On November 25th, James Oakley awoke to the sound of jingle bells.

This puzzled him. As his eyes eased their way open, the faint outline of snowfall traced his vision. He shot a glance at the bright clock to his left. 6:30 am.

On November 25th at 6:30 a.m., James Oakley awoke to the sound of jingle bells and snow.

“I wonder how he does it,” James remarked to no one in particular. Sitting up, he surveyed his surroundings. Aside from the snow, nothing seemed out of place. To his left, there was still his nightstand. Across from him, a bleak, metallic wall with a lone window. Above him, a similarly bleak, metallic ceiling with several glow-in-the-dark stars attached. They had been a gift from his mother just before he left – apparently, as a child, he couldn’t sleep without them.

“Actually, it’s pretty simple,” said a small console on the nightstand. On the other end of the console was Ben, the lead engineer assigned to the Endure. “I reprogrammed the virtual matter simulator to emit from the ceiling, for stuff like weather. Hope you enjoy!”

“But, Jingle bells? It’s not even Christmas. At least, I don’t think it is…what month is it again?” James rubbed his eyes as he spoke, gingerly stepping one foot off the bed, worried he’d sink to the ankle in snow. Alas, it was just a projection – his foot met the warm floor with a gentle thud.

“It’s November, which means winter is officially underway! Well, actually, the equinox isn’t until D..”

“Thanks, Ben. What’s on the agenda today?”

“Well,” Ben started, a little disgruntled that he didn’t get to tell his winter equinox origin story, “you’ll need to get started on your course in high altitude climbing. We’re anticipating that the landing zone will be a nice, flat area. However, there’s always a chance that the navigation unit could take you off course, and segments of Europa are mountainous beyond anything we have on earth.”

“Alright, easy stuff. Anything else?”

“Not today, Jim. We’ve got some basic survival courses laid out, but given that you still have 39 months until your arrival…well…”

“Again, thanks, Ben. I’ll check back in tonight.” James reached over, and hit a flashing red button on the console, sucking the life out of the small machine. A few seconds later, the snow stopped. The Endure, a high powered, state of the art, solo-manned spaceship designed for long distance travel, returned to normal.
***
James enjoyed the solitude. He always had. The youngest of three boys, his parents would routinely lose him in public, only to find him wandering in a nearby creek bed, or examining flowers underneath the bleachers. When he was 10, he got his first telescope, and his parents lost him once again. This time, though, he was lost in the stars. He turned his 2nd story bedroom into his own personal astronomy deck, sometimes staying up until 4:00 in the morning charting constellations.

Whenever his parents would try to get him to do something “normal,” he yearned for the comfort and solitude of his room. But they persisted. James was thrown into several youth sporting leagues, including soccer, hockey, and basketball. And though he rarely enjoyed himself doing it, he was quite good. So good at soccer, in fact, that he joined a select team at the age of 14, travelling across his native state of Florida to play other talented children his age. It was on one of these bus trips that tragedy struck – their bus was grazed by a tractor trailer with a sleeping driver, lost control, and flipped off an overpass into oncoming traffic. In total, 6 cars were involved, and nearly everyone died. Everyone, that is, except James.

When the paramedics got there, he had lost a lot of blood. His legs were bent into horrific, unnatural shapes, and he was missing most of his left arm. His entire face was swollen beyond recognition, and half of his hair had been burned from his body. However, unlike anyone else on the bus, he was breathing. Somehow, someway, he was breathing. They loaded him into an ambulance, and rushed him to the hospital.

In total, the ride to the nearest hospital was around 8 minutes. James parents were waiting there, frantic, desperate for information. All they knew was that the crash was bad. They had been told to prepare for the worst. In the waiting room, they cried, paced, and prayed. Suddenly, an ambulance flew towards the glass entrance doors, stopping just short. The back doors popped open. And out walked James with a confused look on his face.

He strolled into the hospital waiting room, past awe struck paramedics and gaping hospital patrons. Approaching his parents, he simply asked “what happened? Are you guys ok?”

Turns out, James was unlike anyone that had ever been born. His cells regenerated at a pace far more rapid than was considered humanly possible. Not even the most advanced technology had the capacity to heal like James did. Not even the most optimistic futurologist could have predicted that technology would be able to do what James did within the next 200 years. And yet, there he was. Newspapers would call him “The kid who can’t die.”
***
James pondered that characterization as he watched the opening scenes of the introduction to the beginning of his 74 part high altitude climbing course video. Could he really not die? I mean, certainly nothing on Earth could kill him. But was there something out there that could? The nice folks at NASA paying for this spaceship certainly hoped not.
***
At the tender age of 22 years old, James had made a request. He sent an e-mail to Jan Sookyuren, the Chief Researcher at NASA, asking simply if he could be of assistance. Since the incident at 14, he had been hounded by countless interested parties in need of his services. The US Military wanted him to lead their armies into battle. Researchers at Washington University Medical School wanted to study his cells to search for a possible cure for aging. Every multi-billion dollar sports franchise wanted him to shatter every record in the books wearing their jersey. But there was only one thing James wanted to do.
Ms. Sookyuren got back to James immediately, and arranged for a meeting at their headquarters in Washington D.C. He was introduced to some of the sharpest minds in the world, and they had a proposal for him. For years, they’d wanted to explore the many inhabitable moons of our solar system. But they simply didn’t have the technology that could endure such treacherous terrains, collect data, analyze that data, and relay it back to NASA. But you, they told James, are the solution.
***
On March 20th, James Oakley awoke to the sound of birds chirping. Above his nightstand was a simple pin-up calendar, open to the month of November. Just below it, the console lit up again.

“Don’t you just love springtime, Jim?”

“Ben, honestly, I don’t. Is…is that a breeze?”

“A spring breeze! You know, the cool spring breeze is actually a result of shifting pressure from..”

“Uh, thanks Ben. You know, part of the beauty of a spaceship is that I don’t have to worry about things like the cold of winter, or the sounds of spring, or the heat of summer, or the foliage of fall.”

“Jim, you’ll be away from earth for a total of 11 years. I thought a little touch of the seasons would, I don’t know, keep you tethered?” Ben’s voice trailed off, worrying he had struck a nerve.

Jim stared at the window across from his bed, contemplating this thought.

“Thanks, Ben. Just, no spring tornados, ok?” With that, he shut the console off, eased into his slippers, and proceeded to the observation deck.

Though the Endure was relatively small, the observation deck embodied the word huge. It was just a simple balcony overlooking an entire segment of the ship’s body that was made of polyurephrane glass, a special material that appeared invisible to the naked eye. From his vantage point, there was nothing separating him from the vast expanses of space. For so long, he had gazed up at the sky, wanting nothing more than to get a closer look. And now here he was. Gripping the railing with both hands, James smiled and inhaled deeply. Was that a hint of lilac? Nice touch, Ben.

He was only 8 months into his journey. At this point, he hadn’t even crossed through the vast belt of asteroids beyond Mars. Despite the countless, lonely hours that lay ahead of him in this ship, James couldn’t have been happier. This was his calling. In a few years, he’d land on Jupiter’s moon and make groundbreaking discoveries, going where no human had ever gone. And what next? What limits were there for a man who couldn’t be harmed?

“One step at a time, Jim” he silently whispered to the stars.  “One step at a time.”