by Edward Es
“I would say it has to be perfect. Whatever anyone would want it to be, then that’s what God would give them.”
“You said it was different in each person’s eyes. I always remembered that.” He looks back at the rocket, and once more at Tom. “Don’t forget, I’m part of your heaven, too.” Noah strokes his father’s hair. “Live every day like it was your first, and your last. And realize that the measure of your life is not how many breaths you take, but how many times your breath is taken away. Please, be happy. For me.”
Tom embraces Noah one last time. “I promise I will be. For you. And for me, too.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
“Oh, and how I love you, Noah.”
Tom lays his forehead on the little boy’s chest and lets the tears flow, then pulls back and sees them running silver, like liquid mercury, laying on Noah’s suit. In them he sees reflected his sorrows, all the sorrows of men, and shining back as well the exaltation of rebirth, and of reconciliation. And in them, he sees himself reflected. He is a child.
Noah takes Tom’s face in both hands. As Tom looks up, he sees sky in Noah’s eyes. Bright blue sky with perfect clouds. Noah lets go and walks over to the fence where his two companions gently touch his shoulders, then turns back. “Tell Mr. Meyerkamp that it was ‘Yagi’.”
“Yagi?” Tom responds, wiping the silver tears from his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Rusty’s first word. It was their Siamese cat, Mr. Miyagi. He saw him jump on the couch and pointed at him.” Noah is escorted to the door of the rocket. He enters, stands in the doorway, and looks back. With a cheerful wave he says,
“I’ll see ya later, Daddy.”
Tom waves back and watches as a hand, then forearm, appear from inside the door, those of a young girl. Dancing in and out of the doorway is the hem of a cream-white dress. Noah looks up at a face that Tom can’t see, takes the hand, and disappears as the doorway dissolves into the side of the ship. Tom stares, unable to move. After a moment, streaks of colored laser light blast out from under the ship, bouncing in all directions, followed by a spectral burst of steam and sparks that blind him as he partly covers his eyes with his arm. The ship appears to lift off, but really becomes engulfed in the blaze of surrealistic light. Tom buries his head in his arm.
Francine sits on the edge of her bed, eyes closed, sobbing, the picture clutched to her chest. Her tears, however, evidenced by the brilliant smile on her face, are tears of joy and gratitude.
Roberta has fallen into a deep sleep in the chair outside the Starbridge. She’s suddenly awakened and looks around, then hears a bloodcurdling sound, that of bones snapping, as if some giant were cracking his knuckles, and it’s coming from the Starbridge. In fear, she rises, moves to the door, and slowly opens it. When her eyes adjust to the dark, they fill, and her mouth drops as she covers it, motioning the sign of the cross with her other hand.
“Oh, dear Jesus! Melody!”
Tom floats outside the capsule, back in his suit, his eyes closed as if in sleep. He slowly opens them, and as he regains his bearings, turns himself around and faces the capsule, cast against the Moon. Around the moon’s approaching edge is a glow, one he knows to be an impending Earthrise. Tranquility has overtaken his sorrow as Noah’s works drift through him, washing it with the first peace he has felt since his son died.
As he watches transfixed, the Earth rises with a flash of earthlight that sweeps across him and the capsule. He pulls himself to the LEM compartment, closes it, locks it, and continues to the hatch, going in head first.
Zion, still velcroed to the wall, hears noise coming from the other side of the door, which opens with a hiss. Tom stumbles in, the suit floating in the pressure lock behind him. He pulls himself into the chair and rubs his face as Zion looks at him. Out the window, the Earth shines over the lunar horizon, and then, from the corner of his eye, he catches something on the monitor. It’s a flashing red annunciator: ERROR.
Inside Johnson Space Center, only a few engineers man screens at this hour. One of them looks puzzled and waves his colleague over. “Would you take a look at this?”
“What’s going on?”
“It the Holmes vehicle. We just regained tracking on him.”
