A. Hicks Hope

Creativity, Expression, & Entertainment Sought

July 14, 2010                                ISSUE: AHH-10-5 

 Post Traumatic Stress

By

D. S. Forest

Let’s get back to the description of my family’s day.  I was just about to cover the best part of it.  First, some more background though.   My wife, Mirth, that’s actually not her name, I just call her that, was one of the second group of women astronauts for the space shuttle.  She was a Mission Specialist on two missions on the space station.  She has a Ph.D. in Molecular Neurophysiology.  We had been together “unofficially” for about two years when she was chosen by NASA, so I went to Houston with her.  To help her train for the Mission.  Each morning we would get up early and run five or so miles then come back to our apartment to take a shower together.  It is this latter aspect of the training that has become a tradition, a very pleasant one.  We even had an extra large shower built in our bedroom to complete our morning “workouts”. 

            Now there are a number of myths in the world. (I like to dispel as many as I can.)   The specific one I mean here, is that workouts and lovemaking are mutually exclusive.  In fact, Mirth and I are usually so excited for each other after our morning run that running has become our “foreplay”, if we used those terms, but we don’t.  To us, we’ve never had sex.  Our sexuality is one with our love for each other.  So that, as I say frequently, “Whatever we do together, we are always making love.”  

            Today, though no exception, was not the day to “show” our relationship to its fullest.  Mirth had an early meeting to get to, so she was already halfway through her shower by the time I left Adam (the son) and checked on Elisabeth’s (the youngest) meager progress in getting ready for school. 

As I stepped in the shower, Mirth smiled, “Now, Sweetheart, I have to go…”

“But you haven’t done your back yet…” I can always get her attention by washing or rubbing her back, because, as with the massage, I wash her back with us front to front.  I think it’s the best way to rub or wash a back, especially Mirth’s.

            She, of course, giggled as I approached, that’s why I call her Mirth.  She put her arms out to push me away, but I’ve slipped by those defenses many times before.  They were soapy defenses, at that, no big deal.  We smiled as we kissed.  We often laugh as we kiss.  Its always so much fun.  I soaped up her back and kissed her gently but madly.  (As I think of it, there is something totally human about lovemaking.  I never feel as complete as when I’m with Mirth, no matter what we’re doing.)   Still, today she had wanted to go (though I knew she wanted to stay) so I washed her back and her neck and her right thigh and her left thigh and her right buttock and her left buttock.   As I do this I’m between her legs, a gentle press of affection and love.  There are no goals to our love, only time desired to love.  We rinsed together as we kissed, with our eyes open, of course.  Just as Mirth started to leave the shower I said, “Wild nights, wild nights indeed.  If I were with thee, wild nights should be our luxury.”

            “Tonight, Dearest…” she said and blew me a kiss as she left the shower.

            There are times (we’ve been together over fifteen years) . . . at these little partings; leaving the shower, going to another room, even falling asleep in our bed after a full day spent together, where I feel as if I’ve lost a part of my body, a hollow sadness touches me.  Part of me leaves with her.  Of course, I feel this when she leaves on a long trip, but when I know she’s near and I can’t see or feel her there, I get these crazy cravings.  If I hadn’t had to wash my own hair and in a bit of a hurry myself, I would have followed her, but I must be responsible sometimes, people expect a little of that once and a while.  As I wash my hair, I’ll tell you what I’ve done to somewhat alleviate my saddenings at Mirth’s “petite farewells”. 

Originally, no one in the house knew I did this but they are all better and bright so it is only a matter of time for them catch on.   Over the last few years I have bought and positioned multiple mirrors, cabinets with large glass doors, and various other reflective surfaces all over the Tree House (What I and a few of the neighbors call our home.).   The result, I don’t have to go very far to see almost anywhere in the house.  Say from the study, I can look in the large mirror over my desk and into the dark abstract painting over our bed in the other room.  There I can easily view an image of Mirth in one of the bathroom mirrors.  I can work similar sorts of tricks through most of the parts of the house.  This system does have its drawbacks though, more than once I’ve been temporarily blinded by the morning sun.  I think these reflective semi-blinding incidents have given me away, so far though, no one has said anything. 

            Anyway, I usually can observe and follow the image of Mirth as she leaves me.  I sometimes will say to her, “You can never leave me.”  She always smiles in a manner that makes me suspicious of her reflective knowledge.  She must know.  Also, I can keep an eye on the kids with this system.  They would take apart any video camera system, I tried that once.  I found it eviscerated on the breakfast table.  That reminded me, I had to supervise breakfast.

            Udiko (the oldest) had left already with that awful Instant Breakfast drink she literally whips up in the blender.  Adam and Elisabeth were at the table.  Adam whispered to Elisabeth and they both laughed as I entered the kitchen.  No, my pants are on.

            “Adam, why won’t you tell me what you whisper to your sister each morning that gives her the giggles for a half hour.”

            “Nothing, Dad . . . she’s just easy.”

            “I hope not too easy.”  I also hope neither of them understand such side comments from me, I am prone to make such remark.  I think my hopes are in vain though, this family understands way too much. (Someone once said I was like a Shakespeare play, always giving side narration.  Iago or Hamlet, I’m not.) 

            Over a giggle Elisabeth said, “Please Dr. Forest, tell us about Houston.”  She’s going through yet another phase.  I am Dr. this week.  Last month the “Children” were calling me D.S.  They are my initials but no one refers to me that way.  They are always attempting to find ways to get one over on ole Dad.  I love it.

            “But Elisabeth,” I said from the stove, “I have told you those stories, so many times you know them by heart.”

            “But they’re always different.” she said.

           “Yeah,” Adam added, “You always exaggerate for dramatic effect.”   Elisabeth joined in on speaking this last phrase.  They both laughed.

            “Such abuse I take from my own wretched children.”  I’ve got to quit using that phrase.  “How many pieces of French toast do you want Adam?”

“Eleven, as usual!”  Said Adam to his plate.

I gave him four, as usual.  Who was that that mentioned dramatic effect?

“Don’t forget Jerry!”  Elisabeth shouted through one of her bites of toast.

“Yes, Jerry…He’s usually as hungry as Adam, so eleven toasts for him.”

“Oh, Daddy.”

In the morning, the kitchen floor was littered with pet bodies.  I always have to step carefully.  A cat here, a dog there, a squirrel even appeared one day at my feet.  I haven’t seen it back in a while though.  This pet flop house exists because the kids throw food to the beasts when Mirth and I aren’t looking.  These animals seem to grow bigger every day in both mass and number.  I worry if the children get enough to eat, especially Elisabeth. 

She loves every animal she sees, even spiders and (to her mother’s horror) cockroaches.  Elisabeth even had a pet roach a few months ago.  Mirth about died from shock one morning when she discovered him, Orpheus, in Elisabeth’s dresser drawer.  He occupied a Chinese cricket cage I had given Elisabeth one July 4^th.  Boy, he was enormous for a local roach, he almost filled the bamboo cage, all that extra food.  He was so big that Adam wanted to keep him in a Canary cage down stairs.  Elisabeth liked the idea too.  I was game but we ended up with a real bird instead, as a swop for the release of Orpheus far from the house.  This exchange was negotiated by Mirth, on pain of departure.  Elisabeth and I went out in the woods and let Orpheus go back to Insect Hades or wherever he came from. 

Despite all the negative elements, I still try to encourage this love of animals in Elisabeth.  She has so few other interests outside of music (especially the piano), reading and poking fun at me.  She’s so pale, that I’ve moved the piano out on the patio so she’ll get a little sunshine.

To get back to the main point, we have a living carpet in our kitchen.  It is my fault; I can never say “enough” or even “No”.  Women have always gotten “their way” with me.  How I love it and them, in general, and specifically, my three.

Speaking of my three, my ultimate one walked into the kitchen fluffing her hair off the back of her neck.

“You know what that does to me?”  I reached to kiss her just bared nape.

She twisted away and kissed me on the nose.  “I’ve got to go, I’m late already.”  She kissed Elisabeth on the forehead, Adam there too, and me on the nose again.  “I’ll get breakfast there.  You don’t need to worry.”

“Me worry?” I said in an amazed tone.  “I’ll bring you in lunch after I’ve deposited Elisabeth.”

“I thought today was your writing day?”  She said as she walked toward the front door.

“So it is!”  I said right behind her, my hands on her waist.  “I’ll compose in the car.”

“Rhymes for Elisabeth are all.”  She was out the door.

At the car, I held Mirth to me,  “Your body is the only true poetry ever made in this world.”

She giggled, ducked in the car and drove away.  Ouch, those small farewells!

Back in the kitchen, Jerry had made an appearance, eaten his breakfast already, (the kid eats faster than I do) and just finished his milk as I sat down.  Adam had made me a pot of tea.  “So, Jerry, I called your mother.”

“I told you, I have run away.”  Jerry actually talks like this.  He sounds like an Oxford educated accountant.

“Yeah, you announced it last night.  Still, I thought your mother should know.  Just in case she missed you.”  I had to hold back my amusement.  Last night at dinner, Jerry did make such an announcement.  Why it’s amusing is that Jerry’s family lives two houses down from us.  He’s Adam’s best friend and he was always over here anyway.  If he were going to “run away” from anyone, he should be running away from us.  He’s hardly ever at his real home.  He’s much like his father, hardly ever home.  His mother says she feels more comfortable with him here.  She says he’s in good company.  An interesting way to put it, still it’s the way we feel around here also.  Same goes for half the other neighborhood kids, the Tree House’s door was always open.

Adam’s finished breakfast, so, being an adolescent, he’s on the move.  He takes Jerry off to his room upstairs.  My conversations with Adam and Jerry at this point in time were always very short.  I’m just old and dull I guess.  Elisabeth, of course, was still waiting for her story.  I’ve been telling her stories her entire life, so why shouldn’t she wait?  “Okay, which one do you want?”

“I want to hear the roller coaster story.”  Elisabeth smiled at me, oh so amused.  I should check her birth certificate again to see if she really was only seven years old.

The roller coaster story, as she has named it, (though a roller coaster appears only at the end of the story which is the part she likes) was an early Houston story.  It’s about Mirth and I trying to overcome her motion sickness problem.  It’s true that I have “embellished” the specific events far beyond what really happened, but does that really matter.  I love to make my family laugh, so sue me.

”You only like that story because it humiliates both your mother and me.”

“It’s funny.”  She giggled, throwing the last of her breakfast to her pet carpet, right as I watch.  When we’re alone, she is a very bold young lady.

As I hurried her off to finish dressing I gave her a reduced version of the Roller Coaster Story.  As I said, I have “embellished” it and thus it has many forms, depending upon my mood at the telling.  The basis of the story comes from Mirth’s motion sickness.  I know, I know, “How did someone who gets seasick get to fly into space?”  The same way you get to Carnegie Hall, practice, or so I thought.  Actually, space makes almost everyone sick at some point.

The Roller Coaster Story

(a.k.a Weightless Vomit)

            My theory, though it’s probably wrong, was that if you experience the motion that causes sickness enough you could get use to it, if you really wanted to.  Maybe not conquer the illness but lessen the effect.  Thus put a person into the “sickening” situation many times and there will be less chance of active nausea.  A very inconvenient situation in zero-g, weightless vomit, it goes from a noun to an active verb very quickly and very messily, at that. 

So, one of the first things we did before training officially started was enroll in the D.S. Forest Flight Training Method.  Unfortunately, this Forest (me) didn’t know how to fly then, thus I came up with the next best thing or, at least, the easiest to workout; a fast car on a winding road with many small hills.  We would rent a small fast car, a corvette or some foreign sports car and at dawn, “move out” to find a suitable Texas road.  With the CD playing Wagner or Beethoven, or some other German composer, I would drive as fast as I could while Mirth would read to me from her technical manuals.  We would do this before breakfast, of course, mustn’t waste food. 

Mirth did throw up so often though, that I bought her a fur “barf” bag, synthetic fur on the outside, plastic lined on the inside.  It was washable, of course, for those who worry about those details.  I called the bag any number of names: Nauseous Nell, the Vomit Valise, the Sick Sack or the Satchel on Ill House.  Mirth didn’t find the names or the need for the bag amusing.

