THESE ARE THE VOYAGES...(WE'LL NEVER MAKE): Feverish Dreams of Space Cowboys, Ray Guns, & This World's Last Great Adventurers

The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart, the original good heart with which every man is born.

- Mencius (372 – 289 BCE),
Chinese Philosopher

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- It's amazing what one thinks about whilst staring at a moon-whitened ceiling, alone with only the sounds of crickets outside a bedroom window and menthol-scented vaporizing rub drifting up from one's chest.

Jesus Christ! When was the last time I built a fort on Mars? THAT one...? Oh FUCK... how long ago was that?

Yes, it may have been the fever I had at the time, the body's own disinfecting oven, that marvelously complex biological reaction to things like sinus infections and influenza. It may have been the over-the-counter fever-reducers, or the sugar imbalance caused by the ingestion of about a quart of orange juice before bed.

Friggin' amazing what one thinks about, really, when one is ill and alone and trying to find something to think about at well past three-thirty in the morning, something besides the fact that that person is feeling pretty damned miserable.

And sometimes I just think about fighting off a thousand and one alien invaders in the dark with my cousins, sometime back in the long-lost 1980s, a battle complete with ray guns and photon cannons that looked and behaved, strangely enough, like ordinary old hickory ax handles.

We fought many a glorious battle as children. Glorious. Fought off entire battalions of invisible mutant warriors and transparent planetary raiders.

For some reason, despite a snot-filled head and an aching throat, I started to laugh up at that moonglow ceiling. Laughed so hard that the bed shook, that the crickets outside stopped chirping.

... What'd we make that damned thing out of, anyway? An old wood shipping crate, a few tobacco rods lashed together with bailing twine...

Oh hell! J.C. and I bolted down that old lawn mower engine, used an old steel coffee can for a steering wheel...

Dammit, I forgot that damned fort used to be our space cruiser, too! We were destructive kids, but, dammit, we were creative...

I reached out from beneath my sheets, pointed a finger towards the ceiling, and fired my imaginary ray gun, for old time's sake. My lips even provided pew-pew-pew sound effects.

Once again, laughter filled the room, rudely interrupted the crickets, shook the bed.

Maybe it was just the fever. Or the over-the-counter drugs. Or the orange juice.

Couldn't figure out for the life of me, in my feverish state, why that shit literally popped into my mind.

* * * *

When I was a child, I never imagined 2008 would look so damned much like the 1980s. My dad recently said a similar thing - he, too, never dreamed that, for the most part, the 21st century still looks a whole hell of a lot like the 1960s. Sure, we've got some nifty toys these days, but...

Hell, when I was a toddler, I remember watching that first shuttle mission live with my grandfather. He promised me that one day that could be me riding into the stars, that I really could grow up to be a space cavalier, an astronaut, an explorer of the Cosmos.

Three decades later, we're still flying the same ol' space shuttles here in the U.S., and I'm obviously no closer to the stars than I was as a kid.

The Chinese government, and the European Space Agency, too, seems to be more dedicated to space exploration than the one-time space powerhouse I call home. Even the Russians, with their virtually indestructible workhorse Soyuz capsules, seem to put more into making space exploration viable than we do.

Actually, at this rate, well, I'll probably end up promising the same hollow Buck Rogers/Captain Kirk dreams to my grandchildren one day.

Like my father's generation, I assumed that by now we'd have flying cars, regular flights to lunar colonies, and maybe, just maybe, real live heroes conquering the Martian mountain ranges for the sake of humanity. We were supposed to have viable, personable robots in every home, even a supercomputer in every garage. Cancer and other diseases were supposed to be cured, humanity united, that which lies in wait for us in the skies our only potential menace.

Instead, well, man has yet to return to the moon in my lifetime, we barely have enough gasoline to keep our terrestrial cars running, and the only Martian conquests have been virtual, with video-game Space Marines retaking imaginary, demon-infested space stations through first-person shooter games.

Hell, the only viable semi-autonomous 'Bots are the ones powered by remote servers, the computerized aggregators that are currently indexing this site for keywords to store for some search engine. And most people on this planet, too, can't afford even the most basic desktop computer.