“So? What is it?”
“Look,” he says, tapping the screen with his pen.
The other looks intently at the screen, inputs a few keystrokes, and raises first one, then the other eyebrow. “This can’t be right. Not from what they’ve told us.” He motions to another. “Hey, Elmer. Come over here a minute.”
Sam is slumped over in a chair, asleep, as the Doctor, his own eyes at half-mast, stares at his panel monitor. The path projection screen, showing the unfortunate trajectory toward the void of space, is frozen with a title underneath stating “LOSS OF SIGNAL” and a clock beneath it counting down from two minutes. As he watches, that statement flashes. The Doctor looks up at the TV monitor and sees it change from snow to a forming image of the Earth, static-riddled at first, then rendering into a clearer image. The panel monitor annunciates “Signal Reacquisition”, and as it does so, the path projection begins bending.
“That’s early,” he whispers, feeling disoriented. With this, Kirshner’s eyes widen. In the corner of the screen appears the same error message present in the capsule. As he watches in astonishment, the path projection bends until it reaches the figure-eight shape, stopping tangent with the Earth’s edge. Kirshner sits straight up in his chair, then reaches for and pushes the transmit switch.
“Thomas, this is Werner, do you copy my transmission?”
After a few seconds, a ragged but intelligible response breaks through. “Yes Doctor, I hear you. About four by three. How me?”
“About the same, but it’s resolving. How are you doing up there?”
The question has in its tone more than mere inquiry. Tom senses this. “Suppose you tell me?”
Kirshner hesitates. “I’m... not sure. Do you see what I see?”
Tom’s voice also hesitates. “I believe I do. Are you getting an error message?”
“Yes, I am. Must have something to do with that path projector. Did you check it out yet?” Kirshner asks.
“No, not yet. Let’s do that now. Let me know what you come up with.”
“Roger that. Hold on.”
Tom punches entries into the keyboard, and the “ERROR” is supplemented by “CODE 36”. He pulls up another page on the screen displaying “MASTER ERROR CODES” with a numbered list he scrolls down until he reaches 36, titled “TIME SYNC”. He highlights this, hits enter, and another screen appears titled “TIME SYNC DATA”, also with an “ERROR” message flashing. The page shows two lines of running clock times, each out to 11000th of a second, the top labeled “Earth Base Zero”, the one below “Capsule”. The capsule time is running some six minutes behind that of Earth. In fact, under the two clocks is annunciated: Discrepancy: -00:06:36.363.
“Doc, you still there?”
“Yes, Tom, go ahead.”
“I’ve got a clock error here.”
“I’ve got the same down here. I show your time base behind six minutes plus. How could that have happened?”
Tom thinks a moment. “I really can’t say. I’ve had a pretty—” In mid-sentence he looks at his Marvin-the-Martian wristwatch and stills. There’s liquid silver across his hand.
Kirshner’s voice brings him back. “Yes? Tom? What is it? Are you still there?” Kirshner looks puzzled.
Sam has finally come around, bleary from a deep sleep. He rises from the chair and walks over beside the Doctor, stretching. With his lips he asks silently, Is Tom back? and receives a nod. Sam feels pleasantly surprised, though not sure why.
“I’m still here. If you can hear me, I guess I’m still... ‘here.’” Tom says.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m not sure if
you’ll believe this.”
“Try me.”
“It’s my wristwatch. It’s six minutes behind your clock, too.”
“You mean it matches the clock up there?”
A wave of static hisses through, then, “Bingo.”
Kirshner looks at Sam. “It’s that silly watch I gave him. I only paid nineteen bucks at Target for it,” Sam explains, not understanding the look on Kirshner’s face.
Kirshner’s look doesn’t change. In fact, he never takes his eyes off Sam. “I tell you what, Thomas. Let me think about this. I’ll get back to you.”
“Fine with me. I’m not going anywhere.”
