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- CarolAnn sends this one:
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- LAIKA, by Joel Brouwer
-
- "Well if he wishes it, I will, but I can no
- longer answer for anything," she thought, and
- rushed forward at full tilt… She now
- scented nothing more, but only saw and heard
- without understanding anything.
- -- Laska, Levin's dog, in Anna Karenina
-
- Ignition shudders down her bones, the slow, thick hand
- of thrust begins to press her head
- into her neck, and the capsule goes black
-
- with roar, her stomach hitching up at each abrupt
- drop as the rocket's stages burn out, fall
- back. Pressure forces vomit through her snout, her ears
-
- are packed with clamor, and then the sound snaps
- off like a bent branch cracking
- at last. She rises from her harness and breathes.
-
- The presses at Pravda clack all night. Khrushchev dances
- giggling drunk in his nightshirt and Ike
- stays home from church. Reporters jostle shoulder
-
- to shoulder in Oppenheimer's office, scribbling notes,
- children in Nebraska are drilled to dive
- under desks if the sky flashes white, every wall
-
- in the Pentagon is plastered with charts and maps
- and Californians rush to backyards with binoculars
- as all America scrambles to translate
-
- Laika's simple message: a steady beep: her heartbeat.
- To her alone, afloat in the no-world of the capsule, it means
- only what it means: blood's thick course. She suckles
-
- protein from a tube in her chest. She paddles
- at the nothing. She does not imagine rabbits. If
- she thinks, she thinks, How lucky to be done
-
- with all that noise. Now the gauge on the air tank
- wavers into red. The cold inside strains to join
- the cold outside. Her mind drifts into snow.
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