That imaginary ray gun I had as a kid, the fondness for building space cruisers and Martian outposts in backyards that I inherited from my father? Hell, the only thing a kid has to do now is add a laser pointer to the end of that hickory stick.

... Of course, with the addiction to online gaming, the increasing rates of morbid obesity in today's lazy indoor-bound children, I seriously doubt those fat-ass children of the Industrialized World still have the imagination for such follies...

* * * *

It's been more than half a century since man first reached into space, with the Soviet Union's successful Sputnik satellite launch. Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the first moon walk, four decades since a man from Wapakoneta, Ohio, hollered across the solar system One small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind.

Now, the sky is littered with satellites, wondrous things that guide our aircraft and ocean liners, allow us god's eye views of every canyon and mountain, even allow us to watch things like the Olympics and rock concerts live from the other side of the globe.

But, with the exception of the International Space Station, there are very few human eyes out there, staring down at us, watching over our world.

And those eyes don't include mine, or your's, and they probably never will in our lifetimes.

Given the fact that both of our mainstream candidates for the U.S. presidency this go-round place as much emphasis on space exploration and science education as your average golden retriever, well, our grandchildren will be lucky if there's ever anything more than a few grainy pictures from Mars and a tiny outpost in the orbit.

Or maybe they'll look up in awe at all of those other nationalities up there, in space, and wonder how the United States went from walking the moon to obsolescence in only a few short generations.

* * * *

I fell ill on a Sunday afternoon - a sunny, warm weekend day with nary a cloud in the sky. And as much as I hated to even make the attempt, while still feverish and strangely nauseous with vertigo, I did make into work for a few hours Monday morning.

And the only thing I did productive was to puke into a urinal, clean up after myself, check out some DVDs from the My Library's media collection, and to head right back home.

I spent the next 48 hours huddled in my grandfather's old flannel blanket, watching the entire fourth season of probably one of the greatest series ever, The Wire, and various zombie flicks - for some reason, films about the living dead just, well, make me feel better.

By Wednesday, the fever was gone and the head congestion was just starting to break up, so I decided to chance a half-day. At noon, I left the office to once again lay in bed and watch yet more DVDs on the ol' laptop.

On the way home, again, I suddenly remembered that old fort, those childhood dreams of being a space conquistador within the span of this third-gone lifetime. I don't know why that feverish memory stuck with me, why my subconscious mind had pulled forth and made connections to real space exploration, Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong and...

"CHINA!"

As I opened my apartment door at just past two in the afternoon, I suddenly remembered why I'd been having visions of forts and space cruisers, of an imaginary childhood in the stars, what I'd been reading about online right before bed Sunday, out of simple curiosity...

The Chinese space program. Project 921, in particular, and the anticipated launch of Shenzhou 7, and the PRC's third manned space flight in the last five years.

I till don't know why I'd been reading about space programs, really, how I ended up surfing Wikipedia onto vague pages filled with advances in Chinese rocketry...

"Well, fuck me," I exclaimed as I flipped on the laptop to find a Firefox window still containing the entry. "So... somehow, reading about the Chinese space agency's history triggered all of that subconscious shit!"

"Fucking A, dude. No more wiki-surfing while ill."

* * * *

On the following day, Thursday, September 25, 2008, at 9:10 a.m. Eastern, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) launched Shenzhou 7 from deep within the Gobi desert.

Two days later, Zhai Zhigang and Lui Boming became the first Chinese citizens to participate in a spacewalk.

Zhai and Lui's feat marks only the 298th spacewalk since the Space Age began with the launch of Sputnik 1 more than 51 years ago.

And, as of this post, less than 500 people - less than 50 women - have ever reached Earth's orbit, a number small enough to comfortably fit every one of them on a single Boeing 747 aircraft.

Odds that anyone reading this will get into space in their lifetime?

I'm no statistician, but I'm going to guess those odds are a lot greater than the chances of getting a sinus infection in September.

