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It’s a rare thing for me to write fiction any more, but the idea for this story came from a scene one night at rehearsal for my improv troupe, and I couldn’t let it go. Back in November, while the more ambitious were writing novels for NaNoWriMo, the self-publishing service Lulu held a contest for short short fiction, 600 words at most. That sounded doable, and proved to be almost exactly right for the idea I had, which I now present here.

“Houston is going to be so mad,” Lena mumbled as bright orange light poured through the windows from the heat outside.

Houston, the agency, her family, friends, coworkers. Well, everyone, really. And understandably so. Theft of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of hardware was not to be taken lightly. And the failure to deliver the expected cargo would be a career-changing inconvenience for dozens of people, some of whom were friends who knew and trusted her and Gray.

Gray. She quickly stole a glance at him, and it briefly lifted her heart. She wished she could reach over, squeeze his hand in hers, enjoy that familiar comfort, but now was not the time. Neither could spare their hands for a second as the vibration and pressure continued to increase.

The literal, physical turmoil around her was nothing compared to the turmoil within her. The former, she was trained for. Conditioned. Prepared. Reacting to it, doing what needed to be done, was reflex, almost instinct at this point. The latter turmoil was very much terra incognita, an alien landscape there was no way to prepare for. The former she dealt with because, no matter the risks, it was worth it. She glanced again at Gray, and knew the same was true of the latter as well.

Shame would be the worst of it, the embarrassment. Not for her, not for Gray. Neither of them would be around to deal with it. No, what burdened her heart most was the embarrassment this would cause practically everyone her life had touched, from her parents to her friends to her coworkers to the agency.

After all, the media would have a field day with this, once the initial shock was past, and the truth began to filter through the confusion and the assumptions that it was all some horrible accidental tragedy. Right now, no doubt, engineers were working desperately to figure out why the communications systems had failed, trying everything they could think of to reestablish the connection, nearly giving themselves heart attacks over the frustration of why the failure made no sense.

When would it occur to them that she and Gray had simply turned their comm system off? How long would it take them to figure out that there was an option even more unthinkable than the unthinkable options they were trained to imagine?

After all, hardware failures aboard spacecraft happened. How many times had some error forced a Russian Soyuz into an off-nominal landing somewhere unexpected? Even the death of a crew, horrible to consider, is not unprecedented.

But the theft of a spacecraft? By its crew? Returning to Earth? There was unthinkable, and then there was unthinkable. And this particular scenario, to the ultra-logical, left-brained mathematical minds that ran things at Mission Control in Houston, would be even more unthinkable by far.

Love makes people do unthinkable things. And love was never supposed to have been part of the equation. When they’d left Earth, they were colleagues, crewmates. But during the two years of the trip; they’d become more. The psychologists had warned it could happen; the engineers didn’t listen. And now, they had two choices – live their lives in a media circus that would be inevitable for the first man and woman to walk on Mars, or force an off-nominal re-entry in the middle of nowhere, use the survival training the agency had kindly provided, and simply disappear.

Outside, the parachute deployed. Their capsule slowed over the forest below. Mars had been a mission, for which they had trained and prepared. This? This would be a real adventure.

New Year’s Day

Carolyn Arends

I buy a lot of diaries
Fill them full of good intentions
Each and every New Year’s Eve
I make myself a list
All the things I’m gonna change
Until January 2nd
So this time I’m making one promise

CHORUS:
This will be my resolution
Every day is New Year’s Day
This will be my resolution
Every day is New Year’s Day

I believe it’s possible
I believe in new beginnings
‘Cause I believe in Christmas Day
And Easter morning too
And I’m convinced it’s doable
‘Cause I believe in second chances
Just the way that I believe in you

This will be my resolution
Every day is New Year’s Day
This could start a revolution
Every day is…

One more chance to start all over
One more chance to change and grow
One more chance to grab a hold of grace
And never let it go

Lyrics via Lyricstime

It’s hard to explain exactly how I felt, a mile in the air, at the moment I stopped falling toward the Earth at 176 feet per second.

When the parachute deployed and our descent slowed dramatically, the first thought to go through my head was, “OK, now I feel safe.”

But the thing is, there had not been a moment, leaving the plane or during the mile of freefall that I didn’t feel safe. I knew the chute would deploy; I knew I would be OK.

However, it was still a nice feeling when it did.

Welcome to my 2011.

That mile has been this year — a year when everything fell apart, sending me plummeting down at terminal velocity.

This, then, is faith: that while I’ll be glad when the parachute finally deploys, there’s never been a moment that I haven’t felt safe.

I can’t imagine what it would have been like to fall out of that plane without the parachute. But with the parachute, it was fun.

It would be easy to view this past year through the former filter; months of unchecked descent. But that’s the beauty of having the parachute — if there’s one thing I’ve learned working with NASA, it’s that in the right context, freefall can be kinda awesome.