Well, it’s hard to say what the results of these dawn trips were on Mirth’s problem.  It did seem to be working a little.  Complications set in though around the third or fourth week of these Rides de Nausea.  After about 15 – 20 trips, we had a little auto accident.  On a particularly articulate bit of back road, doing about 60 mph, the front left tire blew.  Up until this specific time, I didn’t like driving that much.  I only did it when I had to.  Although, I must admit, I did like driving those sports cars, but that’s another matter for a later date.  Anyway, this high-speed puncture was an uncommon event to occur to me.  I realize now that if it hadn’t been that fast driving did make me nervous and that I was constantly afraid that just something like this would happen, so when it did happen I was ready for it.  Thus I kept the car under some control.  Still, we ended up stuck in a ditch at the side of the road with nothing hurt but my ego.  I should have been able to keep the car on the road.

In one version of this story, the car actually jumps an eight-foot ravine to land nose down in a pig field, gently of course, no one was hurt.  Still the moral: (These are stories I tell my children)  don’t drive fast.

After we rescued the car and ourselves, I was more shaken than Mirth.  She has total faith in me, still we both agreed that we must find a safer way to administer the “treatments”. 

This may seem like another aside, but it relates directly to the story.  I was at loose ends when we were first in Houston, I had finished a post-doctoral research position in Molecular Biology, but was not satisfied enough with that profession to continue on just then.  Should I be a scientist or a fiction writer?  (To this day I have not made that decision, I try to do both.)  Thus, not only did I have time to help Mirth when she needed it, but also, in general, I had a great deal of time to kill when she didn’t need my help.  To fill out the latter time periods, I tried to visit the usual and unusual things in the Houston area.  These random visitings lead to the discovery of Chuck Dante’s “INFERNO” Amusement Park or as Chuck referred to it, “Amusement?  Hell!”  Ole Chuck had a bent sense of humor along with a few other bent senses.  His theory (there’s a lot of theories going around) was that people come to amusement parks to cheat death in a harmless, relatively safe fashion.  Well, this maybe a sound psychological theory but it turns out to be a bad for business.  At least, the way Ole Chuck brought his theory to fruition. 

Above the entrance to the INFERNO was “Abandon all hope, Ye who enter here!”  Too familiar and too literary for Texas.  It gets worse.  Black crape draped the midway, the rides had names to match, the roller coaster was called, “Next Stop Eternity”, the free-fall ride was called, “Deathdrop”.  Even the trams in the parking lot were horse drawn hearses.  Needless-to-say, this was not Houston’s most frequented amusement experience.  Ole Chuck survived, though on those few individuals that were as bent as he was…We became two of those bent few.  Well, at least, for the final year that the park was open.  Some ideas are great and still bomb, now “Bomb Blast”, that was a hell of a ride.

I got to know Ole Chuck fairly well, and thus told him our (Mirth’s) problem.  Being the helpful sort, Ole Chuck offered us the use of his rides in the early morning.  “Next Stop Eternity”, Mirth and I must have ridden that roller coaster straight for maybe twenty or thirty minutes, the first time out.  Just us and the morning sun, no one else and no nausea, Mirth actually loved it.  I assumed that there was not enough “Free-fall” to make the stomach queasy.  Thus we decided that “Deathdrop” would be the next best bet.  Off we went for five consecutive trips up about one hundred feet, then the fast drop.  At the end of the fifth drop, Mirth said, “That was fun too, but I feel fine.” 

            At that point, I threw up. 

Elisabeth thus dies laughing.  That’s the part she really likes, what she wants the story for.  No matter how I tell it, she always laughs the hardest at that statement. 

            Well, at that point my official “treatments” stopped.  I couldn’t take it anymore.  Mirth continued to ride any and all rides at Ole Chuck’s.  I  call that a success.  I would join her on all except “Deathdrop” or “Weightless Vomit” as I called it after that fateful day.  We even got a number of fellow mission specialists to come with us.  Hell, they were ready to go into space on the top of a mountain of fire, a few spooky names weren’t going to bother them.  We were gloomier about the park closing than the decor.  Ole Chuck was a great guy, but not as good a businessman as he needed to be.  The big, OH WELL!

            Now back to the morning’ events.  After I finished a short version of the story, as Elisabeth finished her morning toilette, I walked into our bedroom.  I looked up at the sky through the skylight.  Telling Elisabeth that story brought back feelings and memories of when Mirth was in space.  While she was just about as far away from me as she could get I would write poems about how I felt.  At that time, I was going through a very emotional period, so the poems (though not very good literature) dealt with the absolute blackness of my longing, about emotions being stretched and strained by danger and uncertainty.  Poems about how dangerous and vampiric love can be when its felt to it’s fullest.  Poems about lovers as one person, true love as narcissism.  But mostly, they were just about how I missed her being beside me.  Now, we always try to be there, beside each other.  It’s what we both want more than anything, To-be-together.

            Elisabeth has morning piano lessons and then school.  I always drive her to her piano lesson then hang around in the park or library until the lesson is over trying to “write”.  I then walk with her the half block to school.  If I don’t do this, she will talk her teacher into giving her a few more lessons, and she never gets to school.  That teacher is as bad as I am about being controlled by that seven-year old adult.  Eventually though, I do get her to do what is best and necessary for her.  Most of the time I do, I’m no fool.

            This day I sat in the park with a large cup of tea and a frown.  I had promised Mirth that I would write something every other day during the week.  The frown was from my failure, I hadn’t written anything in months.  It was the reason I started this family record (other than to document and embrace in words my family members).  It was to keep me writing.  I do like to tell stories, I do it all the time, but writing them down takes time and my novel…THE NOVEL?  I just don’t know if I’ll ever know enough about science or the human mind or mankind or people or myself to finish it.  Its title is “The Molecular Biology of the Soul”, scary thought isn’t it.

            So here, I will try to record some of the stories I’ve told the children over the past years, but have never written down, and a few that I have.  I even like some of them. 

            To my surprise, Elisabeth actually walked out of the door after her lesson this time.  She wanted to walk to school with her friend Jane, whose mother will bring them home after school.   I teased Elisabeth about not letting me take her to school.  ”I’ve been waiting for just that privilege for an hour and now to be thrown over for another seven-year old!”  My dramatic effect didn’t work.  I was “Oh, Daddy-ed”, kissed and left standing in the park.  I watched Jane and Elisabeth walk down the block to her day-time world, the school yard teaming with other short beings like themselves and the few teacher giants.

I stood quietly for a moment, in the park, only a bird and myself aware of the silence.  Two heart beats…There she is, gone…I am too protective…Stop feeling this way…nothing is lost…Got to get lunch for Mirth and head for the lab.  The “Other World” of my many worlds for it is the most “Real” in every difficult sense of the word.

Moving to the “Real” world, “The Complex” I call it.  The building that holds Mirth’s research laboratory looked like a neo-classical prison fortress.  The gray concrete building was divided into four modular sections with three giant columns connecting those modules.  An entrance was at the base of each of those columns.  It could be a set from a Hammer monster movie, it’s so tacky.  I always go in the far right entrance and walk up the three flights of stairs, just to feel smug when I hear everyone up there rationalize why they took the elevator.  I am easily amused.  Entering Mirth’s lab the faint odor of the “Incident” still lingered even though it’s been over three months ago.  They still haven’t patched the bullet holes in the wall.  Institutional maintenance at its best…those scars will likely be with us for years. 

I realize I should have an aside at this point to explain the “Incident” reference.  It is a long story and I will tell it in a while.  I am trying to generate some anticipation and suspense in this record.  Also there are a few things that need to be said before it’s telling. 

Mirth was on the phone.  Scientists always seem to be on the phone.  I put down our lunches and go to find Joy, the lab technician.  Joy is a short, serious, hard working woman that is so solemn that I have nicknamed her “Little Joy”.  She, of course, doesn’t find the label the slightest bit humorous, so I try to keep the name to myself…most of the time.  Joy, though, was also busy with an experiment and she really hates being disturbed, so I walked on through her part of the lab to see if anyone else was here.  Nope, no one here, I guess its too early for any of the other lab members; being three graduate students, two post-doctoral fellows and a few undergraduates that come in now and then.  These members tend toward the monster movie schedule, working in the dark of night.

I have spent so much of the last decade in this lab that it like part of our house.  Oddly though, this place makes me comfortable to the point that I like being here alone when the lab is empty.  I like it here because something good is almost always happening, well excluding three months ago.  Research is a frustrating, insecure profession at times, but here with Mirth, we both feel in more control then usual.  We can decipher almost anything Mother Nature has devised, if we work together.  I walked back into Mirth’s office as she put down the phone.  She had that look in her eye…the concerned parent look Udi calls it.  So I try to joke it off her face.

“Sustenance has arrived, My Love.”  I kissed her across her desk.  “I’ve even brought you lunch.”  Real wit, ah?

“Forest, sit down a minute.”

“What, before I start something you can’t resist?”  I got her to giggle that time.

“Now just wait…Let me talk seriously for a moment.”

“Yes mam.”  I sat down on her office sofa.  “Oh, what a familiar sofa.”  I patted the cushions.

“Forest,” still she smiled.  “Did you do any writing this morning?”

“Oh, well mom, I sort of….”  I’m so cute sometimes; I make myself sick.

“I’m being serious, Forest.  You spend much too much time amusing Elisabeth, time you should be writing.”

 Oh, I do love this woman.  “You say that as if you are jealous.”  I smiled.

She smiled back at me with her eyes alone.  “Maybe I am a little, I want to be the center of your attention, but it is not just the time with Elisabeth, you do it with the whole family…”  I got up to come around the desk.  “No, Forest, sit!  Let me say this and then we can play for awhile.”

“Okay, Okay, I like the play part though.”  I sat back down.  She was being serious.

“I love the play part too, but I know you.  You know I do.  You have to spend more time to yourself.  The best way to do that is through your writing.  Fiction is your Freud, you work out your troubles there.  It keeps you the person I love.”  She came to me on the sofa.  “And I do so love that person.”

“Well, I only spend my time for the family because I enjoy it.  I want everything to be perfect for you and the kids.  I can’t think of losing any of that.”  Gosh, I was almost in tears.

“I realize that, but you’re a very important part of the family too, so some of that Time has to go to you.”  She kissed me.

“I am just afraid that if I don’t watch everyone close enough you might disappear.  I think about just those few months ago…”  I was crying.

“Even the times I have had to leave you,” she kissed me while looking deep into my eyes.  “It’s only been for a little while.  I’ve always come back to you.”

“Yes, but a couple of times I’ve also had to come in and pull you out…haven’t I?”  I can barely talk. 

“You’re not going to lose me or the children.  We have always pulled through some how, haven’t we?”  She ran her hand down my cheek to my chest.  “All of us are just concerned that you are doing too much for us and not enough for yourself.”  She grasped my face between her two hands.  “You know you do tend to over do it sometimes.  You know that you do.”

“That’s me, just a martyr at heart.”  I tried to laugh, but it came out like a cough.

“We want you alive and well, that’s exactly what I am saying.  I need you, we need you, clear eyed, rested and ready for the struggle.  So, please be careful with yourself, that will help us most of all.”

People wonder why I would die for this woman.  “I just…It’s the only thing I truly fear, so I’m…I never feel I can let up…”

“Oh, sweet…” she too was crying.

We stretched out on the old familiar sofa and almost without realizing it we were naked.  It is the contact we desire, unobstructed by anything; clothing, distance, time…it’s a necessity.  As I enter Mirth, each becomes part of the other.  Neither can feel any boundaries at the time, only waves of pleasure generated by our desire to give, joy, pleasure, its all.  Our giving destroys time.  We spend hours merged.  Peaks of passion and emotion ebbing…flowing…softly flowing…gentle convulsions…of euphoria…slick, sweet, moist sweat…smoothness of the skin…its warmth…the feel of physical emotion…needing only contact and being connected…desire for desire…breath for breath…and culmination, the summary…the summit together, which is our goal and our beginning…always one.

