The Smell of Ozone and Honeysuckle

Earth's last hope sends a letter from space.

Original art by Brian Reindel

Mission Control, Sat Com Station Bravo

Incoming transmission.

This is US Space Corps First Lieutenant Jonathon Hunt of the Third Astronautical Engineering Division, Bravo Company. To the people of Earth, I suspect you’ve received the good news from the returning crew members that our mission was a success. I won’t waste my time talking about second chances. Others have made similar sacrifices in generations past, to no good end. Instead, I’m going to address my wife, Prudence, who waits for a different message altogether. I’m sorry, babe, things didn’t work out the way we hoped.

How should I really begin? How do I deliver a letter into the vacuum of space, while drifting aimlessly out here, presumed dead? Okay, here goes my love.

Dear Prudence,

I want to see you smile again and I miss you. You didn’t want me to leave, to be gone for so long, exposed to danger. But I was too stubborn or too childish, and likely too patriotic for my own good. We both know I’m a romantic, and that certainly had something to do with this mess. You used to tell people the stars were my mistress — no, I don’t want to cast you in a poor light. Too many people will hear this and I don’t want them to get the wrong idea. Especially since you were willing to let the anger go, or at least allowed me to think that in order to say goodbye, to wish me well. You deserve better. 

I knew this wouldn’t be easy. Once I say something it’s out there, radio waves with no delete key, traveling at the speed of light. I can’t edit the message, so I better get it right.

I still find it peaceful out here, quiet and boundless. I know you could never understand, but you supported me anyhow. Do you remember that night in the park, when it was humid and sticky and you were so tired after working a fourteen-hour shift? I made you look up at the sky and take a deep breath. You said it smelled like rain and worms. I laughed and told you that’s the smell of ozone. That’s the smell of stars being born and dying. It’s the smell of my suit after a long spacewalk. It’s my smell. You looked at me with pitiful eyes, sad and desperate to break the hold, to keep me all for yourself, to keep me grounded on the same planet.

The rain came, a torrential downpour, and it washed away your doubts and fears, if only for a moment. We ran back to the car, soaked, and ignored the inevitable, content to enjoy each other in those cramped quarters instead of thinking about the millions of miles of distance that would settle heavy between us.

You misunderstood, though, and I don’t blame you. It was never a competition. Yes, my thoughts and attention were divided, mostly focused on the possibility of losing you. If forced to choose, although you would never ask, I would have chosen you.

The air is thinning. I don’t have a lot of time. There’s no light distortion, all of the stars are amazingly bright and constant. We admire these twinkling wonders, different at every vantage point on Earth, but I’m in awe of how attached they are to their place in the universe. I wish our relationship had been so steady. It’s my regret.

You need to know that there’s only one experience that could ever eclipse being strapped to an explosive rocket hurtling through space. There’s only one smell that could overwhelm my senses far and beyond the smell of ozone. The first time we met in college at your apartment, when I asked if you wanted to come out and play, you thought I was being smart. I didn’t know the Beatles song, and those words stumbled out because I was lost at the sight of you, a kid with a crush.

Do you remember the honeysuckle bushes planted beside the porch? When you answered the door, their smell, it took over, and a memory, so vivid and permanent was formed. All of those neurons joined together in unison, capturing the perfect picture of you. Your friends thought I was goofy, a nerd with aspirations out of this world — their small insignificant world, that I didn’t care for because all I wanted was Prudence, the beauty of a girl forever mixed together with the smell of honeysuckle. 

I don’t think I ever told you that. It’s the final witness of my two greatest passions, two greatest loves… but one is greater than the other. I don’t leave… don’t travel the solar system because I want to be away from you. I go because it’s the only way I know how to bring back small pieces of me and offer them up as a gift, to help explain…

…

I blacked out… not sure how long… I need to speak slower… focus my thoughts.

Whenever I traveled out here, I would gather pieces of my broken soul. Somehow, parts of my being were spread out among the cosmos at my birth. One day when I became whole again, I planned to stop coming… going. I’m torn between here and there. You would have all of me and maybe then you could understand why it had been so important. That never happened.

You don’t want the details, do you? No, I’m sure you would fall asleep again to the sound of my voice, as I ramble on about trajectory angles, the absence of buoyancy and energy conservation. People will ask, they will want to know. Many will thank you for your sacrifice, offer up condolences and you will reject them. That’s your right. I won’t tell you how to mourn. I can… smell… something sweet…

I can’t breathe very well… it doesn’t hurt, don’t worry. I’m feeling light-headed. It’s time to go. Tell Timothy… Daddy loves him… look up, and know that I’m watching over you both… always.

End transmission.

Sergeant Major Diego Alvarez, Third Astronautical Engineering Division, Bravo Company, Journal Entry 627

I have a lot of respect for the Japanese government. They’re the only reason we’re out here. After months of trying to convince the US Congress we needed to retrieve First Lieutenant Hunt’s body, it took a foreign power to fund the trip. To think a man could save the lives of nine billion people and not be given a proper burial demonstrates we learned nothing.

We owe a great deal of gratitude to Ichiro Tanizaki for petitioning his people. I understand he feels a great deal of guilt and regret for the mathematical miscalculations that preempted the explosion. His honor has been restored and then some.

With Tanizaki’s help we were able to calculate the location of First Lieutenant Hunt, expecting of course to find him dead. I would have been less surprised to find him alive, and the shock of our actual discovery put the crew on edge. We pulled the fully intact suit aboard our craft, only to find it contained no body. We never leave a man behind, but the impossibility of the situation leads me to believe it’s not going to be our choice.

We’ve been intercepting strange bursts of cosmic rays that are causing magnetic field disruptions. There’s something else, too, and I hesitate to write it down, but it’s important we recognize the shift in our reality, if that’s what it is. I can sense Jonathon’s presence nearby. Several men have also reported a sweet, flowery smell, like honey or musk.

It’s possible we’ve traded one catastrophe for another.