Excerpt: Shine, Shine, Shine

Deep in darkness, there was a tiny light. Inside the light, he floated in a space ship. It felt cold to him, floating there. Inside his body, he felt the cold of space. He could still look out the round windows of the ship and see the earth. He could also see the moon sometimes, coming closer. The earth rotated slowly and the space ship moved slowly, relative to the things that were around it. Maxon felt what he called ease. There was nothing he could do now, one way or the other. He was part of a space ship going to the moon. On his own, naked in space, he could not have survived, because he was just one man, with no robot parts. He wore white paper booties instead of shoes. He did not wear underpants under his jumpsuit. He was only a human, of scant flesh and long bone, eyes clouded with dreams, and breakable. He was off, launched from the earth, and floating in space. He had been pushed, with force, away.

But in his mind, he thought of home. With his long white feet drifting out behind him, Maxon put his hands on each side of the round window, and held onto it. He looked out and down at the earth. Far away, across the cold miles, the Earth lay boiling in clouds. All the countries of the earth lay smudged together under that lace of white. Beneath this stormy layer, the cities of the world chugged and burned, connected by roads, connected by wires. Down in Virginia, his wife was walking around. Beside her was his small son. Inside her was his small daughter. His wife’s name was Sunny.

On that awful and particular day, Sunny happened to be driving down the street toward home. Her smooth, white, manicured hands held the wheel. Her left foot pressed flat on the floor. Her head was up, alert, paying attention. And yet there still was a car accident. At the corner of majestic Harrington Street and stately Gates Boulevard, a black SUV smashed into her big silver minivan broadside. It happened on a street very close to her house. It happened in the afternoon, on the very first day after Maxon went into space. No one died in the car accident, but everyone’s life was changed. There was no going back to a time before it. There was no pretending it didn’t happen. Other people’s cars are like meteors. Sometimes they smash into you and there’s nothing you can do about it.