Dreams as Gigantic – D.S.G. Burke
“Humans can only say that they have conquered space when someone who isn’t good at math is up there, you know, walking around.” Nina was just drunk enough to start making sense. The wood-paneled walls warped in her peripheral vision.
“I’ll be right back.” She slid by Sam’s knees and clomped heavily to the rear of the bar to the bathroom. There was only one stall and someone else was already waiting. Nina looked at her phone and squinted against the sudden bright light from the screen. Multiple texts from Jared.
<Hey babe. Hope you are having fun. I miss my beautiful wife. Kissing face emoji.>
<Don’t have too much fun without me.>
<Can you pick up paper towels on your way home?>
<Babe?>
Nina made a face and flicked away the string of messages. The Q-Prize for the Creative Arts website was mobile friendly. In bold, just below the official seals of the United Nations and NASA, it said that this was an “extraordinary opportunity to serve one’s country and planet.” She filled out most of the pre-application inquiry on the toilet and was ready to press send by the time she slid back onto the bar stool next to Sam.
“Should I just do it? I mean, what the hell, right?” Her friend agreed wholeheartedly. Another round was ordered.
Sam told her about the Q-prize. He was one of those people who paid attention to the news like a detective looking for clues that the present could make sense; you just had to gather enough information. Nina took in world events only reluctantly, squinting at it as if she’d forgotten her sunglasses on a sunny day. She shied away from anything that didn’t directly affect her, for fear of burning her retinas. Most of her news came at her through friends, or overhearing her students, or her customers. Or Jared would be on the phone yelling at his conservative parents, and she had to listen because their house was too small.
But the prize was news she could use. The space program was booming. Everyone was going to space now that they’d found things worth doing, and even better, stuff worth taking. Geoengineers were up there moving around with solar sails. Mars was growing lithium for electric cars. Astro-geologists were burying stacks of excess carbon dioxide beneath the surface of the moon and piling up nuclear waste on an asteroid the size of Belgium. Earth needed off-world resources to deal with its climate problem. Any and all countries with space programs were pouring money and science into this new race. Countries without space programs were starting them. The Americans had a head start, but they weren’t resting on past success. They announced on Thursday that they were going to start sending artists to space. They partnered with the United Nations to make it into an official global program. Anyone could apply. Sam said that that “artist” was just a euphemism for “normal people.” People who would never usually get to go to space because they had no science degrees or skills that were particularly useful in space.
“But I am an artist!” Nina protested. She hadn’t written an original thought in years, probably not since she and Jared had first started dating, but she used to be a very creative person. Sam, as a good friend, didn’t push back. And as a better friend, he encouraged Nina to apply. What was the harm?
The harm settled into Nina’s skull around seven the following morning. She woke to the sound of her next-door neighbor on the phone in their shared backyard area. Her head felt fuzzy and lumpy and crowded. She craved water. The mental checklist started up: did she do or say anything terrible last night? How did she get home? Had she made a pass at Sam?
She texted her manager at the coffee shop that she was sick. Doreen responded immediately: <Of course! Feel better! Stay inside and get tested!>
Nina had a vague notion that before the Coronavirus pandemic of the previous decade, people were not as pragmatic about sick days. Nina felt guilty for abusing this privilege for a hangover, but her head hurt more than her conscience.
Her barista job on Saturdays and Wednesdays paid a couple of their bills. Her adjunct teaching job at the local college paid a few more. But Jared paid the rent and nearly everything else. He was always suggesting vacation ideas that she couldn’t afford if they split it down the middle. She’d be paying interest on her credit card for their honeymoon in Niagara Falls for the next year—and that was so close that they’d driven.
This morning, her husband slept peacefully beside her. He was using four pillows—two of them hers. She kissed him on the forehead, and he let out a grumpy moan. She nearly did too. The movement seemed to rattle her brain instead of her head.
Half a sweaty pint glass of ice water later, Nina sat at her computer and listened to the birds outside. The pre-application she’d sent to the Q-Prize committee had been accepted for pre-authorization. Should she do it? She would never be accepted so there was no reason not to apply, Nina reasoned. Everyone wanted to go to space, didn’t they?
As soon as she pressed the “submit” button, Nina walked away from her desk. She wouldn’t think about what she had done, and she needed to prep for this week’s class in any case. Her used copy of Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure was riddled with pink Post-its. As she told this term’s class, she’d hated Sue Bridehead the first time she’d read this book, many years ago when it had been assigned to her. Sue was too opinionated. Nina saw something in Sue that she didn’t like in herself—a moral superiority that lacked conviction. Sue made Jude miserable, yes, but after the third re-reading, Nina realized that Jude was the villain of his own story. Jude was her go-to example in her writing courses to strip down the notion that the protagonist has to be likable. That was a modern concept, she argued, best for genre novels and children’s stories. If you wanted to be a writer, you should be able to write about the least likeable person you know and make them your hero. That was this week’s exercise. One student from last semester wrote in their evaluation that it was “freeing” and “effective,” so Nina was allowed to keep it up.
