I wrote this as my entry for Nixy Valentine’s Writing Adventure Group, challenge #9, “Warning!”

In the challenge, Nixy asked those of us who completed both #8, “Rose Colored Glasses”, and this one, to comment on which was the most difficult. Interesting question!

To me, logically, this one should have been easier. To take something nice and make it scary or repulsive ought to be fun, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t come up with anything.

So I feel that this week’s entry from me is a bit of a cheat. But I hope you enjoy it regardless. I’ve called it “Earthrise”.

For details about the WAG, as well as links to the other participants this week (as they become available), see below.

Earthrise

The Earth: Home. Blue planet hanging in space, covered in perfect white blankets of cloud, home to every human who ever lived, every person you know and love, every work of art ever conceived.

Imagine seeing it through the viewport of a spacecraft, like the astronauts of Apollo 8 did, the first humans ever to see an Earthrise above the horizon of the Moon.

Imagine it growing larger in the window, as Jim Lovell, played by Tom Hanks, put it in the movie Apollo 13. What was a blue marble you could cover with your thumb is now almost completely dominating your field of view, an achingly beautiful panorama of deep blue oceans, lush green land, ice and desert, mountains and canyons.

Now imagine that it’s going to kill you in the next 20 minutes and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Your spacecraft is damaged, or you’re coming in to steep, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you’re going to burn up in the atmosphere, you’re caught inside the gravitational well created by Earth’s huge mass and it is relentless.

Even Houston has finally fallen silent, they know only too well that you have a problem and they also know there’s nothing anyone can do. You’ve said your hurried goodbyes and you’ve gone through the checklists, even though there isn’t much point.

So you look out at the largest object your existence has encountered, much too large for your mind to comprehend, even though you’re one of the select few who’ve seen it from a distance. When you look towards the horizon you can see the thin band of the Earth’s atmosphere, impossibly tiny compared to the size of the planet. Everything, all life, exists inside that thin layer of air.

You feel sadness, loss, incomprehension. Your mind wanders to the first day of spring, the sound of laughter, the feeling of waves lapping at your feet. Your heart bursts with love, more intense and more laden with sorrow than anything you’ve ever felt. You stare at the blue oasis in the empty blackness and feel lonely beyond what anyone can bear.

Suddenly you’re pulled back in your seat, as you hit the top of the atmosphere and it starts to slow you down. You know this is it, once you fall a little deeper the friction of the storm of rushing air will unleash a fury that your ship cannot withstand. You bargain, you plead, you howl in rage as the Gs build up, rapidly now.

The windows are covered in flickering gold, the soothing blue of home replaced by an eerie glow of angry ions building up towards a crescendo. Everything falls quiet inside you and you start to black out as the Gs mount beyond what your body can stand. You never feel the sudden stab of searing hot gas that penetrates you, moments before everything breaks apart.

Minutes later the firestorm has abated and a few remaining parts of your spacecraft are tumbling through the air, towards the sea below. There are no traces of you, ashes to ashes, stardust to stardust.

Welcome home.

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The Writing Adventure Group is on Facebook.  Join us there too, and get weekly reminders so you never miss an adventure.

How to Join the Writing Adventure Group

Pallavi Agarwal (On Facebook)

Iain Martin

Peter Spalton

Nancy Parra

Nixy Valentine

Christine Segina (New WAG Member!)

J. M. Strother – Mad Utopia

Christine Kirchoff

Sharon Donovan

Marsha

Next week’s Writing Adventure:

“WAG #10: The Professional” As we go through our days, we’re surrounded by people doing everyday jobs: the guy that reads the gas meter, cashiers, bank tellers, security guards, doctors, circus clowns… This week, your assignment is to observe someone doing a job (their profession should be one you don’t know that much about). Describe him/her and also what they’re doing, why they’re doing it (as best you can tell), and how. Feel free to use your imagination, but don’t forget the concrete observation! Special thanks to Lulu for this week’s topic idea!

Post the results on your blog, and read this post about the group for information on how to notify Nixy so your post will be properly included in next week’s list.  (Note, please include WAG #10 in the subject heading and tell her how you want your name to appear please!) Deadline: next Tuesday, May 5th.