My First Death

I feel that calling this my first death is rather apt, if somewhat dramatic; after all, what is death but leaving behind what we have known our whole lives and moving towards something unknown? Which is exactly what my crew and I are about to do.

The lead-up to this day has taken decades to culminate. Perhaps, more aptly, it has taken the entire existence of humanity. It is impossible to pinpoint exactly when or where ideas began. All our advancements in medicine, technology and, most appropriately, space travel have come from these humble beginnings, woven together in a delicate web of human knowledge.

These thoughts run through my mind as I stand in the centre of our prep room, acting the part of a mannequin while dozens of technicians and specialists help dress me. I long ago got over the twinge of embarrassment at being nearly nude and the sole focus of attention amongst many. The rest of my crew stand around the room—flowers to the technician bees buzzing about. Everyone here is so professional and so focused on their assigned tasks that it seems as if they view me as a plastic storefront dummy they are dressing. Their eyes refuse to meet mine. When they touch me to add another layer, it is done with the same clinical detachment as a Pap test or a prostate exam. Yes, we’re both in this space together, but let’s pretend we are in entirely separate realms.

I am handed a pair of thermal underwear, aka long johns, which I can don myself. I stand, waiting again.

“Right leg up, please.”

My right leg lifts so it can be inserted into my liquid-cooling ventilation garment.

“Left leg.”

My arms are guided into my LCVG, and it is zipped up.

I think it might be my first memory. My mom is helping me into my new clothes. One of my first school days. Second grade? Maybe third? Her face is so beautiful, her touch so gentle. I’m excited and scared. She is encouraging and calm. Her love is an aura of warmth blanketing me. The memory fades.

I stare numbly ahead. A million dancing butterfly thoughts hold my focus.

Perhaps I make the people here uncomfortable. Everyone here knows I am never coming back—even if this mission is successful. We’ve worked closely for months as I’ve been measured, fitted, then refitted for the many required layers. We have come to know one another. But today is different.

Today is when that close friend sits down over coffee to tell you that the slight but persistent cough, the oddly shaped mark on their skin, or the lump where no lump should be is terminal. That your friendship has only a month left, at best. The awkwardness seeps in. You feel you should offer comfort, yet your primal core recoils. Instinctively, you think there’s no point staying here to be killed by the circling predators, too—run! The truly awful part of yourself, the part any decent person would deny, is screaming in your head: Thank goodness it’s not me!

Perhaps these are some of the thoughts of the others in this chamber with me. Perhaps they wish they had the right words to ease my transition. Perhaps they wish their part in all of this were over, and they could leave this place of dying. Perhaps everyone around me is thinking, but for the grace of God, go I.

I don’t blame them; in fact, I feel a little bad for being the reason things are uncomfortable. I chose this mission; when I signed the papers, I knew exactly how this would play out—at least the part about not returning. It’s okay; I’m ready to go, I could tell them. I’ve made my peace with this, I could say. But perhaps these deathbed confessions would make things even weirder. We are trying to act professionally, after all.

And I have made my peace with this first death. At least I think I have. I guess I’ll find out soon.

I break from my reverie as Adam gently grasps my elbow and guides me to the suiting chair. It is a Lazy-boy-esque lounge chair that will enable me to get into my pressure suit. The official term is Advanced Crew Escape Suit, abbreviated to ACES, as most things are in this place. I prefer the colloquial “pumpkin suit” instead.

Mary and Abdul help me into the pant legs, then the arms and finally my head through the helmet ring. It’s zipped up. I’m in my adult onesie now.

“Good to go,” says Abdul as he steps away.

“Right as rain,” states Mary.

Both their voices are artificially high and chipper, yet we all tacitly ignore it.

George walks up to me carrying my Snoopy cap. Its technical name is communications carrier assembly, but because it resembles the aviator cap worn by the Red Baron's famous nemesis, it has earned this nickname.

He manages to meet my gaze and even smiles a little. He’s one of the oldest in this room, so perhaps he’s a little wiser and more comfortable with endings.

“Ready?” he asks.

I chuff out a breath and give him a small smile in return. “Foot on the starting block, George.”

He nods and holds up the cap, silently asking permission to put it on my head. The cap fits snugly.