Mirth’s eyes are pale blue, now green moving to hazel.  A drop of sweat was transported down her nose by the glow of her excretion.  We don’t move…just remained calm.  I kissed her neck lightly, it makes her hum.  I said, “We should never move from this spot.”

“If only…”

“Oh, but we have responsibilities to others.”  I said.

“And to ourselves.”  She moved off me slowly.  Final separation came with a shock.  See, those “petite farewells”. 

“Don’t leave me.”  I whispered.

“I’ll never leave you.”  I guess she heard me.  She kissed my nose.  Mirth keeps towels in her desk drawer for just such occasions.  We toweled down and dressed.

“Udi’s coming by after school for a chat as she called it.”  Mirth said as she sat down at her computer.  “It’s odd because today she has gymnastics practice.  Do you know what this could be about?  She’s so busy lately, I hardly speak to her or even see her.”

I nodded my head, “I think I do…I…gave her the journals I’ve been keeping for her since before she was born.  I think she’s finished reading them.”

“You documented everything, I hope.”

“I tried to be as honest and straight about events as I could.  I may even have written more about my feelings then I have told you.  I just hope Udi’s old enough to understand them…not that I do yet…”

“That must be it!”  Mirth blew a breath up past her nose.  “Udi will understand eventually.  It maybe a little rough at first.  I’ll see how things are, but she will want to talk to you about it.”

“I hope so…things have been tough on her.  I can’t control everything or myself all the time.”  I stood at the office door.

“Good, realize that.”  Mirth smiled.  “Remember that, you’re neither perfect nor omniscient, even though you try to be.  Let me help you here.”

“I’ll try.”  We didn’t eat our lunch.

“Then do me a favor, go home, lock yourself in your study.  Don’t worry about dinner and write something.!”  Mirth pushed me toward the lab door.  I felt like I was ten-years old.  “Write about the Incident.  You said you were going to do that.  It is a good time for it.  The ammonia smell is almost gone from the lab.  Will you do what I say?”

“Yes, mam.”  I left and here it is.

“The Incident”

(a.k.a. All We Need of Hell)

            Forest knew his daughter Elisabeth was all right.  He had just dropped her off at her elementary school yard, so it was another member of the family that was causing his head to buzz…anxiety…warning.  As he got close to the University, the police sirens drove his intuition into fact. 

“Its Mirth,” he said to himself.  “I knew those threats were real.”  But he tried to be calm.  Those sirens could be anything, at such a large university, something was always happening.  He even forced himself to park in their assigned parking space.  Still he ran all the way to the Neuro-Institute. 

“Damn . . . damn . . . Damn!”  He ran through the ring of campus and city police cars and jumped the final barrier.

“Stop!” shouted one of the official vehicles.

“It’s my wife!”  Forest shouted back over his shoulder.  “Damnation again.”  He was stopped at the building entrance by a crowd of evacuees and their police escorts. 

“Forest…they’ve got Mirth and Joy.”  Shouted a man with ruffled hair.  He waved as he emerged from the crowd. 

“Christ, and the Authorities told me it was nothing!”  Forest waved his hand in the air.  “Typical of their Nothing.  Are there police on every floor?”

“I don’t know…” the man tried to straighten his hair.  “I was writing in my office, there were some sirens, then these cops show up and tell me to evacuate the building.  Bob told me what was going on, on the way down.”

“Where’s Bob?”  Forest scanned the crowd.  All people he knew, some still had lab notebooks and even pipetters in their hands.  “See you later.”  Forest pushed his way over to where Bob was standing with two of Mirth’s graduate students: Sandy and Van.

“What’s happened?”  Forest’s breath was rapid.

“You’re here…” Bob started.  “Those nitwits that have been threatening us, the SLSR.”

“The Social League for Scientific Reform…” Van added.

“Yeah, thanks.  Those nitwits . . .”  Bob frowned at Van.  “Four of them came into the lab with guns…automatics, even an Uzi…God everyone seems to have one of those.  They told the rest of us to get out.  They only needed Mirth and one other female, as they put it.  Poor Joy.” Bob finally looked into Forest’s eyes.  “I’m sorry Forest, it seemed . . . it was the only thing I could do.”

“You were right.”  Forest looked up at the third floor lab window.  There was no one to be seen.  “Now we just have to get them out of there.  Did they say what they wanted?”

“They said it all in their letters is what they told us before they pushed us into the hallway.  All I remember is threats and accusations.”  Bob shook his head.  “You know Mirth having been on the space station.  She is a symbol of the corruption of the space program, her being a neurobiologist means mind control from space.  She caused all the recent third-world problems.  The world no less.  We can’t even do it for one person.  What shit!”

“Great!”  Forest looked back over the police cars and tactical vehicles, picked out the obvious commander of the strike force.  “Out in the open, Great!  What a jerk.  I’ll have to do this myself, as always.”

“I’ll go back.”  Bob said.

“No, No I’ll get my son Adam.”

“Adam is just a kid.”  Van added.

“You haven’t seen that kid lately have you.  Besides, this is a family matter.”  Forest made for the police commander.  “You guys just stay out of trouble.”

As he goes, Forest dialed Adam’s number on his mobile phone.

“Yes, Dad?”  Adam’s voice was concerned.  This was the wrong time for a call from Forest.

“Adam. I need you here at the lab, your mother’s in trouble and we have to get her out of it.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”  Adam hung up.  Then  Forest’s phone chirped.

“Daddy…” this was a female voice.

“Yes, Udi… I was just going to …”

“I just heard over the radio.  I’m on my way.”

“No!”  Forest stopped by the  pay phone on the snack bar wall.  “Adam’s coming, I need. . . .”

“I’m the oldest, I should be there, not Adam!”  Udi’s voice was pitched even higher by the amplification of her phone.

“I need you to get Elisabeth, you’re closer.”  Forest looked at the police commander.  “I’ll call the school.  These freaks could be after anyone of us, so go to the principal’s office.  I’ll have her bring Elisabeth there.  She’s only to turn her over to you.  You take Elisabeth to your Aunt Kiyomi’s and stay there until I come for you.  Understand?”

“Yes, Daddy.”  Udi’s voice was firm.

“Oh, and I love you.”

“I love you too, Daddy.  Get mother.”  Udi hung up, before Forest could say, “Don’t worry.”

The automatic dialer wasn’t fast enough for Forest.  “Come on, pick up.”

“Justine Elementary…” the pleasant voice said in response to the third ring.

“Ms. Carrington please and hurry.  It’s an emergency.”  Forest looked at his watch.

“Carrington here, Yes…” another pleasant voice.

“This is D.S. Forest, Elisabeth’s father.”

“Yes, Dr. Forest, can I help you?”

“There is a situation here at the university that may put Elisabeth in danger.  I’ll explain later, but please would you do exactly what I say for now?”

“Why certainly Dr. Forest, Whatever you want.  You know how I feel about Elisabeth. She…”

“Fine, thanks, after I hang up get Elisabeth yourself and bring her to your office.  Her sister, Udiko is coming to pick her up.  Only Udiko, no one else.  Udi is her half sister, from my first marriage, Udi is Eurasian, about five foot six, well developed for a sixteen-year old.  Let Elisabeth recognize her.  Udi will take it from there, but please watch them leave.  If anything happens or anyone follows them call the police immediately.”

“Certainly, but don’t you think I could protect her better than a teenager.”

“I don’t have time to detail Udi’s attributes.”  Forest was trying to control his anger.  “Udi can handle it and I want both of them away from there.  Please will you do as I said.”

“Of course, but…”

“Fine. . . ” Forest hung up, then said “We’ll take care of it.”

Forest walked as calmly as he could up to the police command station.  “Excuse me.”  Forest gently pushed the police guard aside and walked through the perimeter.  “Oh shit, are these guys are so green.”   Forest walked directly to the Lieutenant in charge.  “My wife is one of the hostages and the other is my friend.”  Forest spoke to the back of the Lieutenant’s head.  “We’ve got to get them out of there.  I know where…”

“Who let this man in here?”  The Lieutenant said to his Sergeant  then turned around.  “Sir, this is a police matter.  You will please stay out of it.”  Then back to his Sergeant , “Get him out of here.”

“Great,” Forest didn’t move even with the Sergeant ’s hand on his arm.  “I don’t care about your authority.  I just want my wife out of there unharmed.  I know how to do it.  We talked about this, just give me ten minutes and I’ll have them out.”

“You’ll do nothing and I’ll give you nothing.”  The Lieutenant looked at a campus map.

Forest saw his son Adam’s bulk running up the small hill in front of the Institute.

“Please sir?”  The Sergeant  squeezed Forest’s arm.  “You won’t do any good.”  The Sergeant  tilted his head toward the Lieutenant.

“I didn’t think I would, but try to get me as much time as possible.”  Forest turned to leave.

“Sergeant !” the Lieutenant made his voice hard.

“Please sir?”  the Sergeant  walked back to his Lieutenant.

Forest waved to catch Adam’s attention then pointed to the side door of the Biology building.  Adam was recovering his breath as Forest made it to the door.

“Into the tunnel.”  Forest held the door for Adam.  They ran down the short gray hallway.  “I don’t think they know about this way.”  Then down the stairs.  “Adam, do exactly what I say.”  Forest put his hand on Adam’s shoulder as they ran out from the stairway into a long dark corridor.   
            “Yes, Dad.”  Adam continued to look forward.

“And stay calm.  We’ll need everything we’ve got to finish this.”  They ran through the open door that connected the two buildings basements.  “Just think of the last mile of our morning run.  Just think of home…that’s where we are going . . . to your mother . . . to home.”

At the end of the Institute’s basement corridor, the door to the stairs was shut and locked.  Forest tried his building key.  “Oh shit, a fine time for maintenance to become efficient.  I’ll have to pick it.”  Forest quickly dismantles the micrometer he used to measure micrographs.  The thin steel rod removed, he inserted the small blade of his pocketknife into the keyhole and turns while he worked the lock mechanism with the steel rod.  “Adam, you realize that I’m going to have to do some things that I’m only doing because of the extraordinary circumstances.”  The lock was giving way.  “Come on…You’re not ever, ever to do anything like this unless its absolutely necessary.  You understand me?”

“Yes, Dad.  I understand.  We have to get Mirth and Joy.”  Adam breathed heavily.

“And that’s all we’ll do.”  The lock was almost open.  “We just get them and get out.  We’ll go through the utility closet in the back of the lab.  It has a service opening to the fourth floor.”  The lock and the door opened at the same time.

“Yes, I know Dad.”  Adam looked up the empty stairwell.

Forest and Adam ran upwards hugging the far wall.  The wall was rough concrete and cool to the touch.  It caught at Forest’s sweater.  “Your mother will know we’re coming and try to get put in that closet.  She’ll manage it somehow.”

“Yeah, she will.”  Adam looked up the stairway as they ran.  Forest looked back.  “Uh oh, a police guard on the second floor.”

“Keep behind me but keep going.”  Forest slowed and got ahead of his son.  As they approached the guard from below, Forest put his hands out in front of him.  “I’ve talked to your Lieutenant.  You’re to let us through.”

“I’m not to let anyone through.  Stop now!”  The guard extended his rifle out from across his chest to block Forest’s way.  Forest grasped the guard’s rifle and twisted to the side.  The guard’s momentum threw him down the stairs.  Forest was left with the rifle.

“Wow!”  Adam stopped at the landing.

“Keep going!”  Forest dropped the rifle and sprinted up the stairs with his son.  “If they saw me with a gun, they would shoot us for sure.”  They ran past the third floor to the fourth and through the entrance.

“All unguarded, God these guys are children.  Adam, I could never have thrown anyone like that who had experience.  Quick into this lab.  It’s just above our’s.”

The door was open, at the bench was a student, pipette in hand.  “Oh, Hi Dr. Forest…”  The student looked surprised.  “I just wanted to finish…” 

“Get out of here!”  Forest grabbed the student off the stool and pushed him out the door.  “And be quiet, there’s nuts with guns down below.”

