Little Victor broke apart his bed sheets with his thickly gloved hands. As the blankets cracked apart he edged out one shoulder, then the other. Freed, he bobbed slowly above his bed and fumbled with the panel of buttons on his chest. Pressing the release valve in short gusts he floated to the window, and then out into the night sky. He couldn’t feel it through his thick suit and pressurized helmet, but he knew it was cold out there. Out of the confines of the bedroom he unleashed the pressure valve with abandon, moving faster into the blackness.

Lolling his head on the edge of the rolled down window, Victor felt each bump in the road as a clacking of teeth. Molars resonated like deep bassoons, accompanied by the tinny clicks of his front canines. Humming at the back of his throat he provided the melody.

“Victor?” His mother turned to look at him, “Do you feel sick?”

“No mother.” He stopped humming.

Outside, the scenery was flat. Flat, pale yellow and dotted with black rocks and spindly ghost trees. Victor sat his head upright, his chin on the back of his palm, and rolled his eyes. Tipping his head, he flipped the sky vertically, and left it there for a while, white and indifferent. Squeezing the muscles at the back of his eyes he willed the sky to topple sideways and down, to now sit at the bottom of the picture, like the sea he had been to one time with his grandmother.

The water had lain flat, like a giant mirror.

“Where does it end?” He had asked his grandmother.

“It doesn’t,” She replied, “the sea is endless.”
Victor shivered at the memory.

“Look ahead, Victor,” his father said, his voice loud in the silence. “An old graveyard.”

Victor looked out the window and saw a dilapidated, single room church. Out behind it he could see a broken cast iron fence and some crosses, bent over like someone had kicked them. With the scene drawing nearer he rasped air into his chest loudly. His parents laughed softly and his father’s sun burnt hands adjusted their grip on the wheel. The old church drew near, and then loomed above him. He followed it behind him with his eyes to show he wasn’t scared. The church was old and broken, and the wood was white like an old man. Victor breathed out after he’d waited as long as he could.

“There’s no way any ghosts got into you.” His mother laughed.

The roaring sound shook Victor awake but his eyes wouldn’t open, so he lay still and listened. Eventually the roar gave way to other less offensive mechanical sounds. A hiss from behind. Grinding and tapping from above and below. He became aware of his body and wiggled his fingers, a simple but familiar feeling. He remembered where he was and opened his eyes.

Through the window it was black, seemingly endless. Waiting for time to pass he moved other parts of his body. He opened and closed his jaws, screwed up his nose and spread his toes wide apart. And then in a place where hours move like minutes, the rocket finally revolved and lighting up the window was the planet he had come from.