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A COUNTRY BOY CAN SURVIVE...(Only to Grow Up, Move Off the Farm, Have Post Evil One-Eyed Pony Flashbacks While on Vacation, Etc.)

CENTRAL COAST, Calif. (ZP) -- Ten o'clock at night, sprawled out on my parents' California King mattress, jet-lagged like a motherfucker, even after a five-mile hike through wine country and a barbecue chicken fundraiser...

... And every time I shut my eyelids, visions of that damned one-eyed horse pop into my mind.

Fuck this. It's not like I have to get up and go to work tomorrow. And nobody else is in the house...

Eleven hours of flying, from Dayton, Ohio, into San Luis Obispo, California, via Charlotte, North Carolina, and Phoenix, Arizona. An afternoon with the sister and the boyfriend. With Mom, Dad, and their cocker spaniels stuck in New Mexico, it's just me and the cat house-sitting while they're gone.

And I can't sleep because I can't remember the name of that Connemara pony Mom and Dad bought for my sister and I when we were, oh, still old enough to get excited about having a pony.

I'm still awake because, well, I can't remember something completely insignificant that happened in my childhood, on the other side of the country, in rural Virginia back in the 1980s.

I haven't been back to the farm in five years. And that stupid pony's long dead by now...

After being up for, oh, 20 hours straight...

Oh, why the hell not? Just get back outta bed and solve the fucking mystery...

* * * *

What the fuck was that biting bastard's name? I tell myself as I dig through the umpteen million photo albums tucked away in my dad's office. That mean-ass walking bag of dog food motherfucker...

Hey, I grew up on a farm. My mom owned two or three horses before that one - she even used to train and board other people's horses when I was young. And yep, we had chickens (until I, um, forgot to lock the coop and the dogs killed our organic egg supply), cows (a Brahma-Angus mix herd), and kittens and puppies out the ass every spring (our male mutts were bitch magnets).

There were lots of animals that could've popped into my mind. There was the black bear that used to prowl our timber country, the tasty bass and bluegill and venison and squirrel, my grandmother's poodle, my first calf, named Peanut Butter...

What the fuck was that biting bastard's name? Know there's a picture somewhere...

* * * *

But no, I get a hair up my ass about --

Willy! Jesus fucking Christ, how could I have forgotten that?

How many times did ____ and I watch The Goonies when we were kids? One-Eyed Willy!

It's amazing what other sorts of things pop into the ol' melon when one has a few photo albums sprawled out over a desk, Almost as amazing as the sorts of childhood memories that just pop right up when one is trying to sleep.

And what strange photos one finds, too. Especially in old family albums that haven't been touched in about a decade.

Heh. Draw, pad'na. I be's makin' you wormfood with my authentic Lone Ranger toy six-shooter.

How the hell did he ever survive childhood, anyway?

I mean, the one-eyed ponies weren't the only things that bit him. There were ticks, fleas, lice, mosquitoes, leeches, dogs, wasps, mice, hornets, and snakes, too.

There were falls from barn windows, kicks to the head by livestock, a drug-induced coma, pellet gun accidents, falls into brush fires, almost losing a foot to a hay bailer, almost losing a finger to a hunting knife, a four-wheeler accident, all before that kid in the overalls turned ten.

And I'm thinking about... about that stupid fucking horse? Twenty years later, in California? And what the hell happened to my cap guns?

What a way to start a vacation.

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DOGS PLAYING CARDS ON A SICK DAY: Conversations with Ghosts of Myself

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I did something very stupid Tuesday.

I took a prescription medication on an empty stomach, didn't read those pesky do not drink alcoholic beverages instructions, and ended up puking my guts out for seven hours straight.

As punishment for my very, very stupid mistake, I was sentenced to two days sick leave, in order to recover from dehydration, extremely low blood sugar, and overall ickiness. I'd already been recovering from an upper respiratory infection, so the added stress on my system pretty much guaranteed that I'd be forced to take time off for - gasp - health issues.

I don't do sick days very well. I'm a lousy patient. I'd rather just work through it, keep chugging away until something breaks beyond repair. I'll rest when I'm off the clock or when I'm dead.

