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