Adam was in the closet throwing boxes out the door to uncover the service door.  Forest looked around the lab.  He located the pH meter.  He ran to it and pulled from the array of bottles, a large bottle of ammonium hydroxide solution.  He joined Adam just as Adam finished clearing the boxes.  There in the floor was the door leading to his mother’s lab below.  He reached down and gently brushed the dust from the door.  Adam then stepped back to let his father in.

Forest held the bottle in his left hand while he leaned over and placed his right ear on the service door.  “She’s there.”  Forest whispered as he raised up.  “I’ll go down, lift Joy up to you, then I’ll do Mirth.  Take them and get out of here.  I’ll be right behind you.”  Adam stared at the service door.

Forest eased the door’s slide bolt latch over and slowly opened it.  He could see by the light coming from under the door both Mirth and Joy.  They both looked up at him.  They all smiled.  Their hands were bound in front by many windings of string.  Forest quickly lowered himself through the opening with his right arm, the bottle was still in his left hand.  He placed the bottle on the floor by the closet door.  He grasp Joy by the waist as she stood up and lifted her up to Adam in the opening in the ceiling.  Mirth moved in front of him and she jumped up toward the opening.  He helped her make it through.  Adam was there to grab her and pull her the rest of the way up.

Forest watched her feet vanish above him, then he turned to the closet door, picked up the bottle of ammonium hydroxide in his left hand and moved his right hand toward the closet doorknob. . . . Shots came from outside the door, the door jerked open.  A man, wild-eyed, revolver at his side stood in the opening.  Forest continued the movement of his right hand upward, contacting the heel of his hand with the base of the man’s nose.  The diagonal movement of Forest’s hand upward across his face produced a violent scream from the man and he fell away from the opening.  More shots.  Forest threw the bottle directly into the sink in front of the closet door.  The bottle shattered and a noxious cloud emerged from the sink.

Forest slammed the closet door, jumped for the ceiling opening and pulled himself through.  There was Mirth.  He slammed the service door shut and knocked some boxes over on the door.  He then grabbed Mirth by the hand and they ran out of the fourth floor closet door.

“I told Adam to take Joy and go.”  Mirth sprinted beside Forest.  They were still holding hands.  “I wasn’t going to leave without you.”

Forest only smiled.  They ran through the other labs, over a connecting bridge into the Chemistry building.  The shooting had stopped so they stopped too.  Mirth and Forest walked out of the Chemistry building arm in arm. 

“I knew you would come.”  Mirth had her head on Forest’s shoulder.

“You did, did you?” 

“Never doubted it.”  Mirth kissed Forest full on the mouth as they continued to walk.  “It wasn’t that difficult to get them to put us in the closet.  A few hints, a few questions and comments about their manhood and it was done.  I just didn’t know how much time I had.  It worked well, our little plan.”

“I always have a plan.”

“I know and thank you.”  Mirth kissed him again.  This time on the neck.  “Joy did well.”

“I hope she’s alright.”  Forest kissed Mirth on the top of her head this time.  “I sure was glad to see you there.  Just waiting patiently for me.  Nice and pretty and mobile.  Not in a rescue egg like the last time.  If it hadn’t been for that cute NASA name plate on the outside of the rescue bubble I never would have known which one was you.”

“I’m glad it’s over.”  Mirth’s kiss this time almost knocked them over.

“I’m afraid it’s not quite over just yet.”  They had just come out of the Chemistry building and Forest had spotted the police Lieutenant. 

Adam ran up to his parents.  He still had Joy in his arms.  “Mom! Dad?”

“You can put her down now Adam.”  Mirth patted his arm.

“Oh, right.”  Adam put Joy on her feet.  “We’re okay.  We made it.” 

Mirth had Joy around the shoulders.  “Joy, you don’t look well.  Sit down. A lot has happened.”

“A little more is about to happen.”  Forest said as he moved toward the police Lieutenant.

“Forest, don’t…” Mirth stood up.  “Adam look after Joy.”  Mirth ran after Forest.

The SLSR members, in handcuffs, were being shoved and kicked out of the Institute’s main entrance, as Forest approached the Lieutenant.  “Lieutenant, remember me?”  Forest faced him.

“Yes, you’re the hostage’s husband.”  The Lieutenant looked puzzled.  “She wasn’t up there.  We thought…”

“My son and I got her out of there before you got her killed.”  Forest moved closer.  “You’re not only inexperienced Lieutenant, you’re dangerous.”  Forest then kneed the Lieutenant in the groin.

“Forest!”  Mirth was around Forest before he could continue his assault.  “Let’s go home dear, quickly.  We’ve had a busy day.”  Mirth forced Forest back through the police line before the Lieutenant could recover.  The Sergeant  didn’t say a word he just looked down at the Lieutenant on the ground.

When they were away from the police perimeter Forest turned to Mirth.  “You know what?”

“You love me, right?”

“Damn straight I do.”  Forest picked her up in his arms.  “Please try not to make me show you how much again.  I’m getting too old for this stuff.”

“Oh, you are so romantic.”  Mirth faked a swoon.

“Let’s get Adam, pick up Elisabeth and Udi and let’s all go home.”

“Maybe we can go on a picnic.”  Mirth kicked her feet and giggled.  “It’s just about lunch time.”

Forest laughed.  They both laughed.

            Of course, I didn’t write this all in one day, but I figured I would give you the complete story, just to be clear and concise.  Also, did I get in trouble from my final “discussion” with that stupid cop?  Well, he must have irritated more than just me.  I have heard nothing more about it.  As for the other time I had to “go in and get” Mirth, that will be a story upcoming.  Wait for it.  I want to finish out the day I started to record here.

            After getting an outline of the “Incident” / All We Need of Hell! (I can never decide on a title) down on paper and setting the mood of the story in my head, there was a knock on my study door.  Privacy, despite what you might think after reading this up till now, is an important issue in our house.  We may be wild and active, but a person’s territory is of great value, as long as everyone is safe, that is.  It was Adam at the door.  He walked in as I opened it.

            “Dad, I have to talk about something.”

            “Of course…” I sat down on the giant Pooh bear chair that we have had since Udi was a baby.  She loved that Bear up until she was a “Big Girl.”  She’s been a “Big Girl” for ten years.   “I was just at my limit for writing today anyway.”

            Adam remained standing.  He stared down at the worn rug as if he were reading from it.  “It’s about being a male…you know about sex, like we talked about…”

            “What exactly…” fatherly tact here.  “That covers a very large area of subjects.”  Maybe too analytical especially with Pooh’s giant head resting on my left shoulder.

            Well, in class . . . I.”  Adam looked around the room, anywhere but my face.  “When Ms. Roberts is telling us about some play or other . . . I get . . . excited . . . I get . . . a . . . hard . . . an erection . . . just looking at her. . . .”  His voice was very quiet now.

            It’s a good thing he’s not looking at me, because I was finding it extremely difficult to keep a straight face.  The very same thing use to happen to me at his age.  Oh, we male primates; keeping the species alive.

            “And when we have to change classes…its so embarrassing…I keep my books in front of myself…but sometimes it hurts.”

            “Oh, that’s just disgusting!”  Udi said from the hallway.  I hadn’t closed the door, oops!  Mirth stood behind her.

            “You should learn to control yourself!”  Older sisters are harsh.  

            But I was worse, I couldn’t control myself any longer and broke out with a guffaw the size of Pooh’s head.  Mirth giggled.  Adam just groaned in further embarrassment and walked out of the room.

            “Men are such animals!”  Udi yelled out the door, following Adam.  Poor thing, I was laughing so hard, I was no use to him at all.

            “But very useful animals sometimes.”  Mirth kneeled down beside me as I rolled laughing on the floor.

            I had enough control to pull her on top of me.

            “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”  She said as she pulled away to breath.

            “Good enough to want to be inside you again and always.”

            “It’s never enough for you.”

            “That’s my motto, Never Enough!  I only want all of you.”  I pulled up her skirt, kicked the door closed, pushed aside Mirth’s silk undies (a present from and for myself) and slowly I was in her.  We talked as we held ourselves together.

            “This is the man I love.  He has only thoughts for us.  No doubts…No fears…only gentle love…soft and unhurried…Oh!”  She ran the tip of her tongue along my cheek.  I ran my hands slowly over her body.  We both began to quiver.  There were tears in her eyes. 

When emotions well up in me, I laugh instead.  “I’m so happy we’re us.”

“Yes,” she whispered, “Timeless and forevering. . . .”

We didn’t move but the passion within us did.  It pushed us closer, extending and compressing simultaneously, goose bumps and perspiration, all without exertion. 

“Today’s writing did help me,” I touched Mirth’s face.  “I realized I was not over the “Incident”.  The fear of loss has remained.  I have blocked my mind to it, but it is still there.  You were right.”

“It was a hard time for us all.  You helped all of us over that time.”  Mirth’s breath clouded my eyes.  “You were the rock.  You don’t need to be that anymore.  It’s your time now.”

“I had a further revelation,” I wanted to be closer to her.  “but…I know its silly but…I do need something…”

“What is it, please?”

“Its the reason I have been so very amorous lately, I need you to want me…madly like you use to.  I need you uncontrolled, irrational in your desire for me.”  I could have blushed.  What was I saying?

“You’ve always driven me wild, you must know that, I’ve just been involved. . . I . . . try to show you how much everyday.”  Mirth looked through the clouds in my eyes.  “I try, at least.”

“I know in my head but my heart is hard of hearing sometimes.  I just want to make you forget everything else in the world except for me.” 

“What do you think just happened here, my dear?”  Mirth bit me gently on the nose.  “We both have many other things we should be doing, not just fooling around.  Remember this is twice today.”

“Oh, now you’ve become an accountant too?”  I shook my head.  “I think I have short term memory damage.  I only remember the last time we made love.  Oops there it goes.  You are still a virgin right.  Have we met?”  Another attempt at being cute.

“Don’t go through your repertoire with me now.  I’m convinced.”  She rolled off of me.  “You’ll get what you want, because its there.  I just have to be more active in expressing it.”  Mirth stood up.  “I’ll go see how dinner is progressing.  You sit here until we call you.”  She put her hands on my shoulders as I sat up.  She held me down in that position.  I didn’t get up further.  Mirth smoothed her skirt as she left the room.

As she left I thought, “I know I don’t fear death, I must fear the insignificance of being totally alone.”  What the hell did that mean?  I get these flashes from time to time.  It is almost like the wiser me is whispering in my ear.  I wish we could switch places.  I needed to think on this.    

Mirth and I realized how physical contact is of absolute importance in clarifying our relationship on her last space station mission.  It lasted four months.  Luckily, I was part of the ground communication link for the mission, so at least I got to talk to her every day.  Wonderful, but…ah the Big But…there are a lot of Big Buts in science and life in general; some from the flab and some from the frustration.   This time it was frustration.

 To raise money and for better public relations, NASA had sold twenty-four hour TV coverage rights to ours’ and two other missions to a cable TV station.  At any moment all communications to and from the space platform could be beamed into the homes of millions around the world.  Okay thousands, or hundreds or the few that got caught channel surfing, well whoever was interested.  Anyway, this did not lead to very intimate chats between Mirth and I.  We were generally so busy though; the chances for intimacy were rare normally, now everyone was on edge and extra careful about any personal detail or comment slipping out.  

Mirth was always business-like, pleasant and cheerful as she is through almost all her work related tasks, but that was all.  As mission time crept by she even became flippant and jokey.  I, on the other hand, went the opposite direction, becoming more and more serious, even humorless after a point.  These were public mask we all wore at NASA.  On the ground, our masks were never a problem as long as Mirth and I could go home and remove them from each other.  But now, in this situation, the masks were always on and seemed to grind, irritate and increase the distance between us.  They seemed to chew at the very essence of our commitment to each other.  Basically, we were getting on each other’s nerves, real bad!

