One Last Star

Mark Zantz looked up at the night sky through the windshield of his gray SUV. His view of the stars from down on earth, clouded with pollution, an endless expanse of inky black loomed above. Mark glanced down at his watch, squinting through the darkness. It was 11pm, one hour until launch.

A cold wind blew across the full parking lot, the silence was somehow deafening. There were hundreds of cars, but not a single light brightened the lot. Mark focused his gaze on the main attraction of the night, the reason he had spent months driving back and forth from a hotel a couple miles away. Training, perfecting, preparing for tonight. The sight that greeted him was worth every minute. Above him, a sleek, silver rocket, broken up occasionally by large, circular windows of thick glass. The rocket towered over the surrounding terrain, Mark marveled at the great achievement before him, a true needle in a haystack.

Bright lights showed on the base of the rocket, illuminating enormous, black thrusters that had taken months of trial and error to perfect, and casting walls the size of skyscrapers in deep shadow. The massive structure seemed to fade into the night sky.

Mark straightened up and exited his car, slamming the door shut behind him. The usually sharp sound seemed strangely muffled here and was quickly swallowed up by the thick silence. The headlights on Mark’s car briefly illuminated the face of his watch. Mark smiled. On the watch face was a picture of his daughter Cassie, her big blue eyes gleaming with joy. Mark remembered when the picture had been taken. It had been a warm Monday morning, school had been canceled due to a storm induced power outage and he had decided to treat 8 year old Cassie to a day on the beach. He remembered how her curly blonde hair had whipped around in the wind as she had danced in the surf, not a care in the world. A terrible car crash had taken away her mother the same year. That day at the beach had been the first time in months that Mark had seen a smile brighten his daughter’s face. It was a beautiful thing.

The headlights of Mark’s SUV slowly faded, taking the memory with them. Plunged in darkness, Mark pulled his heavy jacket tighter around himself. The night was cold. He pulled the hood low over his face as a punishing wind began to add to the initial chill. Mark slowly made his way toward a low building that paralleled the rocket, its windows bright. The empty cars on either side of Mark seemed to be closing in on him. Mark quickened his pace.

Reaching the large, glass doors of the building, bathed in light, Mark’s shadow grew. Gaining no warmth from the light, he shivered. Two tall, muscular men in military uniform stood on either side of the doorway, each held a rifle in hand. When Mark stepped into the light, both men moved to block the entrance. Mark held up his ID, eyeing their rifles warily. One of the guards stepped forward to inspect it, studying it carefully. After a moment the guard snapped to attention. Rifle lowered, he returned Mark’s ID and saluted as he passed.

Stepping into the building, Mark was met by a rush of noise. Hundreds of people could be found running back and forth, carting equipment through bustling hallways, barking orders into headsets, and diligently monitoring various devices. Mark lowered his hood with a resigned sigh. The dead silence that followed was almost as great as that of the empty lot. The large crowd quickly parted for Mark as he walked briskly down the wide hallway, his head held high. Making a beeline for a large set of double doors at the end of the hall, Mark scarcely looked up. Wherever he walked, whispers would follow. Rumors spread like wildfire through the crowded complex. Mark glanced longingly at the glass doors he had just entered. A minute ago, the cold, silent lot had seemed sinister and uninviting. However, when faced with this restless crowd, Mark longed for solitude. Nevertheless, he pressed forward, forcing his thoughts toward the task ahead.

Mark entered the main space of the compound. Stepping onto a small landing, Mark was met with a blast of cold AC. As if it weren’t cold enough outside. A short set of stairs led down to the room’s low floor, small cubicles were spaced in a grid every few feet. Each of the cubicles held a worker and a small computer. The room was quite spacious and much quieter than the chaos in the hallways, the only noticeable sounds were the constant clacking of keys. All around the walls, large computer monitors blared statistics and various live news feeds, while smaller monitors displayed hundreds of lines of code. About fifty people occupied the large space, hunched over keyboards and laptops.

Again, when Mark walked in, the clacking stopped, the room fell silent, the calm before the storm. Mark confidently strolled across the room, not bothering to look around, and entered another, smaller room. In this room, Mark was fitted into a large white space suit by two nervous looking maintenance men. A layer of insulation made the suit hot and stuffy, Mark began to sweat profoundly. Even though it was uncomfortable and the bulky suit wasn’t ideal, it was fairly light and Mark was able to maneuver in it without difficulty. A large helmet with a tinted, glass visor accompanied the suit, as well as a heavy backpack that held a large air tank and displayed a multitude of colorful buttons and gauges. Mark exited the room through a plain, unmarked door and stepped outside once more.