Kirshner lets go of the transmit switch. “I don’t believe you are, my boy. I don’t believe you are.”
Sam stares the Doctor down. “What?”
“Sit down, Samuel.” Kirshner moves the chair toward him as Sam looks anxiously at the monitor. “Please. Sit down.”
The capsule streaks by, headed toward Earth.
Eden Cove
Star That Runs
CHAPTER FIVE
And when the rainbow steps emerged
Through clouds into Forever Land,
My Diamond Girl took both my hands
To bless my spirit with these words:
“The skies of all the days of men
Have gathered in your gentle eyes
To show us nothing ever dies
Where children’s smiles and love have been.”
A street of gold stretched out a path.
We walked along, each step a dream,
Along a singing silver stream,
Through fields of bright green Easter grass.
It took us through a yellow wood
Of chocolate trees and candy ferns,
Then ‘round an ice cream hill we turned,
Before the Lake of Joy we stood.
Reflected in its golden shine
Forever City shimmered bright,
And from its gates a ray of light
Flowed rainbows from her eyes to mine.
I woke then to a gentle rain,
Back in my quiet room alone.
I looked around, I felt my home,
The Moon beamed through my windowpane.
Up above, the cartoon stars
Shined through a patch in painted clouds.
The pea-green boat lamp softly glowed
Upon the owl’s still guitar.
God is a child, I realize.
He is like me, with sky for eyes;
His smile the light we travel by,
His love the wing that makes us fly.
He laughs, He cries, He runs, He plays,
His tears have washed our pain away.
He brought me Diamond Girl to say,
He’ll see us on Forever Day.
Noah Holmes, Age 8
Noelle is again in restless sleep when the faint glow of dawn invades the room. The phone rings, jolting her into the day yet again. She looks around, disoriented as the persistent ring grows louder with each burst, rubs her eyes, and sits up on the side of the bed. “This is getting to be a frigging routine. Who needs an alarm clock?” Noelle snatches up the phone. “Who is it, and what is it?”
“Miss Crane, it’s Werner. I was wondering if you could come to my home as soon as possible.”
She pulls her hair back, trying to wake up. “Is there something happening?”
“I’d prefer not to discuss it over the phone. Could you come?”
“I take it you mean... right now.”
“If you don’t mind. And please, no cameras.”
“I see. As you wish. I’ll be there as soon as I get dressed.” Noelle hangs up with her finger, thinks, then enters a number.
After a couple of rings, Nauman groans, “Hello?” He looks like a hybrid of Nicolas Cage and Stan Laurel in the morning.
“Jeff, it’s me. Is there anything going on, with Kirshner, or Holmes, or anything like that?”
“Not that I’ve heard. The capsule should be back in contact, but nobody’s called me. Why? What is it?”
“Nothing. Never mind. I’ll call you later.”
“I don’t get it. What—”
She hangs up, leaving him with his mouth open. He sits up and enters a number of his own.
Noelle’s car pulls up in front of Kirshner’s house to find a CNN van in front with an impatient reporter pacing, camera ready. She gets out of her car and walks toward the front door like she doesn’t see him. He heads her off at the front porch. “Never mind, he’s not answering the door,” he snipes.
“What are you doing here?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Oh, I see. It’s not out yet.”
Noelle takes off her sunglasses. “What’s not out yet?”
The reporter gloats, “Our sources at NASA got the information for us. Must still be ‘in house’. Just watch CNN if you get a chance. Isn’t that where you get most of your story line anyway?”
She’s tempted to strike back, but restrains herself. Instead, she walks up to the front door and rings the bell. The curtains protecting the picture window part, then the door opens to let her in. The reporter rushes up. “Dr. Kirshner, do you have any comment about this so-called hoax regarding the Holmes expedition?”
Noelle turns around sharply, indignant and confused by the question. Kirshner grabs her arm and pulls her in, glaring at the reporter as he slams the door shut. The reporter looks at his cameraman in frustration.