I had the midnight to 08:00 comm. shift, I volunteered.  That’s also how I got on Mirth’s ground support crew.  Just volunteer for the shitty jobs, you usually get what you ask for.   One morning Mirth and I were doing some maintenance communications, we did it every morning, double-checking read outs, calculations, dull, mechanical stuffy stuff.  Well, after we had been working like this for a while I realized that I was stroking the image of Mirth on the comm. screen; it was a totally unconscious and thus very embarrassing behavior, anyone could have walked in.  The longing to touch Mirth had overwhelmed my sense of shame.  It dominated me to the point of irrational silly actions.  This event revealed to me the non-intellectual, maybe irrational, aspects of my feelings towards her.  There was a totally physical, animal, desire for contact, not just sexual longing, but simple physical touch and response, communication at an organic level, sensuality absent of lust.  It wasn’t for just any woman; it was for Mirth alone.

Even though I recognized it and tried to deal with it.  It made me feel isolated, lonely (despite other friends), and depressed.  I have always been a little manic, but by the time Mirth got back I was in one of the Blackest moods I had ever experienced (created?).  This state was what lent to the slight lack of judgment I suffered upon the problem landing of Mirth’s shuttle.  After the frenzy died down and Mirth and I could finally be “us” again, I told her about the hollowness I felt.  How the electronic bars that gave me only a little of her began to torture me.  She had felt the same way, she said.  But she handled it better.  She still had a twenty-four hour a day job to do and couldn’t make mistakes.  She experienced all the emotions that I had, but she didn’t have the freedom to wallow in them as I did back here on Earth.  The general fear at being surrounded by vacuum kept her mind focused.  She did say that, even though it was a difficult situation, it was extremely reassuring to have me there everyday.  (I just had to throw that in, sorry.)

We struggled with these feelings for months.  My love bordered on overwhelming, even obsessive.  It was dangerous and frightening.  I’ve never clearly resolved these issues.  I give credit to Mirth that when I flare-up like then and I guess like now, she holds me down and helps me back to a reasonable balance. She’s been the only one who’s been able to do it.  Before Mirth, I just use to “weather” the emotional storm. 

Okay, enough of this aside, back to real time, more or less.  There, the summons for my presence.  It’s a dinner to give Dad a rest.  It gave me a good laugh too.

I walked through the small hallway between the study and the dinning room, almost as a reflex; I looked out the back door, to see the reflection of the activities in the kitchen in the large glass sliding door of the back porch.  A white sheet covered the door.  An obviously, obvious gesture; oh boy, I’ve been found out and something is up.  I had been totally caught…unsuspecting me…I thought this dinner to be a spontaneous show of affection, Wrong!  It was a carefully planned-out lesson and a show of affection.

The sign on the dinning room door said, “You will be amazed upon reflection, you’ll see that the World is really only our world and we it.  A Very Happy Un-birthday!”

This was one of our regularly unscheduled prepared Un-birthday parties.  I slid back the dinning room door and there in front of me (Oh yes, I had been found out.) was a maze made from my mirrors.  All the mirrors in the house plus many more.  The jig was up. 

“Adam, is this a left or right handed maze?”  I shouted through my laughter.

“It is ambidextrous!”  came the chorus response.

“Yeah, you’ll need both hands to hold it up.”  Adam’s voice, which was followed by the sound of a punch in the arm.

“’tis a fragile world we do tread.”  I was trying to keep with the theme.  The maze was in fact, both right and left handed.  It was small but confusing.  As I went through I could hear giggles.  “You realize,” I shouted.  “That I’ll feel much older when I get through this.  You’ve set it up so all I can see is the back of my head and my bald spot.”

“Balding spot.”  Mirth amended.

As I exited the Maze, the lights were almost immediately turned out.  (This is a game I played with the kids when they were little.  You get a few seconds view of the room and its obstacles.  Then you have to maneuver in the dark without running into anything.)  Of course, I was being timed.  Elisabeth’s voice counted, “One …Two…”

Halfway through the room (I was doing fine I might add) they cheated.  An object got moved in front of me.  A warm familiar affectionate body that I would know anywhere.  A kiss in the dark, a whispered, “I love you, we got you this time.” And Mirth and I walked arm in arm into the brightly lit feast.  The feasts she prides herself in preparing.  They are never the same, except always delicious.  Oh and the children were wearing masks, sort of…through the meal they held hand mirrors up to their faces.  All I saw was my own reflection.  Subtle aren’t they?  I told them they were all going to grow up to be psychologists.  They said they would love me anyway, but not in the Freudian sense though.    

Udi said that she was too Jung for that sort of thing.  She makes as bad a pun as I do.  Elisabeth, of course, wanted a story.  When doesn’t she?  I happened to have one pop into my head just then that fit with the “Aliceness” of the present Un-birthday event.

“No more telling of stories!”  Mirth declared.  “Your father now has to write them down and submit them for our approval.” 

Elisabeth groaned, “Ah, Mother.”  Adam and Udi just laughed. 

For the first time in a long time, I ate in relative silence.  I let everyone else amuse me.  It was fun.  Dinner also took less time than it usually did.

After dessert, Mirth laughed as she cleared the table.  “Enough reflection for this evening.  Udi, you and Adam put the mirrors away and Elisabeth to bed.”

            The house was finally quiet.  Since Udi and Adam didn’t return all of the mirrors to their former places, they strategically left spaces vacant, I just stood in the hallway and listened.  Mirth was clicking away on her laptop.  Adam had just fallen asleep.  He snored gently.  Elisabeth and her animals were noiseless.  Udi was singing to herself.  She’s done that since she was a baby.  It’s late but we have to talk.

            Her door was open. I stuck my head in.  The room was not your average teenager’s room.  It’s neat for one thing and subtly decorated, almost French Provincial, in a chaotic sort of way.  Inquisitive simplicity, I like to call it.  So much like her mother, even though she hardly knew her.  It must have come from her grandmother.  Udi was sitting at her desk looking at old photos.

            “Udiko?  I know those journals were difficult to read, but I thought it was time for you to see them.”  I sat on her bed.  Her back remained turned away.  She never liked me to see her cry, also like her mother.  “I tried to be as candid, as honest about my life and my feelings as I could be in them.  I wanted you to know me, even if something happened to me. . . ”

            “Oh, Daddy…” Udi continued to cry at her desk.

            “But also…I wanted you to understand exactly what happened.  Memories fade and become edited by time.  In the journals I wanted you to see the confusion of that period…nothing ever is simple and clear.”

            “It’s simple enough, you betrayed my mother.”  She was always to the point.

            “Yes, that’s true, but…” I walked over to the window and stood there looking out at the dark image of the large Oak tree in the front yard.  “But your mother and I were not doing too well about the time you came into the picture.  We both tried hard, but it just wasn’t working.  Then I met Mirth, more like we discovered one another.  It was and is like no other relationship I have ever had.  It was as if we were two halves of a person that finally came together.  From then on we couldn’t be separated.  Yet, it just complicated matters, both Mirth and I, while being the happiest we had ever been, felt dreadfully guilty and ashamed of the deceit.  I could have faced up to it and left you and your mother, but I fought with myself to work something out good for everyone.  Mirth and I have always wanted to do the right thing for you…Udi, we didn’t know what to do…”

            She was looking at a picture of herself as a baby and her mother.  They were both looking directly at the camera.  Their eyes were the same.  “…and then…and then, your mother died.  Suddenly, they thought they had gotten all of the tumor…I felt responsible.  Her life hadn’t been very good those last two years… I say to myself that I know differently now, but I felt like I had somehow let her die.  I had failed her and you almost completely…I couldn’t face it.”  I bent down, picked Udi up from her chair and sat with her on my lap on the floor.  We were both crying.

            “I totally collapsed from guilt, anguish, confusion and hatred for myself.  I went non-functional.  That’s why your grandparents took you back to Japan with them.  I couldn’t even care for myself.  All I would do is run.  Mirth and I would run miles and miles.  I would never say a word.  I would run past her apartment, she would join me, we would run together for a while, then we run back to her place.  Many times I just kept on running.  I wanted to fade away, use myself up.  Other times she would force me to come in and rest, eat something.  I was losing weight and the fight.  This went on for about two months, when Mirth announced that NASA had accepted her as a Mission Specialist.  They wanted her in Houston in two months.  We were on her porch when she told me.  I couldn’t reply.  I couldn’t even move. 

She said, “Forest, please, you’ve got to come with me.  I can’t leave you like this.  I can’t leave you at all.  Please Forest, say something!”  I had completely overloaded.  I …I couldn’t do anything.  Mirth finally cried out, “Forest Please!” then she hit me in the solar plexus.  It doubled me over.  I laid on the porch and gasp for air.  But that did it.  That punch in the guts woke me up.  It saved my life, our family’s life.  I went with her to Houston.  Mirth always seems to know what’s good for me.”

Udi was holding me so tightly around the neck my head was pounding for blood.  “Still, it took me almost the full time she was with NASA for me to recover.  That final shuttle landing woke both of us up to what we really wanted.  A home and a family.  Mirth resigned from NASA, got a position here on the faculty and found this house for us.  I flew directly to Tokyo to convince your grandparents that I was capable of raising you.  That actually took some doing.  You know how your grandmother is…”

“Yeah, she can be pretty unreasonable.”  Udi smiled through her tears.

“Not really so unreasonable in this case.  Someone very valuable and important was at stake.  We all wanted the best for you.”  Udi kissed me on the neck.

“It took me a full month but I wasn’t leaving without you.  We had been separated too long already.  I know it was hard on you.  I don’t know if you remember but you could barely speak English and my Nihongo was always pretty poor…”

“I remember knowing you as my father, but you were really just some hakajin stranger to me, that spoke funny.”  Udi rested her head on my shoulder.

“But we worked it out didn’t we?”  I kissed her on the forehead.  “When we got back, Mirth showed me a picture of a biracial boy she had seen on late night news that needed a home.  I agreed that his eyes held something special.  That was Adam.  So we started, from scratch, a family of four in this house.  I think it has worked out pretty well so far.”

“There have been times though. . .”  Udi stretched a little in my arms.

“There will always be those times…like now, my legs are asleep.”  Udi stood up and turned off the desk lamp.  It was just dawn.

I pulled myself up by the windowsill and rubbed my legs.  “My God, it’s almost time to go running with Mirth and Adam.”  I looked out see if they were in the yard waiting for me.  Just then Adam ran across the porch roof and jumped for the Old Oak tree in the front yard.  He just missed its branches and tumbled to the grass with a thud.  “It’s a good thing I taught him how to fall properly.” 

As I went off to get my running gear, I heard Udi call out the window, “You still can’t do it.”  Then she ran across the porch roof.  I know she made it to the tree.  I keep telling them they’ll break their necks…but hell, I never listened to my father either.

Mirth came out of the bathroom as I’m slipping on my running shorts.  “You’ve just stayed up all night talking with Udiko and now you’re going running?  Don’t you think you should rest a little?”

“Today’s the big challenge.”  I grabbed my shoes before Mirth got them.  “Adam’s been preparing for a whole month for this.  He’s so excited he nearly broke his leg just now trying to jump to the tree.”

“Yes, and there’s another reason Adam doesn’t need to be challenged to be a good athlete, he is already.”  Mirth stood in front of the drawer with my T-shirts in it.  “This Muchoness you two sometimes get into surprises me.  You’re not like that and I don’t want Adam encouraged in that behavior.”  I hugged Mirth and kissed her as I moved her bodily away from the drawer.  I got a shirt.  “You two can be so foolish sometimes.  Adam is still just a child, you don’t have that excuse.”

“There’s nothing wrong with pushing oneself, now and again.”  I pushed Mirth gentle out the bedroom door.

“But if you hurt yourself in the process its counter productive and wrong…well, say something.”

“No sense in arguing with you when you’re right.”  I kissed her again.  “Let’s go.  Will you time us.?”

“Of course, but have I made my protest clear?”  Mirth put her watch into “stop-watch” mode.

“As clear as the beauty of your eyes my sweet.”  I ran up to Adam.  “Don’t jump off the roof until you can make it to the tree.  Otherwise, you’ll break your ankle and be on crutches the rest of your life.”

“How will I know when I can make it if I don’t try to make it?”  Adam was sweaty from his warm up.  

