paliono

I hate this story but I wrote it anyway





The Harrison Boundary

Chance is the just the black jack dealer of the universe. This intangible hustler shuffles a deck of possibilities. With the slight of one hand, hope tempts are appetites by showing us the ace of potential while sweeping innocence away with the other, all before we realize the game had started

It is moments like these, when our ambition has collided with consequence, that shine like flares laid on a narrow path; we realize the world has changed and are foolishly left looking up from farther down slippery slope, longing for yesterday

Marc, who hadn’t been home early for months, peeked around the curtain of his kitchen window to see his son Ryan, sitting in the unruly grass with head towards the coming night sky. He walked quietly up from behind and let his voice settle into the evening breeze.
“You out here again?”
“Secluded in his own imagination, the boy said nothing
“Or is it still? This is where you were the last time I saw you”
Ryan was as distant as the stars. To cover the awkward silence, Marc let out an anxious chuckle

“Look son, I know I haven’t been home a lot lately, but you know how crazy things have been down at the lab. Launch is just a week away”. Ryan’s silence seemed
to get sharper. Marc let out a tedious sigh and began pacing the yard. “Dam it, Ryan you know how big this is, this isn’t just another probe were sending up!”

Marc seemed noticeably shaken by his own words, “Well it is but it isn’t – I mean what are we going to do if, it’s just….” Ryan saved his dad from twisting in his own thoughts any longer. “I know dad, it’s the first manned probe, that isn’t coming back.

Marc sat down next to his son as the evening faded to night and lamented into the refugee sun “were preparing a coffin, not a probe.” Ryan bit his lip before he spoke His voice was rough from sitting dormant for so long. “ I wish I was going”

Marc jumped to his feet and exploded,” Don’t be a fool son!” He stopped and began to walk away muttering to himself “Of course why shouldn’t you get to be a fool?-- Were all being damn fools: me , NASA ,and especially that idiot Harrison.”

Ryan sat ready, armed with teenage angst tempered only by what was left of a child’s innocence. “No, its called being brave, some people don’t want to waste their lives hiding in the lab”
“Son, should you live or die for something you believe in?” Marc was becoming more agitated, threw his hands in the air, while looking straight up he tried to shout down the chaos he felt spiraling around him. “This is pure insanity!. Look at me, I’m losing it, but I’m just the guy put in charge of this mess. Why should anyone listen to me?” Ryan just rolled his eyes only the way teenagers can.

In his youth, James T. Harrison was the cliché Tennessee farm boy. He spent many hours standing under a workday’s endless sun, or lying in his bed staring out at a waiting sky, literally drooling at the glory he could harvest while soaring the wild blue and beyond He turned 18 on a Greyhound bus in route the Air force Academy. Intoxicated with ego and ambition, He was eager to begin living the script he wrote for himself all those restless nights. He was the ideal cookie cutter of a cadet who graduated with honors towards the top of his class. He and his cohorts were so deceived by their adolescent arrogance and wanderlust; they dubbed themselves “the sons of the space race and the pride of San Antonio”

A masochist’s work ethic catapulted him through the ranks and his life. As the years went by Harrison easily became the vision in his mind’s eye A real rowdy, tough talking, hard drinking flyboy who was proud of being the genuine, but stereotypical eight hour from bottle to throttle jet jockey

Twenty-seven years of g-force and gin had eroded Colonel Harrison’s body and character. He no longer radiated any fallacy of youth, Too old to live on the edge and too revered to be forced out of the service, he sat alone in a cardboard hangar office listening to the rattling of a cheap air conditioner. The only salvation from his regrets was the drowning sonic wash of a passing fighter.
Harrison too often wondered if he had thrown his life into work or if his work had thrown him out of life, Regardless, he knew this 46-year-old widower had nothing to more to prove, and certainly nothing to lose.
When NASA began calling for volunteers for Project Nomad, He knew what he had to do.

Officially, Project Nomad was the primitive first steps into the arena of deep space exploration. It simply was a shot in the dark that involved sending a man aboard the Pioneer I probe to study the effects of prolonged space flight. Of course, as most things nowadays The spin-doctors and media gods eased the modern conscience of a disengaged public by aggressively marketing it as “fulfilling the purpose of humanity and renewing the soul’s essence by returning the instinct of exploration.

However, to those still able to think for themselves, this project offered much darker symbolism and implications about our collective moral conscience. This was the first manned mission that would not be coming home. Harrison was to become this generation’s sacrificial lamb to technology. No one is sure when or how the seed for this idea was planted, but in an age of over stimulation and, this modern Frankenstein rose with vengence.

