The Explorer

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One of the first things I did when I realized that I was never going to make it home – when I was the only crewmember left, all the others stuffed into their sleeping chambers like rigid, vacuum-packed action figures – was to write up a list of everybody I would never see again; let me wallow in it, swim around in missing them as much as I could. My name is Cormac Easton. I am a journalist and, I suppose, an astronaut. Part of my job on the ship was to be in charge of the communications with home, taking video and writing updates, sending them back to Earth directly. There wasn’t a guarantee of how long any of the broadcasts would take to get there – if they got there at all, as far out as we were, what with the chance of interference – but it was something. It was how I had been sending all my reports, but I assumed that they’d know what to do with something more personal, that they would pass it along. The list was deep. Elena was at the top. I had missed her before we’d even left. On the days leading up to the launch I had been trying to get hold of her, leaving messages, telling her how I felt, because what screwed us up was this, my job, this trip; and I wanted to see if, when it was all over, we could try again. There’s always hope, that’s what they say. As soon as I worked out that there wasn’t ever going to be that chance for reconciliation? It became something else. I wasn’t missing her any more: it was despair, maybe, or another word for when you fall apart, when you can’t cope, when it all crumbles. I hid my feelings from my crewmates because I didn’t want to ruin their trip, didn’t want to bring them down. That went into my messages.

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