A faint crackling noise, then I hear, “How do you read?”

I reply, “Loud and clear.” Snoopy cap, check.

Next come the gloves—a marriage of bulky protection and ease of movement. I suddenly realise I have touched my last tree trunk and brushed my baby nephew’s smooth cheek for the last time. I will no longer feel grass blades on a lawn or the warmth of a campfire on a chilly night. My fingers will never plunge into the yielding softness of dough while kneading, nor feel the softness of fur as I stroke my cat’s back.

Out of all the things I’d prepared for, braced myself for, this was one I hadn’t considered. I had worked with the psychologists over the months and years of prep, making sure I was of sound mind and prepared for the isolation, the lack of society, and everything I’d known. I was ready for the silence of everything but my crew members’ voices and machinery. I was prepared to accept the lack of visual stimulation and colour in my new habitat. And I had resigned myself to a bland and boring diet—at least for the first several years. But tactile sensation hadn’t occurred to me.

This realisation causes my heart to pause briefly, then it makes up for the hesitation with a flurry of palpitations. The fear starts to creep back in—it is never far away these days.

A hot, prickly rush of adrenaline surges through me. Taking a deep breath, I begin the breathing exercises I’d been trained in. I look around, using the people and objects in the room to anchor me in the present.

‘You are okay. This will pass. You are fully trained; you will adapt and survive.’ The techniques gradually take effect, and I can feel calm reassert itself.

The helmet is the last to be placed over my head, locking onto the neck ring. I feel slight bumps and nudges as they attach me to the air hoses. A moment later, my suit inflates to check for leaks. Apparently, all is well, as the pressure soon dissipates and helping hands lift me from the chair.

I remove my helmet and take one of my last few breaths of Earth air. I could count them now; there are so few left. I will soon breathe only a carefully concocted gas mixture, constantly assessed and adjusted to ensure we have enough of all the right ingredients to keep us alive. Will I miss the nuances of Earth air? Earth air is water drunk from a wild stream; the air I will breathe out there will be distilled water. Essentially the same, yet somehow lacking.

The rest of my crew are on their feet now as well. We have trained together for ages; we can practically read one another’s minds. Perhaps this is an unfortunate skill now, as I see my fear echoed in their eyes. I break eye contact. I force myself to focus on my Earth breaths. One-two-three-four. Release. One-two-three-four, breathe in. I will not look at them again unless necessary.

We are ready. We all turn towards the exit doors, towards the hallway that will lead to the launch pad. In recent months, I’ve considered how those assigned to death feel as they move towards their end. What thoughts ran through their minds? What sights did their desperate gazes fix on? Did they count each breath? Savour even the most rancid smells? Touch everything they could before the manacles were placed around their wrists?

We step through the doors onto the launch pad. The doors click shut behind me. Bright sunlight assails my eyes. I shut my eyes and lift my face to the warmth. Will I ever feel this again? Or will I only ever perceive light through my helmet? A gentle breeze pats my cheek like a doting grandmother. Never again. The briny scent of the nearby sea wafts to me, mingling with the smell of oil and fuel from the tarmac. It is ambrosial to my senses. I open my eyes again, and the world is bleary for a moment until I blink several times.

The usual throng of good-bye people stands before us, held at a respectful distance by long metal fences and grim-faced security guards. I force my face into a rictus grin. I raise my gloved hand, waving the numb limb in a parody of good cheer. The other orange mannequins are doing the same at my side. We endure the calls and camera flashes and are grateful when our handlers release us from this farce of levity.  My last steps upon terra firma begin.

Before I know it, we are crowded together in the lift, my last ride in an elevator. Everything today is a ‘last of’. This time, the swoop in my stomach comes from the sudden rise, not another bout of fear—although that still crouches in the corner of my mind. I’ve only temporarily driven the tiger back with a whip and a chair.

Eternity rides with us as the good-bye people and buildings shrink below us. No one speaks. The clunking and thudding of the mechanisms around us sound loudly in this crowded, silent space.

I hear a clock start up in my head.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Going to the loading dock.

Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. This life goes by far too quick.