Thirty minutes later the front door opens and the crew outside, joined by several others, scurries to attention, cameras and microphones pointed. Noelle accepts a warm hug from Kirshner, who quickly withdraws. She walks forward, stopping at the position for her statement as if it were marked. As soon as the first question flies, she holds up her hand.
“There are no statements to be made at this time. Dr. Kirshner will not have anything to say until a press conference to be held later today.” She looks directly at the reporter. “Check your local ABN station for details.” At this, she marches to her car, gets in, and speeds away.
Sid is watching CNN at The El Rio when there’s a knock on the glass door. He moves over and opens it without taking his eyes off the screen until he realizes it’s Noelle. She embraces him and doesn’t release at the normal rhythm. When she finally lets go he sees something in her eyes, some giant, amazing secret. “Noelle, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m liking it better every second. You feel like letting me in on it?”
They both turn toward the TV to see footage of Noelle walking away from the reporters at Kirshner’s house. Sid senses the triumph in that walk and turns to her. “What are you up to, Supergirl?” They turn back toward the screen as the CNN anchor appears.
“To reiterate, there are unconfirmed, yet reliable reports from NASA that the Holmes capsule is in fact returning toward Earth, contrary to the scenario laid out by Dr. Werner Kirshner. As the entire world knows, he stated that Holmes was doomed on a trajectory toward outer space due to a malfunction of one of the capsule’s rocket engines. This development has led to speculation that the entire story was some kind of hoax, a cruel one if true, considering the reaction by children around the world and their prayers for help. We are told by Noelle Crane of ABN, the only person Kirshner would speak to, that a press conference will be held sometime later today.”
Sid turns to Noelle with a look of wonder. “No way.”
“Very big way. Very big, and very real.”
“But I don’t—”
Noelle takes his hand in hers, tightly. “I’ll explain in the car. Right now, we’re going to church.”
“Church?”
“Church. Don’t worry, no lightning bolts for unattendance. A few enlightening ones, maybe. Come on.” She leads him out as he scr
ambles for his key and barely slides the door shut.
Though the storm has passed on, left behind are billowing, threatening thunderheads, contrasted against a brilliant blue sky, trailing centurions heeding the land not to forget what has moved on. Rays of light streaking through the canyon from the rising Sun illuminate them and cast dark shadows beneath, shadows that crawl down the canyon and over Springdale like reverse spotlights.
Much of the population of Springdale filters into Emmanuel Church as Sid parks the car. He gets out and runs around to open her door, helping her out. A frigid gust of wind cuts through as a shadow overtakes them, casting darkness over the church. Noelle pulls her sweater tighter and Sid puts his arm around her. Both of them look up toward the foreboding sky. “It’s not over yet,” Sid remarks.
She looks over at a canyon wall and the shadow that cuts across it. “’Even the darkness is not dark to thee, the night is bright as the day; for darkness is as light.’”
All he can say is, “Wow.”
“They were my Dad’s last words to me. It was his favorite Psalm. He was a pastor.” Sid strokes her hair, looks into her eyes, and in that moment, falls in love with her.
The congregation doesn’t notice Noelle and Sid take seats next to the aisle in the back pew. A frightening flash of lightning strikes, followed by thunder that rattles the stained-glass windows as rain begins spattering on the roof.
Pastor Neal stands in front. “Let’s us pray. Heavenly Father, as we gather before you today and hear outside this church the might of your power, we are reminded of the magnificent way you care for us. Even as the thunder and lightning frighten us, yet are followed by falling rain which cleanses and nourishes us, so it is, Father, that your great love and power bring to us righteous and reverent fear, followed by your gentle healing hand. Be with us today, Lord, and nourish us with the flood of your Spirit, that we might understand how much you love us. Amen.” Neal addresses the congregation. “Won’t you all please stand as we begin our worship today in song?”