By the time Jared stumbled out of the bedroom with half his hair plastered to the side of his face, she’d almost forgotten about the whole space thing. She loved him the most in the mornings. He was slower and sweeter. Less acerbic. She felt like she was stronger and smarter than he was before his coffee, and she relished that feeling. The rest of the time she could barely keep up with his opinions.
“What are you doing here?”
“Called in sick.”
“Well, then what are you doing up?”
“Parched. Do you want eggs?”
Jared squinted, scratched, shrugged, then turned for the bathroom. She decided to interpret his indifference as encouragement.
By the time she was driving to the coffeeshop on Wednesday, Nina had almost forgotten about space. There was enough going on this planet to keep her attention. Doreen saluted her from under the counter, fixing a leak. Her usual apron wasn’t hanging behind the door, so Nina grabbed the top one though it smelled faintly like old almond milk. She turned the sign around and let the first person in; a ‘usual.’ The morning presented a steady stream of regulars with their usuals. By 11am, Nina was covered in flecks of foam and her ponytail hung limply at the nape of her neck instead of high and tight. The foam bits scattered across her chest like a constellation.
“Doreen, would you go to space?”
There was only one customer, and they had on headphones. Doreen looked up from her phone and frowned.
“You mean like right now?”
“Yeah, or at all? Do you see yourself going into space someday?”
“Maybe. But also, hmm, I guess not really. It’s exciting to read about everything that is happening up there, but like, what would I do?”
“Astro-geologists need coffee too, Doreen!” Nina hit her playfully with a bar towel.
“Oh no, I didn’t even think about the coffee situation up there. You know they are using water that has already passed through them for that kind of shit, right? I don’t want to go anywhere that I can’t take off my pants to go pee.”
“Fair enough.”
Jared was in his VR pod when Nina got home. He hated it when she talked to him while he was in the metaverse, chatting with hot bots.
There was an unread message from the Deputy Assistant NASA Liaison to the United Nations in her inbox. She did a quick scan through the email for the word “unfortunately,” but didn’t see it. She unclenched her jaw. This was becoming real. They had accepted her into the space program. She must have made a noise or something because Jared popped out from his game pod.
“What’s up, babe?”
“Oh, um, nothing.” She was taking in the phrase, “minimum three-year commitment.”
“Will you grab me a popsicle?”
Nina thought about telling Jared right then, but the violence that his avatar was exerting on a hapless palace guard made her flinch.
She tried to tell Jared the next morning.
“I’ve never been good at math or science. I’m creative. I see the world differently and I know how to use words to paint pictures for other people. Collectively, it seems like we’ve decided that people like you are useful in space and people like me are not useful. Until now. Now there is a chance, a real chance right now while I’m still young, to see the stars up close. To stand on a satellite and look at the earth. To capture the scent of space and write it down. To capture verses to describe the vacuum. That has never been done before. We know a lot about the science off of this world now, but none of the art. I’ve done nothing with my life and now the UN wants to send me to space. I’ll be able to write about the universe. Think of the books I’ll write when I return!”
Jared was silent. Her points were unassailable. He shifted his head and sighed. A deep sleepy sigh. His eyes were closed. She’d try to remember this speech for when he was awake. It was a good one.
The email instructed her to be in New York City in two weeks for the official program ceremony. Afterward, she could do anything she had to do to put her life on ice for three years before going to Houston to begin training. Her friends and family were encouraged to support her from afar, but only pre-selected applicants would be allowed entrance to the United Nations campus, so that they could “manage crowd expectations.” That gave her pause. How many artists were they planning to send into space? She re-read the pre-application information, the information she’d only scanned that night with Sam when she’d been a little buzzed. It didn’t say anything about a cap. It did mention, multiple times, that this was an extraordinary opportunity. Nina wriggled under the duvet so that the light from her phone wouldn’t wake Jared. She read the email again and again. Jared’s knee bumped up against the back of her thigh and she pulled away.
Thursday’s class started at 5:45pm, but she liked to spend the day on campus to prepare for class. Often, as a favor, she would agree to staff the college’s remedial writing center from 10-11:30am. Often no one showed up while she was there. Very few people liked to admit that they needed help with their writing. Even when they’d received clear notes on their essays suggesting that they seek help. Nina leaned all the way back in the comfy orange chair that had been there since the 1970s and re-read the part where Jude got tricked for the second time into an even more disastrous marriage to Arabella. She’d already read and commented on her students’ papers. As expected, they’d really put their hearts into the unlikeable protagonist exercise. She could glimpse their parents and partners and coworkers peeking through the margins. Using this assignment to faithfully recreate someone that they really knew and didn’t always like was more than just a learning opportunity—it was cheaper than therapy. Nina wrote her example a few years ago but hadn’t updated it, though it was based on a man who’d been making her unhappy at the time, and now she was married to him. What Jared didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, in this case. But she needed to tell him about space. The longer she waited, the worse he would take it.