Mark now stood at the base of the massive thrusters he had seen from the parking lot, he felt like an ant standing on the threshold of a giant. A crowd of people came to greet Mark as he strode onto the wide launch platform. A mix of reporters and government officials bombarded Mark with questions as a multitude of cameras and microphones were shoved toward his visor and a crew of maintenance staff made final checks on his suit. Mark waved them off and continued onward, a knot of tension beginning to form in his gut.

Mark approached a narrow, rickety looking elevator shaft, craning his neck to see where it ended. The shaft rose hundreds of feet into the air before branching into a long, narrow bridge that connected with the rocket’s cockpit. Mark took a deep, calming breath before entering the cramped elevator car. Being careful not to damage his extremely expensive suit, Mark turned to press the elevator’s only button. The metal grilles clanged shut as the small car began to rise. A loud grinding and rattling came from above as the rusted chain began to grind slowly upward, the elevator in tow.

Bathed now in the bright lights of the platform, Mark glanced down at his watch once more. A meaningless fight had sparked years before between Mark and his daughter, Cassie had stormed out of the house, leaving her father behind. He had begged for his daughter to return, pleaded with her as she slammed the door shut. It was no use. Mark had tried to call Cassie what must have been hundreds of times that day, to no avail. Hours later, sullen, Mark had collapsed on the couch, he had turned on the television, attempting to clear his head. Watching a golf tournament, Mark felt an increasing sense of dread, but passed it off as nothing. All of a sudden, on the TV, a CNN broadcast interrupted the game. A terrible accident on the freeway, a familiar car, a phone call sent to voicemail. At that moment Mark Zantz had died.

A single tear slid down Mark’s cheek, coming to a rest at the base of his chin. The night seemed colder than ever, but it wasn't the temperature that disturbed Mark. His suit did nothing to protect him from this cold, a cold that ran much deeper. Mark felt hollow, an empty shell. The elevator grinded to a sudden halt, sending Mark tumbling to the ground. The elevator shook as Mark landed on his back with a loud crash. Feeling a pain in his wrist, Mark looked down to find a large crack spreading like a lightning bolt along his fragile watch face. The fissure ran directly over his daughter’s face. Mark's legs crumpled beneath him, he fell to the ground once more, his entire body racked with sobs. He searched desperately inside himself for the strength to rise, but found none. He was, like his watch, alone and broken.

Mark thought tearfully of his beautiful daughter, her dream of reaching the stars. Somewhere inside himself, Mark found a glint of hope, of love. Slowly, through the pain, Mark struggled to his feet. Cassie wouldn’t want him to give up when he–when they were so close to their dream. He was doing this for his daughter, nothing else mattered anymore. Mark slowly lowered his visor and dried his tears. Stumbling across the bridge for what felt like hours, not daring to look down, Mark felt the dark void inside of him shrink. Each step forward wasn’t for himself, it was for Cassie. He couldn’t–no–he wouldn’t let her down this time.

Mark reached the end of the bridge, hesitating for a moment, relishing his success. The pride of success Mark felt now further shrunk his inner void. Mark entered the cockpit. Small and circular, the cockpit was covered in a multitude of buttons, levers and screens. Over the past few months Mark had been taught the function of each and every one. This ranged from how to activate the enormous thrusters below, to how to turn on the sprinklers in the nutrition bay. Mark sat down on the cockpit’s only seat in and strapped himself in. The seat was situated so that Mark was lying directly on his back. Through a large window directly ahead, Mark could see the night sky clearly, a cluster of stars were visible at this high altitude. The familiar cockpit instilled a newfound confidence in Mark, he was in his element.

Once Mark was situated, he completed a routine check of the cockpit and radioed mission control to confirm. After mission control responded, a speaker in Mark’s helmet began to broadcast a minute long timer. Mark closed his eyes and tried to slow down his breathing. A feeling was beginning to form in the pit of his stomach, like when you’re at the top of a roller coaster, about to plummet. The timer slowly got louder as it reached the final stretch. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2… At one, Mark slowly eased forward a prominent lever on the control board. A tremendous rumble shook the entire ship as the massive thrusters beneath Mark began to power up. Mark’s teeth began to clack as the rumbling grew in intensity. Mark raised one finger, and after a moment, pressed a small red button on the armrest of his seat. Mark clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white, as powerful g-forces pressed Mark to his seat. Houston, we have liftoff! Loud clapping and cheering resounded through the speakers in Mark’s helmet. He was on top of the world. The enormous rocket ship blasted through the clouds, out of the corner of his eye, Mark saw the elevator shaft he had ridden to the cockpit fall away behind him, landing in a cloud of dust in the center of a large, open plain. Mark gasped loudly as the rocket broke through Earth’s atmosphere, a sea of glistening stars seemed to convey a sense of trust and wonder. For the first time in over a decade, Mark Zantz felt at peace. He closed his eyes and fell asleep, his dreams a kaleidoscope of light, color, and memory.