MARCH 20, 2020 – As “seniors,” my wife and I are of the “at risk” group for covid-19. Accordingly, with cautiously executed exceptions, we’re self-isolated. Waiting things out amidst all the knowns, unknowns, claims, data, missing data, apparently reliable information and obviously bogus information, I’ve nailed down one certainty: our imaginations thrive during a crisis.
For example, Wednesday night I dreamt that our family’s best friend, Björn, a pure-bred collie who died in 1979 at the ripe old age of 13, was alive again. Except, in classic dream-warp, Björn’s beautiful coat was frozen stiff and shedding shards of ice as he lay outside a dormitory room. (My heart leapt when Björn recognized me–nuzzle, nuzzle, bark!) Surely my bizarre dream had been inspired by the bizarre crisis, with the result that my unconsciousness was ruled by “imagination.”
After waking, however, I decided to reverse the relationship and rule my imagination. With the weather as gloomy as the news, I devised an imaginary escape into outer space, high above the fray.
I started with our main spaceship, earth. It’s had quite a run, traveling through space for 4.5 billion years. Given the age and size of our home star, our spaceship is good (in one form or another) for a few more billion years of travel time.
Thus far, our ship has been plagued by all sorts of untoward conditions—on-board fires, waste-backups, pestilence, plumbing disasters, ventilation malfunctions, bad maintenance, and bloody mutinies. Plus, we’ve been pummeled by space rocks, radiation, and magnetic storms. It’s all been rough on the exterior paint job and interior upholstery, but we’ve managed through.
Next, I imagined our house as a personal “space pod.” In our case, except for the view, it beats anything NASA has engineered. It’s tied to the mother ship but affords considerable insulation from the malfunctions aboard that main craft. Our pod has three levels (basement; main living space; sleeping quarters). It houses comfortable furniture and furnishings; spacious and fully operational galley; tons of books, pics, and an array of amenities. Though I’ve always wanted to experience weightlessness, we won’t risk turning off the rotational mechanism that creates artificial gravity (none of the stuff inside our pod is tied down). We also have a porch off the back of the pod. This space, so to speak, affords a broader view of outer space.
Our space pod comes with a personal transporter. This allows short ventures a little farther into outer space. Before dawn yesterday I took it for a short ride to a local food dispensary, where we “at riskers” were given a clean shot at stocking up on space food—except they were out of Tang.
We take occasional spacewalks from our pod. Thus far, we’ve had to suit up for these, but rumor has it that in several days’ time, the mother ship will pass through a “sweet spot” in the galaxy—an oxygen cloud warmed to a level where no outer spacesuit is required.
Until tomorrow, over and out!
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