* * * *

By the time I could finally hold down anything solid, I was too jittery to sit through any DVD, too annoyed to listen to music.

I wrote long-winded emails, responses to comments on the ol' blog, and caught up on just about every open access journal in my research area.

Well, that killed a whopping five hours of my life.

Boredom is my enemy. And nothing screams boredom like five hours' worth of LIS literature.

* * * *

I crawled out of bed Thursday at around 10 (I normally get up between five and six), had one Lean Pocket and a cup of coffee for brunch, took a shower.

I started to get dressed. Couldn't do it. I crawled back into bed, defeated. I felt like the main character in Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun, a helpless cripple damned to an eternity of dreary solitude, waiting - begging - for sweet death.

As I stared at the ceiling, my bedroom too bright to sleep, I decided to do what I used to do as a kid when I'd get sick, those lonely days when I'd be left bedridden back on the family farm, 20 miles from civilization and with only three snowy network television stations to keep me company.

I'll play a game.

Hmmm... what sort of game?

For shit's sake, dude! Got it. Let's play Interview!

Interview was one of my favorite sick day games as a child. Actually, Interview was more of an an exercise in imagination than a game.

I'd pretend to be a reporter, a regular Walter Cronkite, interviewing an older, famous version of myself. The television studio was completely within my mind, laid out like those old network news desks, clocks from a hundred time zones covering the walls. I could see clearly the cameras, the Teleprompter, the shining lights.

When I had chickenpox, I'd interviewed Jason, the famous scientist who'd cured cancer. Once, when I was in middle school, I'd interviewed retired Rear Admiral Jason, the hero of the Cold War who'd single-handedly destroyed the Soviet Empire.

In junior high, I even interviewed Jason, winner of three Academy Awards... and husband of Cindy Crawford (we had 12 children, I believe.)

I laughed out loud with what was left of my stomach-acid stripped vocal chords.

Dude, this is gonna be fun.

But I think we'd better mix this shit up a bit...

* * * *

Instead of interviewing my mythological older self, I decided, for shits and giggles, to interview my younger self.

Honestly, the idea of interviewing the 48, 54, or 68 year-old versions of me didn't seem appealing.

I mean, for chrissakes...

Did I really want to think about the divorce back in 2014, the sex scandals of 2043, or that dead hooker in that Vegas hotel room in 2051?

Or what about the possibility of that love child, the one living down in Mexico in 2032, the one I never knew I had, from that very real one night with that daughter of migrant laborers, back in in a very real 1997?

Dude, you'll have nightmares for a week if you interview Future Jason.

You're too damned pessimistic and paranoid to have an imaginary bright future...

* * * *

So, as I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, I let my mind wander into that dusty, long-forgotten newsroom one more time. I put on the ol' anchor's blazer, tested the microphone, cleared my mental throat.

I thought I'd share summaries of my first round of Interview in more than 15 years:

* * * *

The Motherfucker was 17, a passionate kid with a huge chip on his shoulder. The Motherfucker liked to fight, smoked way too much weed, played in a punk band, and had a taste for MD 20/20.

"Man, I remember once, at this party, I was so fucked up I couldn't see. We was all outside, all jus' chillin' around this bonfire. Me an' ______ snuck off with this one chick, 'cause she had this dusted bud she'd picked up in Charlottesville. She got so fucked up, she like pissed on herself an' shit. Fucking hippy rich chicks, man. She offered blowjobs if we'd give her a ride home, but I was all, like, shit, white girls from private schools carry all kinds of diseases."

The Motherfucker was known to most adults as a bookish, level-headed kid. He excelled in scholarly activities, as a member of the track team, in academic competitions. But he had a dark side, a lust to be accepted, to be the badass, the instrument of God's Wrath. He hung out with some good kids, but mostly ones destined for lives of trouble.

According to legend, the Motherfucker once broke a guy's knuckles with a ball-peen hammer, gangster-style, because the poor college first-year couldn't pay his illicit pharmaceutical bill. He once took a baseball bat to some poor kid's stomach at a house party, retaliation for the merciless beating a friend of his had received on a school bus.