“A good point, just listen to your body.  Listen to it and you won’t get hurt.”

“I’ll try Dad.” 

Mirth got up from stretching on the damp grass.  “Adam, let’s get this over with quickly so your Dad can get some rest.”

“Now, you’re encouraging him to kick my butt.”  I watched Adam sprint off down the block.

“You’d better get going dear.”  Mirth patted me on the bottom and I was off.

 “Adam is getting faster everyday.  His pace is smooth and consistent.”  I was drying off as Mirth dressed.  “He will beat me soon, sooner than I thought.”

“He finished even with you today.  He made you work didn’t he?”  Mirth brushed the back of her hair.

“He’s speeding up and I am slowing up.  It had to happen.  At least, he has learned how to run well.  A boy his size needs to have coordination.  Oh, boy the time.  I’ve got to get dressed.”  Mirth grabbed me by the waist.

“I’ll drop Elisabeth off at school, you get some sleep.”  Mirth hip threw me into bed.  Those judo classes of hers.  I held on and she followed me in.  “And don’t come into the lab today.  Stay home, rest, write, do what you want.”

“Why should I?  This is an even day, writing day was yesterday.  Is there something going on that I should know about?”

“Just stay home!”  She pulled herself up.  “You need the time off.  We all need the time off.  You’ll do it for me?”

“I know there’s something up.”  I made for the covers, under I went.  I pulled them up to my chin.  “More Un-birthday surprises?”

Mirth smiled, I know her well too, “You just should try to relax that would be the best gift for us all.”

“Whatever you want my dear.”  I could use the rest, that’s true.

“Good then sleep for now.”  She blew a kiss and she left.

Oh, brother was I tired.  I wanted to sleep but I kept wondering what could be coming today that Mirth wanted me to stay here.  Oh well, nap first.

Since I’ve alluded to the “Final Shuttle Landing” twice already (and to hold you in suspense about the surprise) I’ll give you the story here.  It was published a few years back.  It even made it into a PBS TV episode on space exploration.  It’s suppose to be fiction but most of it happened.  Elisabeth likes this story too.  I now call this story, “Our Final Shuttle Landing” for reasons already made clear.   My alternate title is, “Those Crazy Feelings”

Our Final Shuttle Landing

The emergency and support vehicles sat on the enormously vacant runway.

“Forest, these landings are routine now.”  Jack pulled a cherry sucker out of his mouth.  He looked at the red ball of sugar.  “I sure wish I could smoke…so, don’t worry, in all the shuttle landings we’ve not had a problem yet.  It’s the lift-offs that cause the trouble.”

“I know, I know but…” Forest fastened the exterior snaps of his fire suit. “This has been a long mission and the shuttle is old…you know probability, it gets you sooner or later.”

“You don’t give a damn about probability.”  Jack looked Forest straight in the eyes.  “It’s one of your feelings isn’t it?  We’ve been friends long enough for me to know about them.  You’re a scientist and you still believe in all that mumbo jumbo premonition crap.”

“Too many times those mumbo jumbo premonitions have saved my ass.”  Forest checked his oxygen supply.  “My mother and grandmothers all the way back had these warns.  I don’t really believe it either, but there is too much at stake not to listen to them now.”

“What’s at stake is my job if something doesn’t happen.  Gee, that sounds terrible.  Look at the fix you’ve gotten me into.”  Jack looked out at the side view mirror to see all the other emergency vehicles ready for something.  “I don’t know why I listen to you.  I called them up on my own weak authority.  God knows what a flap it will cause when the Head man finds out.” 

“You did it because you are a good friend.”  Forest checked the seals on his gloves.  “I bet you also have some bad feelings about this landing too.”

“Now don’t mix me up with your magic show.”  Jack sucked on his sucker.

“It should be a few minutes to deorbit burn.”  Forest turned on the trucks   communications radio.  “You don’t mind if I listen in?”

“It’s standard procedure anyway.”  Jack tapped the sucker on his front teeth.  “How did you get on this ground crew?  I know you have your methods, but still you were also on the support staff at cap comm.”

“The way I get to do most things.  I volunteer for the worst assignments.  People are always willing to re-arrange their schedules for me then.”  Forest turned the radio volume to just audible.  “One minute to the burn…People also know I do it to be close as I can to Mirth.  She’s been up there for four months…it’s the longest we’ve been apart.  It’s driving us both a little crazy.”

“Such devotion, you two act like school kids sometimes.”

“Hell, we feel like school kids when we’re together.  That’s what so great about it.  This way I can see her right away…”

“Well, didn’t you talk to her everyday as one of the mission ground links?”  Jack drummed on the steering wheel.

“Yeah…Burn completed…they’re in the entry interface.” 

“Every things seems to be okay so far, ah Forest?”  Jack started the truck engine.  “Just a few minutes of radio silence as old Mother Earth tries to burn the hide off the shuttle.  Of course, it can’t then you will see that you were wrong and I’m in shit up to my eyebrows.”  Jack looked in the mirror to see his eyebrows turning brown.  “You serious about leaving?  Didn’t you just get on the waiting list for a flight of your own?”

“After these long separations, they’re just so hard.  The danger too drives me into a worry fit.”

“I can see that.”  Jack nodded his head.

“Move the truck up on the runway, I’m ready.” Forest smoothed back his light brown hair.

“God, you just won’t listen, will you?  It’ll be a good landing.”  Still Jack slowly moved the truck onto the runway surface.

“Any landing you can walk away from etc…”  Forest opened the side door.  “Just stay here until we hear from them will ya?”

“Okay, but things are fine.”  Jack looked up into the sky.

“They’re probably not, but I hope you are right.”  Forest checked his hood’s breathing and communications devices.  “Mirth always hates landings, course who doesn’t?  I wish I could be with her right now.”

“You give me the willies sometimes, you know.  They should be in the clear right about now.”  Jacked turned up the radio.  A controlled voice burst out.

“Cap Comm. we have a fire…smoke dense…pilot and co-pilot have sealed their suits…crew in rescue balls…no flames visible, likely electrical, but repeat…smoke dense…flooding main compartment with increase percent N₂…please advise emergency teams.”

“Dammit, Forest…What a time to be right.”  Jack yelled at Forest's back.

“Oh hell!”  Forest climbed out of the cab of the moving truck up to the carriage of the extendable arm.  “When they stop, drop me on the overhead hatch.  I can open it faster.”  Forest said into the hood mike.

“Forest, follow the protocols.  Don’t get excited.  This crew knows what its doing.”  Jack barked into his comm. mike.

“And so do I…” The cloudless sky cracked with double thunder.  “Shuttle in view, making final turn.  Jack start moving to the stationary point.”

“I know my job, just be careful.  All vehicles move into position.”  The vehicles were converging on the descending craft.  As the shuttle touched down, furious billows of dust crowded in behind the ship.  As the shuttle slowed Jack paced his truck beside the shuttle.  Forest engaged the extendable arm to meet the roof hatch the second the shuttle came to a complete stop.

Forest, with his fire hood on, swung over the roof hatch and jumped to the shuttle.  He pulled off the emergency covers, inserted the explosive cartridges and pulled to one side as the hatch cover blew off into the sky.  Forest jumped down into the smoke that billowed out.

“What the hell?”  The pilot and co-pilot turned their heads in the clear bubbles of the suit helmets.  Their heads floated in the swirling smoke.  “You didn’t have to blow the roof off us.” 

“Oh, its you Forest.”  Said the co-pilot.  “Figures.”

“What’s needed?”  Forest crouched on the flight deck.

“Everything’s under control…emergency shut down procedures underway…”  The pilot turned back to the controls.  “Get the crew out first.”

“Well do…” Forest jumped down the mid-deck access hatch into the fluffy darkness.  Emergency fire extinguishers roared their jets into the mid-deck crew compartment.  Forest found the mid-deck hatch lock release by touch, kicked it loose and slammed the hatch open onto the top of Jack’s truck roof.  “Hey!” rose up from the truck.  Ground personnel were standing nearby.

The smoke flooded out of the compartment, there was just enough light to see the five personal rescue enclosures, like giant eggs, nestled in the black smoke.  Forest grabbed the first rescue ball and swung it to the two men in fire suits standing in the open hatchway.  Forest read the name on the ball.  “Not her!”  The two men rushed the ball out of the craft into a waiting ambulance without opening it.  The third ball was Mirth’s.  “Here you are my sweet.”  Forest didn’t break his momentum though and continued with the crew unloading.  When all five balls were out the hatch Forest stopped to watch the ambulances race down the runway.  He had lost track of which one contained Mirth, so he watch all five of them head for the flight hospital just a tiny speck two miles away.

Forest then grabbed the portable fire extinguisher from above the hatch and blasted it into the first fire hole on the panel he came to.  “Let’s get this roasted bird to sleep.”  He heard over the comm. system.  In the gloom, other fire-suited figures were ripping off panel covers to determine the source of the smoke.  “Someone turn off the auto fire suppression system.”  Said another voice over the comm. system.  “Whoever is closest.”  The jets were off and quiet came.

The pilot slid down the access ladder from the flight deck.  At the hatchway, still in full flight suit, he looked around the mid-deck compartment.  “Take good care of her boys.  She’s been good to me.”

“Under control sir…”

“No problem…”

“Eye...eye capt’n…”

 “She just needs a little R and R.  Been working hard haven’t you old gal.”  The pilot stepped out of the hatchway onto Jack’s truck roof.

The ground crew never looked away from their panels and boards.  Smoke swiped out of the hatch to a level of an obscuring mist, randomly moving visual distractions, still they concentrated on their mechanism.  Nothing was going to be lost to the unseen combustion.

Standing outside the now, quiet shuttle, Forest removed the hood of his fire suit.  “No wonder they call this a fire suit…” His hair was wet and sweat dripped from his nose.  “It’s hot as blazes in here.”

Jack looked up from his clipboard.  “Not so bad…not much damage at all.  Just a few boards to replace…a few circuit upgrades…they would have been replaced even without this excitement.”

“Then what will they do?  Sell her to the Russians?”  Forest threw his suit into the back of the truck.

“Oh,” Jack patted the shuttle’s side.  “She’s got a few more million miles in her.”  Jack looked over at Forest.  “Great job there, boy.  Marred only by the unnecessary hatch launching.  That will cause a little ruckus.  Those hatches are expensive, not covered by insurance…”  Jack smiled.

“What do you mean “unnecessary?”  Forest faced Jack.

“There was plenty of time to open it normally.”  Jack’s smile widened.

“Oh you’re just screwing with me.” 

Jack laughed, “A little, but there will be an inquiry, of course.  Like who briefed you on that procedure.”

“Hell, I read it in my little emergency procedures manual.”  Forest patted his left breast pocket.

“They still have those things around.”  Jack laughed again.  “I thought people didn’t read anymore?  Also, I think you might be interested to know that all crew members check out A okay.”

“That’s great!  Uh, nothing else?”

“Well, just a personal message from one of the rescued crew.”  Jack flipped through the papers on his clip board.  “Something to the effect of “You ‘re right again, I’ll thank you later.”  Have any idea what that means?”

“Jack, your attempts at humor are labored and quite droll, but thanks for the message anyway.”  Forest mopped his neck with his T-shirt.  He then looked at the soiled shirt and threw it into the back of the truck.  He put on his jacket and climbed into the cab.

Jack got behind the wheel and started the engine.  “I guess this decided your fate as to a future space flight doesn’t it?”

“It would seem to be a closed chapter now.  This was just too close for my comfort, still Mirth and I will have to talk…and talk.”

“Not only talk, I hope?”  Jack put the truck in gear.  “Should get a little more action in before you guys go off and become dull college professors or something even more dull.”

“I think I’ll write a book.”

“See much more dull, but please don’t write “Forest’s Adventures at NASA”  you’d get us all in trouble.”  Jack drove a few feet then stopped abruptly.  “While we’re on the subject of your verbosity…”

“Jack, watch your language!  You may start to appear educated.” 

