Astronaut's Log: Laika

2.0

On 3rd November 1957 the Soviet Union sent a mongrel dog into space aboard the Sputnik-2 spacecraft. They smoothed her coat with rubbing alcohol and they attached electrodes to her body. Once in orbit, she lasted from about five to seven hours before succumbing to the extreme temperature and stress of being catapulted into space. Her name was Laika. The word means “barker.”

From the portal in my bedroom I can see the earth, huge and magnificent, turning in oblivion. I imagine Atlas struggling beneath its terrific weight and for a minute I’m completely overcome with sympathy. I try to imagine all the lives that are beginning and ending on the planet below, but I do not shut my eyes. I tell myself, “This is your home. This is the place where you were born.”

I keep staring through the little pane of glass until I lose focus and I am suddenly presented with my own reflection. My features are taut and I have high cheekbones. My hair is buzzed almost to the skin and I can hardly recognize the face that returns my gaze. I turn away from the window and try to fix my mind on vague events of the distant past.

I am a child of seven. The sunshine floods the empty street and I am riding my bicycle around the pagoda of the neighborhood park. Then I’m eighteen again, sitting on the hood of my dad’s car and staring up at the moon on a humid summer night. Next, I am lying in a bed freshman year of college. A girl is singing something from The Phantom of the Opera.

Images rise and fade. Voices echo and die. I look back through the portal—back at the earth. I let my mind go blank. Then I rest my eyes on a random, distant star and I think about Laika hurtling through the deep void.

They smooth her coat with rubbing alcohol and they place electrodes on her body. She barks and wags her tail. One of her trainers strokes her head gently and, I hope, has shed some tears. She gazes from the portal. The last man out averts his eyes.

5…4…3…2…1…

...TRANSMISSION ENDS.

"Isolation" - Joy Division