"That cocksucking redneck had it coming. If we hadn't fucked his shit up, he jus' would've called some brother a coon or somethin' and ended up gettin' capped. I prob'ly saved his sorry ass. Eye for a mothafuckin' eye, homes. You wanna trip some shit, I'll trip shit like a fuckin' electric chair."

The first girl the Motherfucker ever French-kissed ended up killing herself - after doing time in a women's prison for her role in her parents' murder. His childhood best friend was relocated to an undisclosed location as part of a plea agreement, in exchange for testifying against a narcotics kingpin. He knows that several of his friends from those years are now probably dead or in correctional facilities for the rest of their natural lives.

Through some act of God, however, the Motherfucker made it out of his hometown, outgrew his rage, cleaned up his act. He'd been saved only by the unconditional love his family had provided him and by the faith his teachers had in his intellectual gifts.

* * * *

Dog Juan loved playing savior to just about every troubled young woman who showed him even the slightest attention.

In high school, he'd been a late-bloomer, losing his virginity at 17 accidentally to a woman whose exact identity he'd been too drunk to recall. By the time he'd reached 20, he'd overcome enough of his awkwardness around women to be at least somewhat romantically inclined.

Unfortunately for Dog Juan, he learned too late that there were some women he just shouldn't be involved with romantically. As an undergrad, he mastered the art of the one-night stand while simultaneously mastering the art of dating women who were completely nucking futs.

"Once, I was like seeing this girl, T_____. I'd met her through one of my roommates. T____ had her problems, sure...I mean, she'd survived being a prostitute in Colorado Springs, had managed to get into college. So what if she was still stripping to pay the bills? And its not like I'd never done coke before.

"C'mon. The sex was fucking awesome. Wild shit. And she was older than me, old enough to buy beer.

"Fuck, we drank a lot. Actually, she drank a lot. And the fucking suicide threats. Yeah, those sucked.

"But dude! Wait. The fucking sex, dude. One time, I went down on her in an Italian restaurant. We did it at three o'clock in the morning, butt-ass naked on the hood of my truck, smack dab in the middle of an intersection. We're talking three to five times a day, seven days a week. Nothing wrong with that.

"I mean, I've faked it a couple of times, when she gets pushy - the fucking coke messes my shit up sometimes, but she gets it free and won't do it alone, so what am I s'posed to do?

"I mean, yeah, she gets violent an' shit. Lots of women do. And so what if my female friends hate her - they're just fucking jealous because I'm fucking happy.

"C'mon...you never had a chick pull a knife on you before, homes?"

By his 21st birthday, Dog Juan had accomplished two things that few men can claim:

He'd won his first award as a sportswriter, and he'd managed to become a certified victim of domestic violence, complete with restraining order against his one-time fiance.

Researchers have long sought interviews with Dog Juan. The mystery of how such an intelligent young man with such charm and passion could be so goddamned dense sometimes has puzzled numerous people for more than a decade.

* * * *

Talk Radio Guy knew he was in trouble the first day he'd gone into work after the Corporate Radio Juggernaut had finally cleared their FCC hurdles and had taken control of day-to-day operations of his station.

He knew he was a fairly popular sports anchor in his market, but he also knew, somewhere deep inside, that the Corporate Radio Juggernaut had no use for silly little things like women's sports coverage, Major League Baseball broadcasting rights, and colorful sports commentary.

The future, he'd been told, was in nationally syndicated talk radio - conservative talk radio. What use did the Juggernaut have, anyway, for unbiased coverage when its advertising gurus had research to show that America had no use for such things.

Talk Radio Guy knew, somewhere deep down, that some idiot would one day get the idea for liberal talk radio, the same nationally syndicated bullshit, only spun a different way, to sell more worthless airtime to gullible sponsors.

He felt sorry for his listeners. He knew they were smarter than the Juggernaut's advertising gurus.