When I look back on this year, there’s no question that the things I lost will stand out in my memory. But so will many many other things:

– I saw the last space shuttle launch ever in person.
– I went skydiving, twice.
– I experienced a long-standing goal of going to a Paul Simon concert, finishing my concert bucket list.
– Even if it’s still tied up in publishing limbo, I finished the manuscript of my (apparently cursed) second book.
– I fired an AK-47.
– I gave a lecture in the very cool Davidson Center theater at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.
– I went backpacking for the first time, and camped in sub-freezing conditions.
– I discovered that I have better and more awesome friends than I ever realized.
– I got to see the number-one team in the country beat my Ole Miss Rebels.
– I went (kinda) to Space Camp.

And all of that has been during “the worst months of my life.” Not bad, really.

I’m blessed. Beyond measure.

And while I would have preferred to have bill-paying employment, this season has given me the chance to do things I wouldn’t have or couldn’t otherwise.

I enjoy substitute teaching. I have loved working at the Depot. If I could make a living doing either, I would in a heartbeat. I’m looking forward to delving further into the world of Pampered Chef. I’ve made money lecturing and selling books and taking pictures and acting and teaching and freelance writing. And along the way, I’ve met some great people. There’s a lot to look forward to in 2012.

For years now, I’ve worn some variety of cross necklace. But in the last couple of months, I’ve substituted it occasionally for a souvenir of my first skydiving outing — a closing hook used on a parachute rig. I felt a little guilty at first replacing the cross with it, but realized that, ultimately, if a symbol of being willing to step out of an airplane without fear isn’t representative of what faith in God is all about, I don’t know what is.

Welcome to 2012. Enjoy the fall. I’ll see you on the ground.

I went to the Lady Antebellum concert at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville last night. It was good. Here are some pictures.

We had two great Face2Face Improv shows this weekend, one at Thespis Theater in south Huntsville on Saturday night, and our glorious return to Decatur after more than two years on Friday night at the new Coffee and Play House venue there, which was, let me say, incredible.

Our oh-so-talented videographer Caleb McPherson brought his still camera to the Friday night show, and got some great pics. There’s no way to really know what it’s like being at a Face2Face show other than, well, to be at what, but I share this as some random glimpses into what we do.

When I left my job six months ago, my plan was to go back to school.

To be honest, elementary school wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

And, yet, nonetheless, that’s where I found myself a few weeks ago, marking my first day in first grade.

My plans of pursuing a master’s have been put on hold, the job search goes all too slowly, and money would be a nice thing to have. So for the second time in my life, I went back to grade school.

I’d worked once before as a substitute teacher, 16 years ago, ironically under not dissimilar circumstances — I’d hit a bump in the road in college and was reevaluating my future course, and, in the meantime, worked as a substitute in the Huntsville City Schools. I worked only sporadically then, but the highlight was, without question, going back to my high school alma mater, spending the day teaching, and, wonder of wonders, eating lunch in the teachers lounge. It was more than a little surreal, and far cooler to me than it probably objectively should have been.

And now I’m back. My first day back in the classroom was almost three weeks ago, an interesting day that I spent an hour or two filling in for different teachers who were in conferences, starting with first grade and moving on to fourth and sixth. I’ve been in high school one day, and in elementary the rest.

I’m enjoying it. A lot. For one thing, it feels like work, and after six months of not working, that’s a nice feeling. I worked four days in a row the second week, three of those in the same classroom, and at the end of those four days I was the most awesome kind of exhausted ever.

I’ve gotten to do some guilt-free reading during breaks and planning periods, and that’s been nice.

But the most incredible part of all are the occasions when I actually get to teach. A lot of it is babysitting while they take tests or read chapters or watch videos, but every once in a while, I’m teaching. In a fortunate twist, most of that has been language arts, and I can do that. We worked today on similes and metaphors, and, yeah, it was fun. A lot of fun.

Subbing pays quite poorly, so this is something I have to do while I have no job, and will have to give up when I get one again.

To be honest, I’ll be way more sad about the latter.

Your breakdown was easy to see
And it took you away, further from me
Sifting through mishaps and photographs
I think of you, much more than I should
More than I should

And I’m falling down
Like it’s holy ground
I’m looking for you again
I’m looking for you again

Slow regrets
That live in the dark
And I wrote them all down
But I know them by heart

I’ve counted the cost of this loneliness
And I’ve paid for the crime
And one day I’ll die
With you in my mind

And I’m falling down
Like it’s holy ground
I’m looking for you again
I’m looking for you again

I’m not letting you go again
I’m not letting this story end
I’m not letting you go again, love, no

I’m falling down
Like it’s holy ground
I’m looking for you again
I’m looking for you again

“Looking For You Again” is available as a free download on Jones’ website.