But the moment never came when she could make herself tell him. And before long, the day of the ceremony was tomorrow. It was a four-hour drive to the city, so she’d spend the night. A friend from college had moved back to Queens and said she could stay on her couch. Everything was set, except the most important thing.
Nina was making dinner already when he got home. The onions were nearly translucent.
“Smells good.” He came up behind her and put his nose in hair.
“I’m glad. Now get out of the kitchen! There isn’t room here for both of us.” The limited counter space was covered with a rainbow of chopped vegetables. “Can you make me a drink? Bartender’s choice.” She called out over the sound of the fan above the stove, which had just kicked into a higher gear.
She could feel her courage rising. She had to tell him now. Either tell him now, or not go.
“Babe?”
He appeared behind the half-opened refrigerator door holding a bottle of bourbon, already shirtless.
“Babe, I need to tell you something.”
He was angry of course. But also, somehow, not quite angry enough. She wondered later if he’d been faking. There was yelling on both sides. The onions burned to a crisp and the smoke alarm went off. Jared waved a towel at the ceiling with such fierce arm strokes that she wondered if it was helping channel his rage. The alarm was louder than their fight though. How could an inanimate object drown out a whole year of marriage? Nina slumped against the front door on the inside and sobbed. Jared left out of the garage door. His last words hung in the air.
“If you are going to go, then go. But I’m not waiting for you.”
Nina eventually shook herself up off the floor and started packing. But she didn’t know how to. What did she need for an overnight in the city? Did she need a fancy dress for the ceremony? Did she need makeup? Of course, she needed makeup, but she couldn’t go into the bathroom to get it. That would require seeing her reflection in the mirror and she couldn’t look at herself right now. She already knew what she’d see—two baggy dark circles and the red scorched face of the most selfish woman on earth.
To snap out of her indecision paralysis, she started small. Nina put all the uncooked vegetables in a bowl and covered it with plastic wrap. She threw out the burned onions and put the pan in the sink with a little water and a squirt of soap. These simple chores gave her the space to finally walk out the door. Jude the Obscure was sitting on the dashboard. She contemplated the cover before throwing it into the passenger seat. The publisher had chosen a simple pastoral scene. A farm, and in the distance, a village. Nothing that gave away the human tragedy within.
She wasn’t supposed to get to NYC at midnight, but here she was. Her friend wasn’t expecting her until the following evening, after tomorrow’s ceremony. But she didn’t know what else to do. She drove to the city because that was all she could think to do. Soon she was driving down the West Side Highway and the lights of the urbanites twinkled like low-lying stars on her left. She took the 34th street exit and slowly drove through midtown. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d been in New York. It must have been at least a year ago. It must have been with Jared. He would have been driving. The old Macy’s department store loomed above the street. Like most retail stores, the big behemoth had closed, and there were few prospective tenants to fill that kind of space. Maybe someday it would become condos. Nina parked near a big international hotel that catered to the UN. It was a crisp fall night and though it was midnight during the week, there were people out. Groups of happy people laughing. Single nutty people laughing. Couples crossing crosswalks clasping each other to stay upright.
There were fewer people by the big UN building. The big white tower looked blue in the moonlight. An intimidating tall fence, also white, ringed the campus, keeping the public out. The side facing the road was covered with professional banners that appeared to have been made by adults pretending to be children. Most, if not all of them were space themed. The global space race had invigorated the United Nations. It hadn’t been this important since the Cold War.
Nina sat on a bench and leaned back to look at the stars. She was amazed how many she could see, despite having to compete with the city lights. After what felt like two hours, her butt started to go numb. But when she looked at her phone, she saw that only twenty minutes had passed. Nothing from Jared. Nina returned to her car, crawled into the back seat and cried until she fell asleep.
She woke the next morning to the sound of a sharp rap on the glass of the car window. She’d been drooling. Was this her lowest moment? At some point in her low point, she’d grabbed Jude the Obscure from the front seat and used it as a pillow. Her alarm clock was dressed like a doorman. Nina glared at him and squeezed into the front seat so that she could drive away without opening a door or having to speak to him. She drove aimlessly for a few blocks until she spotted a sign for the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge and decided to call her friend.