He sat in his new Program Director's office and listened to the new management's pitch for his talent, a lecture about the fame that would come with moving to FM, to an afternoon drive slot on an Urban Contemporary station that had been faltering for years in the ratings.

"We all called this pile of goatshit P.D. Mr. Backstreet Boy. Homeboy was pushing 40, single, living off tanning salons and expensive hair gel. He used words like "bro" and "hella" in a vain attempt to stay hip.

"From the first day I met the motherfucker, I knew by all of his flattering comments that, for all of his talk about me being a valuable member of the C________ Family, I was nothing more than a local personality that they were slowly trying to push out of the business. He talked about how valuable I' was, but there was no talk of a pay raise.

"I knew my days were numbered the moment I told Mr. Backstreet Boy that I had no interest in spinning bad hip-hop for imaginary listeners, waiting for Big Fucking Brother to finally install the new receivers for the syndicated shit out of New York."

As Talk Radio Guy sat in Mr. Backstreet Boy's office, he looked over at a picture on the new program director's desk - a beautiful portrait of the P.D. and his girlfriend of two years, a former cheerleader with a certain professional sports team.

He grinned from ear to ear, interrupting the P.D. to ask him a question about the woman in the photograph.

You see, Talk Radio Guy had met the Cheerleader, a sweet woman - not very bright, but sweet - at a dance club three days prior to what was to be his last face-to-face meeting with Mr. Backstreet Boy.

She'd told Talk Radio Guy all about how she loved his funny sportscasts, how he made her laugh while she was in the shower. Talk Radio Guy had pretended to be shocked when the former cheerleader claimed that she was in her late 30s; he'd told her that there was no way in hell such gorgeous woman could be a day older than his 22-year-old self.

The Cheerleader thought Talk Radio Guy was cute in person, that he reminded her of a short, cuddly teddy bear. She kept saying how her boyfriend had never once held a door for her, or bought her a drink, or even asked her what she wanted out of life. She told Talk Radio Guy that she was sure Mr. Backstreet Boy was cheating on her with a younger woman, a college student at Talk Radio Guy's Alma mater.

In fact, she apologized several times over several hours' worth of conversation for telling Talk Radio Guy so much - she claimed that the few Fuzzy Navels had made her tipsy, and that she couldn't believe how connected she felt to Talk Radio Guy, and how she wasn't sure why she felt the way she felt, the attraction...

"I think that's probably the downright meanest thing I've ever done to another man. And I don't regret it one bit.

"Feel bad about using her - I mean, she was cute, but wow, was she dumb. And pro cheerleaders are rarely dumb - I've known several over the years.

Besides, I think she was using me a bit, too - she was a new girl in town with a cheating boyfriend, and I was a voice on the radio, the guy who made her laugh, somebody who listened. Lord, I'm naive but not stupid.

"You know, that's always been the power of local talk radio. It's not about the guy behind the mike, the guy ranting and raving. It's about the listening. That's the seduction, my man.

"You should've seen the look on his face when I asked him about that tattoo on her ass.

He knew, knew instantly. I don't know if it bothered him more that, well, I'd screwed something that meant something to him in retaliation for screwing something I cared about, or that he just never thought a fat guy could ever pull one over on his overgrown Boy Band routine.

"God, California really made me an evil bastard, didn't it?"

Years later, Talk Radio Guy would find irony in the fact that he actually slept around a lot more as a fat guy than he does now, 85 pounds lighter than he was when he was at the end of his broadcasting career.

He also finds it fucking hilarious that people sometimes wonder why he just can't find anything attractive about dumb women. Dumb women are easy to manipulate; they don't make him feel the least bit self-conscious. All he's ever had to do was to just listen - there's no challenge in just listening.

Smart women, on the other hand...

Well, he's still just as dense as a lead brick.

* * * *

For some reason, after finishing my first-ever adult game of Interview, I started to feel better.

I took a rather long nap, downloaded some new MP3s, and even started to clean the wreck I'd left the bathroom.

Hell, maybe taking some time off from work is a good thing, taking time to just let old wounds heal up the way their meant to heal.

After all, time is supposed to heal all wounds, right?

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