Archive 501
Vivian Galván García
Sitting in a Tin Can II
By Mariana FolacheThe yellow light felt too instant, distant to this darkness.
I feel this darkness more than see it, almost like a mental state, empty but full.
Space oddity starts sounding softly, some notes wrong, as if it was playing from a memory and not the actual song.
A yellow dim light comes from above focusing into an oval shaped spotlight on the floor. Colors appear and disappear, and blur together into details and then features, human but not, kind of ghostly.
A face is formed, Ziggy is present with his Major Tom costume. Some sort of tight silver plastic spandex and a helmet with the screen pulled down.*
I couldn’t see his eyes, they were hidden behind the screen.
My fingers anticipated the excitement of exposing his look, that intense look he has, and those eyes, so unique, so his.
Before my hand could inch forward he smiled, so big, almost crazy, too big for Ziggy, but who knows? Not me, I never met him in person.
My imagination is quite good I’ll admit it or God’s gifts are quite good but not perfect.
Major Tom started laughing, a laugh so loud, no; violent, hysterical.
When he finished his head moved back to its original position slowly, his eyes directed at me again, still barely visible by the screen.
MT- So, do I make it?
What? You speak?
MT- Of course, one of the astronauts biggest jobs is to communicate. We are some sort of science experiments that talks, are t we?
I didn’t ask that out loud.
I feel my palms getting wet, the hairs at the back of my neck start rising, as if a chill had just caressed them.
MT- You didn’t.
His smile grows. He looks mischievous, this Bowie is making me feel the chills.
Fuck I can’t lie, he’ll know.
MT- Is that common to do? In your species I mean? Are you liars?
What? Yes, I guess, we all lie. Some lie about small stuff like being busy or not being able to pick up their phone, others lie about bigger things, hiding behind the idea they have built of what their truth is.
Wait, did you just say species?
MT- Yes
I feel the rumbling of his laugh all the way here, like the space between us was none or he was trying to prove that his body works the same way mine does.
But, you’re my species.
I point a straight accusative finger at him.
The eyes behind the screen disappear into forms of colors again, the image seems to be trembling, as if the illusion was faltering.
Next to him collies pear in blobs, slowly forming the small figure of a black and white dog, Laika! I think.
Laika’s body starts to change, her face contorts and her snout recedes and her fur is gone.
Next i see my mother ‘s face on her, but not like a mask, like she morphed with my mother or somehow transmpfirmed into her.
My mouth hangs open, I can’t move, it feels like I can’t even breathe.
Her face keeps changing, from face to face that I have crossed in my life. John my first boyfriend in Year 10, Millie my friend from the engineering course, Dad, Claire my auntie and Xander, my son.
My breath keeps getting faster and faster, my heartbeat hiking up and up to its limit.
MT- Stop, you’re scaring her.
I look back at Major Tom, what I barely see from under the screen is not human anymore.
Who are you?
Major Tom’s mouth, still intact ,smirks mischievously.
MT- what is the fun in telling you?