Under the Kármán Line

Annette O'Neil
1 min readDec 6, 2018

I wonder how an astronaut feels, down here.

Walking through city streets, heels hitting sidewalk, the occasional jostle of crossed paths, a mumbled apology. Fork scraping plate. Flopping into the driver’s seat, a moment listening to the key’s-in-door’s-open dinging, the rumble as the key turns. Television voices, radio voices, a thousand overheard conversations from lovemaking to argument. Every window always full.

Then, the moment right after jumping into a pool — everything suspended, and the blood remembers —

And then there’s the surface, and air.

I wonder if they look at someone over the table and think about what they look like floating.

I wonder if they want to tell them — I’ve been somewhere so different. I want to take you there. I want you to know it, too, and to also feel these sandpaper feelings at this all-around-us-world, so that I may be less alone.

I wonder if it’s at all like this.

photo credit: sjrankin, Boot and Foot Print on the Moon, variant (license)

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