CC#24: Capsule Experiment
A heartfelt poem that surfaced while traversing some of the deepest and darkest pits of the COVID lockdown.
CAPSULE EXPERIMENT
When COVID-19 slammed all the doors shut we weren’t ready but we still waved for the camera from the airlock of our one-bedroom capsule. With Laika the cosmo-dog to inspire us, our crew of two committed fully to the space race. When the traffic stopped and the air cleared and the wild animals stole onto the boulevards blinking in the concrete sunlight of a new planet, we took notes, eyes glued to the porthole. Pumped ourselves full of anti-gravity drugs— any drug would do—and trained ourselves to carry the mental body-weight of two black holes from the bed to the bathroom to the kitchen. Rebreathing each other’s intrusive thoughts, tiny bitter dreams that fed on carbon dioxide to grow into colossal space monsters. Starved of oxygen time and time again there was yet no question of opening a window to the void. The great nation of technology cheered for us from the ground and we heard nothing, walled as we were behind complex boundaries. Swapping roles to slow the space madness. Agronomist turned systems engineer turned therapy animal turned victim turned saviour turned perpetrator. The capsule kept us alive in the harsh radiation, the competing governments of the world fighting for scraps of truth as we fought for scraps of hope and stared into the naked sun. Devolved into lab-rats, primates, monsters ourselves. Broke all the mirrors and punched all the walls. Tossed Laika out the airlock time and time again, watching her tumble end over end with a frozen grin and cried how sorry we were for doing this to ourselves. How sorry we were for not believing this experiment would ever be necessary.
Evocative and more than vaguely frightening this time...