A sudden, hysterical laugh tries to claw its way up my throat. But that would be inappropriate and likely call my mental state into question, so I stifle it. Instead, I stare past the others' heads, out the glass pane, to where I can see the expanding vista of blue sky, blue ocean, white clouds and white-capped waves. Such symmetry. Such beauty.

A final loud clunk, another small swoop in my stomach, and the lift comes to a halt. Intrusive thoughts crowd my mind, vying for dominance. What if there’s an earthquake right now and our twenty-five-story launch tower buckles? What if the walkway to the ship isn’t properly secured and drops like a trapdoor beneath us? What if an ignoramus worker below decides to light a cigarette and millions of tons of rocket fuel make us go poof instantly?

None of these things happens, of course, but the ideas have done their job. I feel my hands trembling, and my legs are like rubber. Luckily, the suit prevents others from seeing my fear. There is very little talking now. I hear a few quiet murmurs from those not on the crew. We, who are about to die our first death, are silent.

The next moments pass me in a fugue; when I once more recognise the world around me, the technicians have all of us strapped in. I feel a hand on my shoulder; a squeeze, ‘Good luck’, muffled by the helmet. There is a definitive clang and click as the hatch seals us in our execution chamber. Locked and loaded. Ready to roll.

I stare ahead at the myriad of buttons and screens. Muscle memory guides me to tap the right icons and flip the right switches for the pre-launch run-through. I hear the drone of the flight control team, safely tucked away in their bunker.

“Weather?”

“We’re good to go.”

“Engineering?”

“It’s all good.”

“Safety check?”

“It’s a go.”

A message intones in my ear, “Close and lock visors. Initiate oxygen flow.”

We obediently do as told, and the cabin grows dimmer. I feel the cool air flow against my skin.

“Oxygen good,” I reply, and I hear the other crew members chime in as well.

All the boxes are ticked. It’s time.

The launch director comes on: “Good luck. Humanity's future travels with you. Godspeed.”

I hear the countdown begin: “Ten, nine, eight…”

This is it. This is really happening. I am leaving behind all I have known, all the familiar things I called life.

“Seven, six, five, four…”

My only family is my sister, her husband and her son. I have a few friends, too. Images of their happy and sad faces rush through my mind as a pang strikes the centre of my chest. I remember the warmth and snugness of their hugs. I remember my nephew's new-baby smell. I held each of them close for the last time in the hospice of my quarantine chamber.

“Three, two, one, blast off!” My friends yelled as we leapt in unison from the bridge into the chilly water below. The memory springs to mind, rich and beautiful. The sun glinting off the surface, the sound of songbirds, the shock to the senses as the cold water gulps us down. Surfacing, spluttering, laughing and alive. 

I feel rather than hear the distant rumbling start twenty-five floors below me. The crescendo builds as the reverberations shake their way up to us. A roaring, thunderous growl emanates from the dragon beneath us, overwhelming my senses. Noise and shaking fill my world as I feel an elephant slowly settle on my chest.

It is true: I learn that your life flashes before your eyes as you prepare to leave this world. Brief glimpses of random moments, events and people flick across the screen of my mind. There’s no order, no sequence, just feelings. It’s all about the feelings. The joy, sorrow, anger, glee, jealousy, yearning, hate, love. This is where life resides.

The cacophony and convulsions reach a crescendo. I can’t breathe now that the elephant is firmly on my chest; my concrete legs and arms won’t budge, and my teeth feel as if they could rattle from my head. Just when it seems like the rocket, and I can’t take any more, everything suddenly goes silent and still. The pressure is gone. My body is my own.

Distantly, I recognise the cheering through the headphones. We are through; we are untethered from our earthly bonds.

I finally look around, and it feels safe to make eye contact again. We unclasp our harnesses and gently float towards the windows. Peering out, I see the star-pricked emptiness and am humbled. Stars upon stars, galaxies upon galaxies. It is breathtakingly beautiful. A tranquil calm settles over me. The scary transition is over. I’ve made it to the other side. A whole new life awaits me out here. Whenever my second, and final, death comes, perhaps I will approach it with less trepidation. Leaving behind everything you’ve known for your whole life is not an ending; it is a transition into the unknown, and that unknown holds an infinity of possibilities. My first death was spectacular.