Palliative Care in the Space Age

 

The simple hydrogen engine was thrumming underneath him pulling him down into the stasis couch like a full-bodied hug.  Or was it pushing him?  A domed screen above him perfectly projected what lay in front of the rocket so that it appeared he was at its tip piercing the sky.  The clouds that hung lazily in the distance had started as white patches but were quickly becoming massive banks of floating white fluff.  With barely a blink and a sigh the rocket punched into it and everything became a soft white glow.  

Much too quickly he came through the other side and the pale blue sky began purpling as stars began to speckle his view.  The music surrounding him had been chosen to match the majesty and finality of his experience.  After some pre-launch deliberation he had picked Sigur Ros as well as the smell of crushed dandelions.  It was a multi-sensory experience and the idea for dandelions had come from his boyhood when all seemed right with the world and he’d plucked them, rubbed them tightly between his thumb and forefinger, and breathed them in deeply leaving a yellow stain on his nose.

These were his final minutes at the cusp of multi-organ failure and the slow infusion of a sleep-inducing formula that was almost imperceptible in its conscious-dampening diffusion.  He felt at peace with himself and with the expanding universe.  It was like a head start to heaven.

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