By: Parthosarothy K Mukherji

As she floated near the observation window of the International Space Station, staring at the Earth  below, she thought about the Archibald MacLeish quote:

“To see the Earth as it truly is—small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats—is to  see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold.”

She wondered: Had things really changed since then?

Wars still raged like wildfires, consuming entire swaths of the forests she once loved. Ideological  polarization and power struggles persisted, as if the Berlin Wall had never fallen.

The thought of the forests lulled her back to childhood summers, reading in the garden, bathed in  golden-green light. Light that splayed like probing fingers through the canopy above.

She recalled the story of Wernher von Braun as a child, climbing a tree and dreaming of space travel.  Probably just PR nonsense, like so much of the mythology surrounding the space program. People  wanted heroes, not the reality—a collection of obsessive, brilliant, and deeply flawed overachievers.  Some even drove across the country in adult diapers to confront a romantic rival.

Not that there was much romance left in the space odyssey.

Sure, the new kid on the block, Musk, was trying to revive it—building his own legend, fueling media  hype every time he mentioned Mars. And yet, the very same Elon Musk was now being tipped as her  savior, assembling a rescue mission after NASA and others had failed.

He certainly had the chops. After all, not everyone could land a rocket’s main body back on the launch  pad and maneuver it into its support structure with the effortless grace of a secretary slipping into a  seat beside a senior VP.

She thought about those nubile young secretaries, the ones who floated through the space program’s  ecosystem as predictably as moons around Saturn. She felt a quiet satisfaction that her intelligence,  skill, and drive had thrust her into a higher orbit—far beyond what they could aspire to.

Even if they bedded and wedded the alpha centauri among the star-chasers.

Her radio crackled.

“Commander Williams, this is Houston. Just checking in. How are you holding up?” She pressed the button, her voice steady, professional.

“Holding up fine, Houston. Systems are operational, oxygen levels stable. Just another day in orbit.”

She had been stranded here for months. A catastrophic failure in the Artemis rescue mission had left  her indefinitely marooned. Below, Earth was unraveling—wars, famines,

climate disasters. Every day  brought fresh headlines of chaos.

The world needed a hero, so she played her part.

“We admire your resilience, Commander. You’re an inspiration to us all.”

Resilience. Inspiration.

She repeated the words in her mind like a mantra, then let them drift into the void. The truth? She didn’t want to go back.

On video calls, she smiled, made jokes.

“I do miss a good cup of coffee, though. Can’t quite replicate that up here!”

She laughed. The journalists laughed.

But in her mind, she whispered:

I don’t miss it at all.

Her fellow astronauts had left months ago. She was the only soul orbiting the planet, watching its slow  collapse from a weightless vantage point.

The ISS was old, but it could last a while longer. Supplies were rationed. Solar panels still worked. She had time.

“Commander Williams,” came another voice—this time, from a news anchor.

“What keeps you going in such extreme isolation?”

She smiled with the practiced ease of a veteran astronaut.

“Hope,” she said. “The belief that things will get better.”

Inside her mind, another voice whispered:

Hope has nothing to do with it. Here, I am safe.

She signed off and drifted back to the window, where Earth turned slowly below. A storm raged over  the Atlantic, spiraling like a cosmic fingerprint.

From up here, the world looked peaceful.

She had no desire to return.

Sometimes she wrote poetry, reviving a rite of passage every teenage girl with a secret diary had once  known.

Zero G

Floating free in harmony,

With the hidden key

Of the universe,

In which I immerse

Like free verse.

An unchained melody,

Unbound by sound,

Or gravity’s curse.

Even my pee

Is like golden coin showers

From an infinite purse.

Entropy does penance

To its mystic resonance,

Like dark matter—

Sensed, but unseen,

Behind the light scatter

Of dying stars.

Signals chatter

Of life on Mars,

Or some other planet

In a galaxy far away—

While I float free,

Light-years removed

From each day,

Of commuting & emoting,

Grinding against the gears

Of worries and fears.

She dreaded the return.

The interviews, the sidelong looks, the appraising eyes searching for cracks in her veneer. After  all, solitary confinement was the most dreaded torture known to prisoners.

She was on an island further away than Devil’s Island, more unreachable than Alcatraz. And yet, escape  was impossible.

Her return was non-negotiable.

Leaving a NASA astronaut marooned in space would be a PR disaster, as damning as the glory of  bringing her back would be triumphant.

She thought about the Tsiolkovsky quote:

“Earth is humanity’s cradle, but man was not meant to stay in the cradle forever.” But what if it wasn’t Earth that was the cradle?

What if it was space?

What if, like E.T., she had already gone home?

Here, swathed in the fabric of spacetime, she had found her safe space.

A warning beep shattered her thoughts.

The proximity detection system enunciated in retro robot speak, a relic from the early days of  spaceflight:

“Unidentified object approaching. Intersectional crossing of paths in 90 minutes.” She turned to the porthole and quickly spotted the speck speeding toward her. At first, bewilderment. Then, laughter—almost hysterical.

The object was a red Tesla Roadster, one of Musk’s frat-boy stunts, still adrift from its maiden voyage.

The Roadster sped out of view, and she chuckled at the fairy tale fantasy of being rescued by a gallant  hero in a sports car.

But she was no damsel in distress.

She calmed herself and made up her mind.

The scheduled transmission call came through. The Director’s voice, resonant with empathy and  reassurance, filled the cabin.

“Is there anything you want?”

It had become a mantra, the final question before signing off.

She let the silence stretch, floating in the peace she had found. Then, in a clear and steady voice, she answered: “I want to be alone.”

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Parthosarothy K Mukherji: “Bong” by nature was bound at some stage to write awful poetry, and argue passionately about” seenema”, enemas and Kulchurr. Decided to stop arguing and start doing. (Both “seenema and enema) Also a national award winning scientist and engineer with patents in India and the US in the green technology and clean energy domains.Writes, scripts, screen plays, songs, books because he must. Married to a lovely gynecologist who is also his psychiatrist/psychologist/best friend and collaborator on the single project done together, our happy 19 year old son Ashutosh. Has lived and worked in 11 countries and traveled to 23 but still desi as they come