Harrison was snapped out of his world of punishing introspection by a knock on the cheap glass of his office door.
“What is it?”
“O’Riley would like to see you sir.”
Harrison looking out a window laughed and said,
“The way he’s acting, you would think I actually have to fly this thing.”

Harrison began to speak as he opened the door to Marc’s office.” Whatever do you want Marcus?” Marc walked around from behind his desk, “Please Colonel, have a seat. Look I’m going to get right to the point here. The powers that be have come to their senses and fortunately, you won’t be going up.”

Although Harrison didn’t show his bewilderment, the colonel surprisingly eased farther back in his seat, and let out his breath “What did you go and do?”
Marcus replied, “Well, I didn’t do as much as I should have done. Regardless, this came down from the top. You know how it is Jim; the only thing a President wants from his first term is a second. I guess he is feeling the pressure from the religious groups, so we all got a healthy dose of compassionate conservatism.”

Harrison stood up, “Not that there’s much to do, but I’ve been preparing for this mission for three months. Now what do I do?”
Marcus hesitated “ We still have to launch this thing. I want you to go down to Houston and monitor this boondoggle. Were still gonna run the instruments. Ya know, try to save face and all that”
Harrison said, “ You mean put me out to pasture, No thanks!”

Marcus got up swiftly and shut the door, Personally Harrison , I don’t care what you do. But as far as I’m concerned if the bureaucracy wants to dance on the edge of sanity that’s fine but I cant live with it so I’m glad this is how it’s going down. Secondly, if you want to kill yourself do it on someone else’s watch.”

Harrison raged on to his feet. “ You would think that, wouldn’t you? Let me tell you something ya little dog gone weasel, this is about pushing the boundaries In case you forgot, I’m a test pilot, that’s what I do.
“Sit down! Save it for the press.”

Marcus put his head in his hands. Rubbing his eyes, in a softer tone as if he was speaking to his son he said, “Look, I’m sorry about Beth.”
“What has she got to do with any of this?”
Marcus said,“Jim, millions of people lose their loved ones to cancer, but that doesn’t give you the right to martyr yourself all over the stars. As much as you hate to admit it- you’re an educated man. You know this nomad crap is just the start. Who’s next Jim?”

The Colonel thought for a second and leaned forward. “Well Marcus, I believe you to be an educated man as well, and your right this is just the start. We‘re both sons of the space race, and all be it different ways, we both accepted the challenge of the new frontier. Don’t tell me in all this time you never thought we would come to this.”

Marcus grimaced “Today it’s a dinosaur that should’ve retired five years ago. Who is it tomorrow, the mentally ill, the homeless? What, are we just gonna ship em back to god?”
Harrison laughed, “I’d hope they‘d start with criminals”.

Launch day looked like any other, now that it was just another. Marc had let Ryan come with him, now that the project really didn’t matter to anyone but the hardcore space geeks. As Marc was running around performing the meaningless last minute inspections on the probe he yelled to his son, “Consider this a field trip, seeing how it’s academic now anyways.”

For the day, it appeared that all of Ryan’s annoying teenage traits had faded away.
His voice carried with a tone of raw excitement. “You mean no one cares if I’m down here?” Marc hadn’t seen this side of his son in a long time. He happily replied, No, half the senators cancelled, and there’s really no need for security.
“Cool”
“Look, I’ve got to run up to the tower, and then do some last minute paperwork .Meet me in my office in about 15 minutes, and stay out of trouble.”

Ryan walked around the probe like most kids walk around a new Corvette on the showroom floor.
Marcus franticly moving about the control tower during launch when he realized Ryan wasn’t there. He thought to himself that it was strange that his son would miss a launch no matter how worthless it was. He figured he must be down on the fence with the rest of the geeks. He remembered a time when that’s where he would rather be.


During the launch, Harrison was settling into his token station in Houston when the phone rang. Harrison snapped up the receiver.
“Yeah”
Marcus said, “Alright old man, this thing is in the air, do your thing.”
Harrison slammed down the phone.
He started to put on the head phones when he stopped himself and threw them down in disgust and muttered “What the hell am I gonna listen to”

He was taking long slow sips of profoundly bad coffee while staring needlessly as his terminal that’s when he heard a faint buzz from the headphones on his desk
“What the-!”
He slowly put on his headphones only to hear the world change forever.

“DAD!”































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