Rocket Man

You wake up at 0600. Same as yesterday. Same as tomorrow.

The coffee tastes like metal. Everything tastes like metal up here. You drink it anyway because ritual is the only thing keeping you tethered to the person you used to be.

Outside the window—and you’ve stopped looking, mostly, because wonder has a shelf life—the Earth hangs there. Blue and white and impossibly small. Everyone you’ve ever met is on that marble. Everyone you’ve ever loved.

You’re not there. You’re here. And it’s just a job.

Five days a week. That’s what you signed up for. The mission briefs called it an honor, a privilege, the culmination of human achievement. They didn’t mention the silence. They didn’t mention how loud your own breathing gets when there’s nothing else to hear.

You think about your kid. She’s seven now—or is it eight? The days blur up here. No sunrise, no sunset, just the station rotating and the schedule beeping and the endless checklist of tasks that keep you too busy to feel anything.

Your wife’s voice on the comm link sounds like she’s underwater. Delay makes conversation impossible. By the time your words reach her, she’s already moved on to the next sentence. You talk past each other, two monologues pretending to be a dialogue.

“I miss you,” you say.

Three seconds later: “We miss you too.”

But you can hear it. The distance that isn’t just miles. The life she’s building without you because she has to, because the kids need a parent who’s there, because you chose this and she’s doing her best not to resent you for it.

You float to the observation deck. Force yourself to look.

The Earth doesn’t care that you’re homesick. It just spins. The continents drift past like screensavers. Somewhere down there, people are eating dinner, watching TV, complaining about traffic. Normal things. Earth things.

You wanted this. You trained for years. You beat out thousands of candidates. You’re living the dream.

The dream is lonelier than they told you.

And it’s gonna be a long, long time before you touch down again. Before gravity holds you. Before your daughter’s arms reach around your neck and you remember what it feels like to be needed in person, not just in theory.

You finish the coffee. You check the schedule. You do your job.

Mars is next, they say. Further. Longer. More historic.

You haven’t decided if you’ll volunteer.

You probably will.

Burning out your fuse up here alone.