The Death Of A Spaceman
At some point in time, somewhere high above the planet earth, out in outer space, there was a fellow who was known to most as James. He was, as they say, a spaceman. He orbited the earth with the greatest of ease, that daring young man in the rocket ship. Floating, flying, drinking Tang every day. James loved his Tang. The watered down orange juice flavor was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Powder and water! What an invention! Sometimes, just for kicks, James would have a mouthful of water, then throw some of the old powder right in
there with it, creating Tang right in his own mouth!
Other fruity drinks were trying to build a monopoly against Tang. They all resented its space drink legacy. But, as you well can imagine, James went to every board meeting to protest against the other fruit drinks. He brought his little signs, and marched around the chair of the vice president of the corporation.
What a guy, that old vice president. All of the spacemen just loved him. They thought that he should be the regular president. And so, one day, with all of their hoping and praying, he stayed vice president. And they never thought of him ever again to this very day.
On that exact same day, when Mr. Vice President never became president, James was out walking around, and he died. And it was quite sad, and everyone cried until it was time to go back to work.
But. Far below on the planet earth, James’s wife Edna and his son Wilson were still just doing their normal chores. Sweeping off the landing pad, feeding the cats, calculating the orbit of the very space station James worked on, as well as watching the news. So, on the news, they read the lips of the stage hand (who didn’t have a microphone) who was telling Tom Brokeoff about the space tragedy. Tom told him to hit the bricks, that nobody cared about space. But Edna and Wilson cared about space. Maybe a bit too much, to the point where it was creepy. And Tom lost his job the next day when Wilson paid off the stage manager to fire him.
The next day, Wilson went to school. The other kids laughed at him, because he was about 80 years old, and wasn’t suppose to be going to school or anything like that.
So, he said to them, “Silence, sonny!!! Me pappy was killed by zee mighty forces of the cosmos, and you will all be next! The world is ending!! Daddy was the sign of the impending apocalypse! You’re gonna die!!!!!” Sadly enough, Wilson’s hearing aid was turned way up, and he
was only muttering the words that he spoke. The kids called him weird. They laughed.
Wilson had no other choice but to turn down the old hearing aid and say, “Turn on the afterburners! For heaven’s sake! Socialism is sweeping the nation, don’t ya know? The glue of the world! Undone!” Just like the glue he spoke of, Wilson didn’t like the rain. Good thing it wasn’t raining, except in the metaphor of his father’s death that Wilson created.
But then it started raining, in real life, and everybody went home, to outer space. Nobody was thrown to the wolves for the rest of the day.
