straight — no, more crooked, I would say — at me as if I was an alien species. I feel like telling him I am from planet Juniper. I don’t. Instead I stare down at the cement floor.
I look up when he says, “You are the first one who can do this. Unlike the others, you are healthy.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“You have stamina.”
“I’m one of the new intake, sir.”
He doesn’t answer. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
It was a relief, I can tell you, to see the guard come back with a glass of water and a hunk of brown bread.
Brown bread.
You’re dead.
I drink. I eat.
I am doing my best to think the bread and the water are good signs. That they mean I’ll be clipped back into the harness. Except I’m not. The guard — the one that looks like Mr. Gunnell’s brother — takes me away. Away to where? That’s what’s giving me the heebie-jeebies. My head hurts just thinking about it. Now I’m sure the leather-coat man has found the tunnel, put two and two together, made five. Maybe the white-coated man reported me. At least we are still walking. I think that’s a good sign. We are walking back towards the moon set. Only then does it hit me. Frick-fracking hell! Perhaps I was no good at being the weight at the end of gravity and I am being sent to join the thousands of workers who are brushing the moon surface smooth. I comfort myself that it might be better from that angle to rush out with my sign than be stuck in a harness.
Well, that thought just went out the window.
I am shown a trench in a crease of the moon’s surface. It’s long and thin and curves round a bend. It’s deep enough for me to run back and forth without being seen.
Down there is a man in brown overalls. I am dropped into the trench, and a harness like that of a rucksack is clipped on me at the front. I watch how he does it. Then he attaches invisible wires to my harness.
I can’t see a frick-fracking thing from down here. Then suddenly my feet lift off the ground and the brown overall moves me about as if I’m a puppet.
Which, when you think about it, I am. I am the dead weight that makes the astronaut
All these nevers are what I’m going to take away with me.
I am clipped into a harness which is fastened by another clip to the end of the rope. Then the sandbags are attached to the harness so I am weighted down. A man in an astronaut suit and gravity boots like our moon man wears, but a lot cleaner, enters the room. His face is lost behind the shimmer of a golden glass visor. He, too, is being attached to something. What, I can’t see.
A man in a white coat tells me, “You must pull up and down on the rope when we say so.”
I do and I see why they wanted me. My feet leave the ground. The astronaut at the other end is suspended from the rope by nearly invisible wires. I’m not sure how, but by pushing my weight up and down the man rises from the floor just enough to make it look like there’s no gravity. The rope glides this way and that along the beam.
After a bit I feel too thirsty to go on. It’s hot in this harness, I can tell you. I stop. I am not jumping up and down anymore. A guard comes over to me. He might be Mr. Gunnell’s twin brother. That’s if Mr. Gunnell had a twin brother, one that doesn’t wear a toupee. They both have the same “I will kill you” look about them. They both have flat backs of heads.
“Move.” He pokes at me. Meat hung up to be screwered.
The astronaut stands waiting. I don’t care. I want a glass of water.
What am I doing?
I ask myself. For the guard looks ready to make mincemeat of me. I have ruined my only chance of carrying out my plan, my one and only chance of showing Gramps’s words to the world. Fool. For what? A glass of water.
This is what I’m thinking as the astronaut leaves the room. A white-coated man appears. He calls the guard over. The guard too leaves the room so here I am, just the white-coated man and me. He stands there staring straight — no, more crooked, I would say — at me as if I was an alien species. I feel like telling him I am from planet Juniper. I don’t. Instead I stare down at the cement floor.
I look up when he says, “You are the first one who can do this. Unlike the others, you are healthy.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“You have stamina.”
“I’m one of the new intake, sir.”
He doesn’t answer. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
It was a relief, I can tell you, to see the guard come back with a glass of water and a hunk of brown bread.
Brown bread.
You’re dead.
I drink. I eat.
I am doing my best to think the bread and the water are good signs. That they mean I’ll be clipped back into the harness. Except I’m not. The guard — the one that looks like Mr. Gunnell’s brother — takes me away. Away to where? That’s what’s giving me the heebie-jeebies. My head hurts just thinking about it. Now I’m sure the leather-coat man has found the tunnel, put two and two together, made five. Maybe the white-coated man reported me. At least we are still walking. I think that’s a good sign. We are walking back towards the moon set. Only then does it hit me. Frick-fracking hell! Perhaps I was no good at being the weight at the end of gravity and I am being sent to join the thousands of workers who are brushing the moon surface smooth. I comfort myself that it might be better from that angle to rush out with my sign than be stuck in a harness.
Well, that thought just went out the window.
I am shown a trench in a crease of the moon’s surface. It’s long and thin and curves round a bend. It’s deep enough for me to run back and forth without being seen.
Down there is a man in brown overalls. I am dropped into the trench, and a harness like that of a rucksack is clipped on me at the front. I watch how he does it. Then he attaches invisible wires to my harness.
I can’t see a frick-fracking thing from down here. Then suddenly my feet lift off the ground and the brown overall moves me about as if I’m a puppet.
Which, when you think about it, I am. I am the dead weight that makes the astronaut
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