“I mean this Forest, when we get back to base, keep your mouth shut about your bad feelings.  That’s all I need right now.  The brass is going to be hot enough about the bad press this landing will generate.”  Jack pulled out a new cherry sucker and unwrapped it.  “All they need is to see you quoted in some rag about “ESP and the Space Program”  then both my head and my ass would be in different orbits around the Earth.”

“Discretion is my middle name.”

“Discretion isn’t even in your vocabulary.”  Jack started the truck moving down the runway.  “Just keep your mouth shut!”

“Why would anyone want to talk to me anyway?”  Forest was trying not to laugh.

“Why would anyone…Jesus…” Jack smiled with the sucker stick protruding.  “It will be better if you retire from space, better for me, at least.”

“Oh, Jack don’t try to flatter me.”

I realize that both of these incidents are rescues, similar rescues at that.  Also the symbolism of Orpheus rescuing his love from the underworld can’t be overlooked.  But that’s how I felt running down the Institutes corridor with Adam.  “Not again.”  I thought I was going to relive the Greek myth over again.  Still things turned out better than the myth.  Mirth was never turned to stone or faded back to Hades or whatever. (Academics can be a form of Hell though, so maybe I should re-consider.)  Now, though, you can understand my contempt for the world sometimes.  It seems to always be trying to eliminate the few things that have meaning to me.  Take her away from me?…Like Hell!.

It is odd, though things always seem to happen to me and this family of mine.  Compounded by circumstance, activity and the waning notoriety (it could go sooner, I won’t miss it) we just get caught in the world’s events.  I wanted to name this phenomenon after my family, but, as someone aptly pointed out, “Forestry” is taken.  

When I can be objective about the house and family, the way I interact, I see that the house is a fortress of sorts, with my imagination, love and body as its battlements.  My constant activity (some would say hyper-activity) is my regal domination, my noble obligation to make everything as easy as possible from my people (family).  My enemy, the superior powers of the chaotic terror-filled world; one day I know I’ll weaken, one day I’ll be too slow to respond and I’ll fail them.  I failed Udi’s mother.  It was a bad failure.  I took a long drop and I hit hard.  I can’t absorb too many of those impacts.

Getting back on track to the daily record, for no obvious reason I woke up at two minutes to eleven, still technically morning.  Pinned to my blanket was a note on tan writing paper.  “I Love You, Daddy” and a butterfly sticker, Udi’s seal.  “I love you too, dear.”  I said back to her note.  What a nice way to wake up.  It gets the old mind working.  Today’s goal, figure out what the surprise is before it arrives today.  Mirth can be very crafty about her surprises.  They are usually very difficult to guess, but I almost always do.

The world’s intrusion was helpful this time; it’s the doorbell.  “Too late for heavy analytics.”  I pulled on my robe.  “I’ll have to be the experimentalist and open the package.”  I bounded down the stair, flung open the door and there was Adam’s friend Jack, not the expected postal person.

“Jack, shouldn’t you be in school?”

Jack nodded and glanced over his shoulder.  His mother was in her BMW at the curb.  “Mother is going out of town.  Revelation, another business trip, so important she had to pick me up.  She wants me to inquire if, for the next week, I could reside here while she is gone?”

“Sure, you’re always welcome here Jack.”  I waved affirmative to Jack’s mother.  “You know that, but thanks for asking.”

“Wonderful, I will return with Adam after school.”  Jack turned and stepped off the porch, heading for his mother.

“Jack, Adam has football practice tonight and you didn’t have to come by, you could have called.”

“I just don’t like the telephone very much Dr. Forest.”  Jack stopped at the steps.

“Neither do I Jack, but you’re the only kid I know that feels the same way.  See you later Jack.”  Jack waved over his shoulder and joined his mother.  I knew he didn’t have to run away.  Such a funny kid, I wish life were easier for him.  Hell, I wish life were easier for us all.  Like guessing my surprise, not a hint about it that I can recall.  I have the complete bound works of Lewis Carroll…I wish she were more obvious sometimes.  I’ll make myself some tea, sit on the porch and ponder it.  I should feed the “Beast” squad first though.

Sitting on the porch with my large cup of tea was a non-event.  The neighborhood was dead, no cars, no strollers, just a few birds and a cat, not the Old Cat though.  Even Elisabeth’s pet troops were out of sight.  If I were in a jungle movie you would know an attack would be imminent.  It was just a nice calm day that was driving me crazy.

When you know something is going to happen, but you don’t know how or when, you look on every event with suspicion and anticipation.  It keeps the mind alert and the old heart a pounding, in a good way.  It would be a good way to go through life on the edge of positive expectations.  Well, when there are no events to analyze, it’s just boring.  I should call Mirth and harangue her about the surprise. 

Ah, the postal person approachath.  No large cumbersome parcels evident.  Good things in small packages, though.  So it’s not the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, oh well.  Maybe tickets to New York and a play, no she did that last year and I did that last month (so I’m not that creative sometimes).  No more wondering, the postal person stepped on to the porch and handed me our post. 

“Ah, the mail!  Thank you Postal Person.”

“You’re welcome, Resident Person.”

What an amiable exchange, how social, we nod and the postal person resumes the delivery life.

“Mirth, Mirth, bill, Forest, Udi, Mirth…back up to the Forest one.”  The return address was NASA Houston, TX.  “Oh boy, the accounts department finally got around to charging me for that hatch.  Some surprise.  I wonder if I can make it a retroactive business expense?  I did put it in the story.  It was research.”  The letter inside was even more of a shock then the price of a shuttle hatch cover would have been.  I had been called up for a space station mission.  I had never taken my name off the flight roster and after over a decade they have found a place where my “particular skills” are needed.  Whatever skills they are thinking of, I am certain they have atrophied.  This has to be Mirth’s surprise.  It is a colossal one, something that I have always wanted but of course, I can’t go.

Mirth removed her blue silk robe with nothing underneath and crawled into bed beside me.  I pretended to read but I never miss an opportunity to watch Mirth disrobe.  Just thinking about it now makes me sweat.  She snuggled up close to me.

“I gather from your general silence today that you received a certain envelope in the mail today.” 

“Oh, you mean the one from NASA?”  I put my book on the night stand.

“Yes, that’s the one I mean.”  Mirth giggled.  “Aren’t we being coy?”

“You know what was in it then?” 

“Certainly, Frank called me last month.  He’s moved up in the organization a bit in the last ten years.”  Mirth smiled at me but I looked and talked to the ceiling.  “He asked me if I thought you were still interested and in good enough physical condition to go up soon?”

“Your answer was…” I still looked at the ceiling.

“If its not obvious?”  Mirth kissed me on the exposed cheek.  “As to your physical condition, I told him you were in better shape than all those hard bodies he had down their now.  You have a always had a hard, experienced body and knew all the proper ways to use it.”  Mirth turned my face to hers and kissed my mouth.  “And boy do you use it marvelously sometimes.”

My resistance broke.  I let my passions roam for an instant.  “Let’s get a hold of ourselves.”  I did say ourselves and I held her tightly on top of me.  “As for the question of me going?  Your answer was?”

“I think it would be the best for you, right now.  You’ve always dreamed of going up.  I said I was all for it.  I warned Frank that you might show some resistance at first.  He laughed and said he knew that.  That was why he called me first.  He wanted to make certain you did the right thing.  It is your choice Forest, but don’t get silly on me though.”

I buried my face in her neck and kissed it gently.  I mumbled into her hair, “How can I go?”

“Forest, it’s as easy as calling Frank and saying you’ll see him in a couple of days.  The kids and I will pack your clothes even, then you‘re off.”  Mirth tried to pull her head up to look into me eye.  I wouldn’t let her.

“But I love you and the children.”  Even I thought that was a ridiculous thing to say.

“What’s that got to do with it?”  Mirth finally pulled off me.  She can be quite strong when she wants.  “You’ll only be gone five months.  They need a replacement ASAP.  You’ve been through all the training, just some updates and upgrades on tech info and you’re set.  It’s not like your joining the Foreign Legion or anything terminal like that.  I’ve done it.  Are you afraid to go?”

“I am afraid, not of space but to leave the family that long.” 

“You’re saying I can’t take care of them?  My own children!”  Mirth pinched me hard.  “You had better not be saying that fellow.  Your butt will be grass if you are.  I have taken care of the lot, along with you at your weakest.  So don’t arm wrestle with me on who’s the better parent.”

“But with everything that’s happened lately, the terrorists and all.”

“You mean those adolescent fanatics?  They’re still all in jail.  Nobodies else seems that interested in us.  Anyhow the police guards are still around the lab.  They’re the major pain.”

“We should ask the children.”  My last hope.

“You’re running out of excuses so soon?  The kids are usually your last resort.”  Mirth smiled.  “You can ask them first thing tomorrow, but I know they will approve.  They will be over joyed.  It’s out of the blue and a shock, but its what you always wished for, live with it.”

“I just can’t see leaving you…”

 “You’re not leaving me, just going on a trip.  Be back soon and all.”  Mirth hugged me.

“I just care so much, it hurts…”

“You had better care.”

We let our bodies melt together, but my brain stayed isolated.  I truly was frightened.  I didn’t want to admit it.  I was too frightened to make any rational decisions.  That phrase came back to me.  “I don’t fear death, I fear the insignificance of being totally alone.”  Its not fear for my safety.  Am I afraid of being away from the family because I’ll feel abandoned, that I’ll be totally alone without them?  Is the Evil darkness out to get them or to get me?  Am I that screwed up?

            I sat on the balcony looking up at the stars.  The space station was on the other side of the Earth now.  Still I looked up for it.  Sometimes, knowing too much about the realities of thing means you have to intentionally put more fantasy into your life than normal people.  Mirth was long since asleep.  I drifted in and out of sleep for an hour or two.  I thought or dreamed about my present dilemma.  What’s really going on in my head?  Is it that wiser Forest trying to tell me something or is it another Forest who’s just suffering in a brain corner?  To let my subconscious work this out, I’m going to go on a long run.  Is it the Zen of Running or the Transcendentalism of Exhaustion?  I have never known, but it works for me.  I usually get so much new data input that the total brain seems to get backlogged, brain constipation, of sorts.  If I run long enough I can penetrate the dark inner boundary I can’t see past.  I run into myself, in a way.

            On impulse or avoidance I stepped over the balcony railing, sprinted over the porch roof and leapt into the Oak tree in the front yard.  My eyes were dark adapted by then, still I miscalculated the distance and caught the branch higher than I should.  It slammed me square in the chest.   I just caught myself from falling.  I hung there for a few moments to recover.  I dropped to the ground with only a few bruises and more pain then I would like.  Elisabeth will love this story.  I am very glad everyone was asleep.  Okay, so this was a stupid thing to do, my chest agrees whole heartily.  This is not the recommended way to start a long run, or walk or anything, ouch.  I had better stick to the well-lit streets or I’ll break my neck for sure.  The dilemma would be over at least.

            The air was damp and cool, but no breeze, so sweat accumulated.  It ran in cold rivulets down my body.  If I concentrated on anyone of them, it would be like an exotic water torture procedure.  The slow track of liquid; a snake on the skin, an irritation of the mind, a focus of too much concentration.  Was this run just an inflection of physical pain (it had been so far) to manifest a martyr complexion, as my brother use to call it.  Am I just punishing myself, in general, out of guilt or inadequacy? 

My fears are real as I’ve shown, but everyone in this modern world has to deal with such dangerous devilry.   It’s my responses to the effect of the world that are the barriers here.  Why shouldn’t I go?  Is it only some vague “bad feeling”?  Frank would love that.  Or is this something that I have always wanted, always desired and I should not be allowed to have it?  Is it a fitting punishment, the ultimate self-punishment?  Should I be punished?

The reflections of the stars on my glasses jumped with my every stride.  I ran faster…pushing…pulling…  Were my activities, my present life just a response to failure, to guilt?  Have I ever really recovered from the death of Udi’s mother and all that led up to it.  There’s something there, I can’t even say her name.

I sprinted up a small hill, at the top the moon was setting.  Dawn was inflecting itself on my darkness.  I just made it to the top, more pain in the chest, but I continued down the other side.  I never stopped, always continued.

