← Sittings

Thursday, Outbound

The Distance

A rooster in a navy flight suit with mission patches standing before a large circular observation window showing Earth's curved horizon and the darkness of space, cool blue-white lighting from above and from the planet below

They had been talking about the return for longer than anyone could remember. He stood at the observation window in the kind of silence that only altitude provides — Earth below him like a question he had already answered — and considered the particular courage of going back to a place no one has visited in half a century. The suit fit well. It always does when you stop thinking about it.

12 March 2026