Psychopomp Magazine Fall 2016 | Page 27

Morgan Fox | 27

body. Shifted gear, eased off the brake. Slowly at first, the memory materializing around him and when he knew the car was now corporeal he revved the gas just for the rush, just for the feel, to be alive. The convertible bounced over the moon’s terrain, tires crunching over rocks until he gained traction and momentum and lifted his bumper to the cosmos. The Milky Way was a road straight and true

Once free of the moon’s gravity, the astronaut scanned the radio for whatever frequency he could find. Static I Sebastian promise crackled to cherish Rice for all my days of this life and the next popped speakers that I shall never leave her buzzing and that I shall love her until the end of time but through the fuzz if she wills it so I do static drowned the sound. The astronaut switched off the radio, wheels coasting on spacetime. In his mirrors, the moon receded.

Earth loomed in his path. Gravity pulled at his grill. The astronaut turned into orbit, exit ramp spiraling into exosphere and down and down through atmospheric strata, air condensing around him, visor reflecting no longer the stars but now the blue heat dogging the car’s hood, now the tops of clouds piled white dunes below. And under that: the Earth loomed in his path. Gravity pulled at his wheels. The astronaut braked, stabilized his descent, watched below him as trees and plains grew larger, became familiar, a map scrawled from above and now here the houses now here the train tracks and there, his street. The astronaut landed from the west, landed with a screech of tires, drove on asphalt. Sebastian was going home.

Soil

Rice in the garden, pressing her fingers into the humus. Rain's oxide smell