No, it can’t just be that one tragic instant…I have failed many more times than that.  I will fail again, in my future.  Let people down again and again.  I can’t ease up running down the hill or I’ll fall.  I am just not good enough!  How can I make myself better?  I’m wearing with age.  I ran on and on…pain in my chest…legs…lungs…eyes.  The morning sun glared back at me, daring me forward, blinding me of direction.  I moved on.

I am suddenly home.  Like some ancient horse in a riding camp, my body seemed to know the way on its own.  Saturday morning, no one works out or practices on Saturday morning by unanimous consent.  Oh, well…blew it again.  Mirth, at the stove, smiled at me as I entered the kitchen.

“I hope you weren’t out harassing the neighbor’s dogs again?”

One of Elisabeth’s dogs yelped.  It was hard to find a place to put your feet.  “Sorry, no, just our own.”  I fell into the chair.  “Oh boy, I think I over did it.”  I put my head on the table.

“I warned you about being silly.”  Mirth brought a large plate of eggs and sausages to the table.  The sweet smell of spicy meat, just what I needed to top off my exhaustion nausea.  What a fool I can be.

“Yeah, Dad.”  Adam loaded up his plate.  “You won’t let me do that.”

“I’m just being a negative role model for you.”  I propped my head up on my hands.  I haven’t shaved in two days.  What a mess!

“Dad’s allowed to make little mistakes.”  Udi brought me a towel.  “But he can’t be allowed to make a big one can he Mirth?”  Udi put the towel around my neck and kissed the top of my sweaty, balding head.

“Not if we have anything to say about it.”  Mirth shooed all the non-humans outside and shut the sliding door.  “And we do!  Elisabeth, this morning you’re going to eat your own breakfast.  The animals have already eaten.”

“Yes, mother…” Elisabeth smiled innocently at her mother. 

I thought, “Why can’t I be sterner with her like Mirth?”

“Where’s Jack by the way?”  I said, tried to change the subject.

“It’s too early for him, still in the sack.”  Adam was after seconds already.

“I guess your mother has already informed you about my possible future space excursion?”  Oh, what the hell, just get it over with.

“Yeah.”  Adam took up his fork.  “And she says you’re going to be stupid and try to find reasons not to go.”

“Her words exactly, I presume?”  I looked over at Mirth.  She smiled back.

“Why not go?  It would be great!”  Adam finished his milk with a gulp.  “Even Jack thinks it would be great.  Two parents having been in space, Wow.”

“Wow!” parroted Elisabeth.  Udi nodded.

“But what about you guys?”  I sipped my hot tea.  It made me sweat more.  Mirth stood at my back.  I rested my head on her chest.  She let the children work on me.

“Can I come too?”  Elisabeth giggled.  Mirth giggled just like her.

“That’s not what I meant.  I can’t just up and leave you.”

“It’s only for five months.”  Udi got me toast and jam.  Maybe still too much for my present stomach.  “Two of them in Houston training.  We can even visit you there.”

“I can come.”  Elisabeth doesn’t like being left out of a conversation.

“Quiet,” Udi waved at Elisabeth.  “It won’t be so long.  We’d miss you but we can see you on the NASA channel.  I’ll tape you like you did Mirth.  It would be great!”

“I can learn new pieces for you and play them when you get back.”  It looked like everyone had a role to play.

“I haven’t decided to go yet and you’re already planning my coming home party.”

“Why not go, Dad?”  Adam was very talkative today.

“I don’t know…It just doesn’t seem like the thing one decides in a single day.”

“What’s to decide?”  Udi put her hand on my hand.  “Don’t you want to go?”

“Yes, I do…” I surprised myself there.  “but…”  Mirth patted on the shoulder.  This was not fair.  “Who’s going to take care of Elisabeth?”  My last resort?

“I can take care of myself.”  Elisabeth wiped her mouth.  “I just can not drive yet.”

“But I can…” Udi smiled at Elisabeth, Elisabeth frowned.

“I can too…” Adam added.  “but not legally.”

“And so can I.”  Mirth sat down beside me.  “Don’t try to put this thing off on Elisabeth or the dogs or any of the rest of us.  Forest, I have hit you once before when you were acting stupid, need I do it again?  You’re just about due for another punch if you’re not careful.” 

“I know you will, dear.”  Am I being stupid.

“Actually, this couldn’t have come at a better time.”  Mirth poured me some more tea.  “The state you’ve been in.  You have been pushing yourself so hard.  Look on this as a working vacation.  Also you will see that we can get along without you.  You’ll get a chance to remember all the good things about the world.  You’ll appreciate us much more when you get back.”

“Yeah, Dad, Mom’s right!”  Adam’s vote.

“Please go.”  Udi’s

“I can tell all my friends that my daddy’s in the sky.  What fun!”  Elisabeth affirmative.

“It still doesn’t seem like enough time.”  I shook my head.

“Which means, you’ve decided to go but can’t think of any more excuses not to.”  Mirth smiled.  Udi smiled.  Adam smiled.  Elisabeth smiled.  Even the dog smiled from the glass sliding door, him on the other side.  They thought they had won.

“It’s just that I still have this bad feeling…” My voice was very low.

“But I don’t!”  Mirth hugged me.  “We already had those feelings together once.  Here it is only you.  I have only good feelings for this.  You are overruled on the feelings committee.”  All the family laughed at that.  I didn’t, neither did the dog.  He couldn’t hear it being outside.

“So, I have to trust you?”  I said, Mirth frowned at me.  “Like I always have…”  I ran my fingers through my thinning hair.  “Haven’t I?”  Mirth nodded her head yes.  “Okay, you’ve all won.”  Their response to that statement woke up Jack.

I guess there’s not much more to say at this point.  The plane ticket is for next Saturday.  I wrapped up a few things at the lab, experiments that I have been doing.  Explained the rest to “Little Joy”.  She can handle things as well as I can.  It’s hard for me to think about being away from the lab and everyone.  It and they will be here when I get back, they reminded me. We can e-mail each other.

Maybe I have grown too dependent on Mirth and the family and the lab.  I’m a big boy, I’ll be okay.  I can start a new section of this journal.  I’ll call it “Dad in Space”  or “Forest in the Sky”.  I’ll start it with the time Adam and I followed one of Elisabeth’s dogs into the woods, just to see where it slept at night.  We got lost instead, out for the entire night and never found the dog until the next morning at the house.  Yeah, Forest lost in a Forest.  The dog must have wondered where we had been.  It followed me around for the rest of the day.  Well, see you when I get back.

THE END

Appendix

            I just thought I would add this last section to clear up a point Mirth made about having Bad Feelings together.  It was written as the first part of “Our Final Shuttle Landing”, but I took it out to get right to the action.  So here’s that missing piece.  Look at it as my final side comment.

Bad Feelings Together

(a.k.a.  Our Final Shuttle Landing, Part I)

Forest put the teapot down on the dark consol.  It clicked against the metal surface, echoing off the far wall of the vacant command center.  There was never anybody around this late except for the few mission support staff members.  Still, a head with flashlight attached, rose from behind the open panel at the base of the consol..

            “Oh, Hi Forest.”  The man reached over the back of the consol and flicked a switch.  A red consol light winked on.  “Everything is set.”  He shut the panel and stood up.

            “Great,” Forest looked over schedule on the display.  “Thanks Bob.”  Forest checked his mission folder.

“This red light will flash…” Bob pointed at the consol in front of Forest. “Here, when the All Space Station Network is monitoring your transmissions.”

“I have always like their initials.”  Forest mouthed the word Ass.

“Yeah, I won’t complain.”  Bob chuckled  “Just remember to tell the guys up there about it.  The flashes will appear as a dot on the upper right hand of their display.  Otherwise, they’ll be filling out “glitch” reports and I’ll have to fix the anomaly.  Then we’d have an investigation and we would all be up to our “All Space Station” in shit.”

“No problem…Station transmissions always begin in private, still I’ll tell her over the computer, just in case someone else is listening.  The Other Big Brother.”  Forest sat down at the computer keyboard and typed the message.  “Thanks again Bob.  You know I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”

“Yeah, Yeah, the monitoring is bothering everyone.  Anytime.”  Bob walked out the door.

Night transmissions from the space station were for the more mundane, housekeeping functions of running an orbital platform.  It was a bore, pure and simple.  Few people wanted the job.  That’s why Forest always had the privilege of this boredom duty.  He asked for it and so did Mirth.  It allowed them to talk everyday.  Not that these were intimate chats.  Closeness is hard to do when broadcasting over tens of thousands of miles of evacuated space.  Further exacerbated by the strong possibility that your conversations would have the whole world listening in.  The “All Space Station” Network wanted to keep the world informed on what’s going on up there.  But at least Forest and Mirth could communicate in some fashion.  Four months was a long time, considering the circumstances.

Forest finished the message having re-written it a number of times.  It was a relatively complicated message for their unbreakable, yet cumbersome code.

The display came alive with a woman’s face, it smiled slightly, hair pulled back in a bun.  She hated the way hair bounced around in zero gravity.  She looked as she was, efficient and controlled.  Her tired eyes sparkled still, to Forest they did.

“Station 17/456, functionality reports.  Priority number encrypted.  Transmission commencing now.”  Mirth looked down at the consol before her. 

“Received and logged.”  Forest flipped a switch with his elbow as he continued typing.

“Station 17/456, Houston control.  Transmission verified.  Verification being returned…Returning…”  Mirth’s smile broadened.  “All messages received…” She concentrated on her consol.  “And…understood.”  Mirth looked up frowning slightly and typed on her keyboard.  “Why the precautions?”

“What I have to say I just can’t put any other way… I tried to code it, but it wasn’t right.”  NASA knew about their private code, this was certain.  They didn’t know if it remained unbroken.  For caution’s sake, Forest and Mirth never mentioned the code over the air.

“Forest what is it?” 

“It’s about you landing…” Forest looked away from the display.

“Forest…What about it?”

“I know . . . I know . . .” Forest nodded.  “Unwritten ethics and all…superstitions, but I’ve got such a bad feeling about this one…”

“We’ve both flown with George before.  You know how good he is.”  Mirth shook her head.

“It’s not George I’m worried about.  It’s the age of that shuttle.” 

“Fuel consumption data for today, along with environmental management stats are. . . .”

The red light winked at him.  Mirth’s abrupt change in speech had startled and dismayed him.  At least she was paying attention.  But everything seemed so urgent now.  Even after four months of feeling amorous, emotional, they had remained calm and business like over the comm. air.  He had to recover and play his role for now as a competent support staff.  Fifteen more minutes to go.  Finally the light winked out.

“It’s so strong you must feel it too.”  Forest picked up the conversation at the moment it had been interrupted.

“I do feel what you’re saying dear, but what can I do?”  A strand of hair slowly rose from Mirth’s head.  “George and I have gone over everything.  Nothing unusual has appeared.  We can go over it again tomorrow.”

“Just…Just…” Forest wiped his right eye.  “Just make him be aware and be careful, ready for anything.”

“He’s good Forest.  I’ll be ready too…”  Mirth watched for the spot.  “I’ll be there as long as you’re there to greet me.”

“Greet you?  I’ll be there first.”  Forest tried to smile.  “I wangled landing crew duty.  I’ll be your doorman.  I always open doors for a lady, even when she out ranks me.”

 The light winked.  Mirth typed, “I love you, Dear.  See you on Tuesday.”

Forest winked his eye and typed, “I see you in my dreams every night.”  Then said even with the winking light, “but Tuesday would be great too.”

Mirth giggled.  They run through the scheduled transmission procedures, sent their last pieces of data, “Good Nights”  that is “Good Mornings” then signed off.

Forest sat in front of the dark consol display, rubbed his head and looked up at the ceiling and said softly, “Wild nights, were I with thee, wild nights would be our ecstasy.  Futile the wind to a heart in port – Done with the compass, done with the chart, Rowing Eden, Ah the sea, Might I but moor to-night in thee”¹       

(1)     “Wild Nights” by Emily Dickinson.

THE END

Copyright 2004

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