prelude

The lights in the lonely hospital flickered intermittently. Only three people still waited there now, as the ground rumbled beneath them. A tired-looking woman laying in a hospital cot, her husband, and what, by all rights, looked like the other gentleman except older. Bundled in her arms were two swaddled infants, who she gently sang to, blinking tears out of her eyes.

“She packed my bags last night, pre-flight… zero hour, nine AM. And I’m gonna be hiiiiigh, as a kite by then...”

“It’s almost time, you know. Nearly the last minute.” The older gentleman looked at the ceiling, which shook loose dust and stray bits of ceiling tile around them with another tremor.

“They certainly kept us waiting… I just wish I could have more time to know them. To know my children. Even just a few minutes...” The other kept a calm mask, but his tone belied his mood.

“You know why the nurses fled.”

“I can’t blame them. They did what they could without endangering themselves.”

“I’ll have to awaken them early. It’s the only way they’ll survive the trip.”

“That’s fine...”

The woman seemed to tune out the conversation, continuing her song. “I miss the Earth so much, I miss my wife… it’s lonely out in space. On such a timeless flight...”

“You’re a brave man, staying behind to make sure your children-”

“There was no other option. I wouldn’t endanger her or them by trying to move her. She was weak...”

“I know.”

“And I think it’s gonna be a long long time, till touchdown brings me round again to find, I’m not the man the think I am at home, oh no no no… I’m a rocket man… Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone...”

“Do you know where you’ll take them?”

“I have a few ideas… they’ll be safe there. Well-taken care of.”

“Good, good... I knew when she went into labor that neither of us would make it out alive. But… thank you, for ensuring that our children do.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

“You may not be this world’s version of my father, but… you are very much like him.”

The floor began to break apart with this latest tremor, cracks widening in white floor tile, exposing the foundation and soil underneath. The woman’s singing began to grow troubled and strained, as she held back an ocean’s worth of tears.

“Mars ain’t the kind of place, to raise your kids… in fact it’s cold as hell… and there’s no one there to raise them… if you did...”

Cracks appeared in the walls and drywall began to slough off and reveal the insulation and steel underneath. The man crouched next to his wife and wrapped an arm around her, gently nudging her. She shook her head and held up her finger.

“And all this science, I don’t understand… it’s just my job five days a week… A rocket maaaaan… Rocket man...”

As the building fell away around them, the older gentleman held out his arms for the two children. Reluctantly, the woman held them out to him, finally falling into resigned sobs when they were taken from her. Space cracked behind him, and shattered into a wormhole, which he turned toward.

The gentleman’s last sight of them was of the woman coiling into her husband, who held her close as the last remains of the building began to fall apart, and the very air around them seemed to start disintegrating.

“And I think it’s gonna be…. a long long time… till touchdown brings me round again...”

When the wormhole finally snapped shut on its own, he bowed his head in silence.