Tellus | ONC 2020

089:06:27:23:00:45

It's February, yet the AC is running on high to render the indoor climate cool and dry in contrast to the warm and humid air outside. The Heroes and Legends building at the Kennedy Space Center has no windows, and I'm not sure whether the cold air or the heavy atmosphere is to blame for the goosebumps that cover my body.

Hundreds of luminated eyes are staring at me as I move across the room with careful, silent steps. I don't have to be quiet, as it is still hours before the center opens for visitors. But, somehow, I feel like I'm at a graveyard. The portraits captured in the circular glass frames that cover the walls from floor to ceiling commemorate every astronaut that ever contributed to the field of astronautics. Outside it is probably darker than in here, as the accumulated light of the astronauts' faces sheds a dull golden light on my otherwise darkened features.

I turn a corner to find the collection of people who were born in the 2030's and repeat the path that I have walked so many times before.

My blue irises immediately locate his brown, olive shaped eyes. His thick, dark hair lay on his head like a soft helmet, and if I ever cut my hair short, this is probably exactly what I would look like. Which is also the reason I never did have it short. I always fought to be different from him, yet here I stand. My father is looking back at me, smiling, as if he always knew I would be here.

He was never known to be an astronaut, but he had traveled to space a couple times to spend several months on the International Space Station, where he could work on his research in the environment of space. Mimicking the astronauts around him, he is portrayed wearing a space suit not much different from the one I am currently in. His helmet is off, and the round metal collar is resting against his chest. The frame cuts him off just below the collar to fit him in on the wall with all the rest of the NASA Hall of Famers. He looks exactly like I remember him. They couldn't have known that he was going to die the following week, when they had scheduled his portrait to be taken, but this photo was one of the last ones taken of him. He didn't even get to see his place on the wall. I was fifteen. I wish he could see me now.

"I thought I would find you here. He would have been proud of you," my mother has entered the room just as quietly as I had, but somehow her easy voice doesn't startle me. I hesitate to remove my eyes from my father's picture to look back at her with saddened regret.

"Please," I frown, "Maybe if he wasn't so busy sacrificing himself for science, he would've actually cared enough about me to be proud."

My words hit her hard. She doesn't tell me, but her eyes begin to hang a little and her lips are subtly divided. She really loved him. So did I, I guess. I just never quit being mad at him. Maybe someday I would understand, he always said. Maybe I wouldn't.

"Sorry," I grab her hand, "I know he meant well. And I wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for his efforts. It's just – sometimes he forgot to be a father too."

I have to be nice. And, while the words that come out of my mouth are true, his accomplishments as a scientist could never fill the void that the absence of my father has left in my life. Don't get me wrong, he was in our lives – physically. He would come home every day after dinner, spend most nights in his bed next to my mom, and then he would be gone early in the morning, sometimes before I would even be up. Occasionally, I wouldn't see him for days at a time. But his life revolved around space. Or floated around up there, or whatever.

My mom, however, was always there for me, compensating for the shortcomings of my father. There was this one time, Mom had to accompany me to my school's Father-Daughter Dance. She even wore a suit. To be honest, she kind of killed it – but of course, I never told her that. If I would have ever got married, she would probably be the one to walk me down the aisle, while my dad would arrive late to the event. That is, if he hadn't wound up dying so soon. But I won't be getting married. I gave that life up years ago.