stifle

by chris.

children want to be firefighters, policemen, astronauts. as they get
older these dreams usually dissolve so that more realistic dreams can
take their place. you see, dreams are like cankers in your mouth.
gooey ones, the kind that if you touch them with your tongue pain is
jolted into your head and you cringe. but the canker goes away.

the dream of space never dissolved for him, though. since he or
anyone could remember he wanted to be an astronaut. to cure a canker
i usually rinse my mouth with salt water a lot. his parents tried to
rinse his dream with such salt water, only his salt water came in other
forms. they'd tell him how unlikely it would be that he would actually
get to do what he wanted to do in space, that dreams should be left to
the imagination and that your life should be centered around realistic
opportunities. they tried bribery, yelling at him, injecting him. but
the dream stuck, an oozing canker that seems to get bigger and bigger,
swallowing your mouth.

to the day he was in space his parents still pushed him to change his
mind about his career. he was sitting in the shuttle, staring at the
screen displaying his distraught parents.

"come back home and be a banker!" said his father.

"or stock broker!" cried is mother.

"you'll never be an astronaut!"

"mom, dad, i am an astronaut. i'm in space. i have already made it,"
he told them.

"you and your stupid dreams!" shouted his mother. "i should have given
up on you long ago!"

he turned off the monitor.

he died three weeks later. the other members of his crew said that he
got into the solitary vessel and disconnected from the main ship.

"where the hell are you going?" the captain cried after him.

"i will land on the sun," he replied. "the earth looks much better from
a star."

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