A few lies later and she was in a shower. It was hard for Nina to feel bad during a hot shower. If she’d thought to jump in the shower before jumping in the car, she might have at least spent the night in her own bed last night. If her friend didn’t know what to think about Nina’s earlier arrival, she was polite enough not to probe. She showed Nina anything she might need to know, gave her a spare key, and then headed off to work. Jared finally called while she was in the bathroom. She didn’t answer.
In the light of day, the United Nations building was whiter and brighter and not so blue. It had just gone noon and the ceremony wasn’t until 4 pm, but the line for security already looked impossibly long. Nina wondered if there was something else going on at the UN, but what else could inspire the strangest parade of space geeks and art majors stretched down the block, around the block, and across the road where it turned again, out of sight? She asked a man in a tweed cap and a white scarf if this was the line for the Q-prize.
“Yes! Incredible isn’t it? Space isn’t just for scientists anymore!”
The line could have been for tickets to the “Frozen 4 The Musical: The Re-Meltening.” As Nina walked down the line, searching for the end, she kept thinking over and over again “They accepted everyone. They accepted everyone.” She’d left her husband to participate in the least exclusive music festival of all time. The fence was an illusion. The opportunity didn’t feel so extraordinary now.
By the time Nina got into the UN campus and shuffled through the many stages of the “ceremony,” the all-volunteer Q-Prize staff were a well-oiled, but exhausted machine. Less of a ceremony and more of an obstacle course, Nina was weighed, questioned, prodded, measured, and finally given a pledge to repeat by a thin-lipped man choked by a razor-thin tie.
“I gratefully accept this extraordinary opportunity to risk everything for greater human achievement. The unforgiving nature of space and astro-geoengineering have claimed the lives of many who dared slip the bonds of Earth and reach for greater heights. I recognize and accept that era-defining exploration and scientific advancements sometimes come at a terrible price. Today, I give my whole body and mind to push against the limits of its technological capability. The men and women who came before me had the most noble of goals: the pursuit of truth and understanding. I faithfully pledge to assist the United Nations and...” He paused here to ask Nina her nationality. “And the United States of America to expand human knowledge of the cosmos is to pursue a better life on Earth for my children, their children, and future generations to come.”
Nina almost blurted out that she didn’t have any children, but he was already waving her along to the medal table. It looked like an unappetizing buffet. She should have wondered then why everyone was getting a medal before they’d done anything or gone anywhere. She should have wondered why she had pledged her life away to NASA and the UN. But she’d never been in a crowd like this. Sunlight bounced off the white tower and blinded her when she looked up, so she kept looking down at her feet and all the hundreds of feet of her fellow future astronauts.
She’d never planned to leave her husband, but she never thought she’d stay married either, not really.
A medic demonstrated that she should present both arms for a series of shots. Nina smiled shyly at her and asked if it had been a long day. The woman sighed and used the back of her hand to shove her bangs off her forehead.
“Yeah. It’s crazy how many people think they are going to be space poets. You know this is a labor camp program, right? I don’t think that’s been properly explained.”
The first needle entered right above her left elbow pit. Nina gasped.
“But it said that they wanted artists. I’m a writer, and um, a teacher, of writing.”
The medic shook her head and prepped the next two needles. “What good is a writing teacher on the moon? You’ll be working ten-hour shifts—hard labor—just to cover the costs of training, feeding, housing, not to mention getting your ass into space. You’ll work until you pay it off and then you’ll work until you can afford to come home. Does that sound like something you want to write about? Sweetie, let me just ask you right now,” She leaned in and lowered her voice, “How’s your back?”
Nina gasped as the medic thrust another needle into her right arm.
She drove straight home. She didn’t even stop at her friend’s house to pick up her stuff. Jared wasn’t at their house, so she took advantage of the privacy to quit her jobs. The dean was effusive with pride. One of their teaching assistants was going to space! Doreen did not understand. She reminded Nina that she was volunteering to drink her own urine. Nina responded “LOL” but did not, in fact, laugh out loud, or at all.
Jared didn’t come home that night. About mid-morning the following day, she texted him from their driveway.
<There is half and half in the fridge, and it smelled fine and was almost full, so I left it. I’m sorry for surprising you with this. You deserve better. I’ll send you some moon rocks.>
As she started backing up, Nina noticed her copy of Jude hanging off the edge of the passenger seat. She rolled down the window and chucked the book against the front of the house with as much power as she could muster from a seated position. Her phone buzzed. Jared texted the shooting star emoji.
Houston was south. Nina drove north.
D. S. G. Burke (she/her) lives and writes in New York City. Her writing has appeared in The Seattle Times, The Opiate Magazine, and Thereafter Magazine, and the 3Elements Literary Review (Pushcart nominated). Find out more at www.dsgburke.com or on Twitter @dsgburke—where she’s usually hyping up composting.
