Launch

I wrote this story about a month for round one of the Yeah Write fiction superchallenge. I made it through the first round, so apparently the judges liked it! Let me know what you think!

Launch

Angie sat back down on the davenport. Mr. Bingle was starting to annoy her. This was the fifth time in the last hour that he made her get up to change the channel. There were only three channels, playing the same three shows that were on yesterday at this time.

Angie should have gone to school today, but she wasn’t ready. She spent the entire week between this davenport, the bathroom, her bedroom and the garage. She memorized the television schedule and wondered if the dead retained their memory. Mr. Bingle had been sitting there all week and still had her changing the channels five times an hour. She left it on for him when she went out to the garage, but her mom always turned it off.

His funeral was the previous weekend and Angie was ready for him to move on. She had her own grieving to do.

Angie’s mom was currently down in the embalming room preparing her father’s body for the funeral on Saturday. People showed up all week with casseroles, so Angie’s mom barely left the operating room. Angie refused to go down there. She didn’t need to. The dead always came up to visit her in the living room. Occasionally they would find her in other rooms, but usually they just sat on the wing-back chair and watched television with her.

Angie was waiting for her father to show up. Gemini 4 was launching in a few hours - all normal programming would be canceled and it was going to be in color! They had been planning this day for months, everything was set. There was no way he would miss this.

The basement stairs creaked and Angie glanced towards the door in anticipation. Her mom rushed out, holding something behind her back.

“It’s done, Angie.” She seemed a little out of breath.

“What’s done, mom?” Angie’s eyes went back to the television. Her mom had gone through mood swings all week. She was either down in the operating room working maniacally or crying on the davenport with her head in Angie’s lap.

That was probably healthier than Angie’s numbness. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t cry. Not since the first night.

“Remember Daddy’s obsession with Dillinger?” Her mom was speaking too fast and Angie couldn’t look at her. She nodded her head, mind drifting back to Monday afternoon. The panic attack gripped her when she got home that day. She went to her room hyperventilating and then cried herself to sleep. Her mom woke her up a few hours later with the news she had already known.

“Angela? Are you listening to me? Look.” Angie hated her full name, but she turned her head to her mother and gasped. Her mom was holding her dad’s head in her hands.

“It’s called a death mask. Remember how your dad did all of that research on Dillinger? Well, I found the procedures for making a death mask in his office. I don’t know if this is what he wanted, but it’s what I’ve been working on all week. I got the alginate from the dentist and the plaster from the hardware store.”

“Mom.” Angie sat speechless. She couldn’t decide if it was beautiful or creepy.

“Is the rocket big enough for this? I thought we could send it up. Your dad would have loved that.”

Angie jumped off the davenport and ran to hug her mother.

“It’s perfect, mom!”

“Is it ready?”

Angie and her father had spent months working on the rocket in the garage. It was her dad’s latest obsession. He wanted to launch before NASA launched their next rocket, that day at three.

Unfortunately, he didn’t make it that long. His cancer had metastasized to his lymph nodes. He was gone before they could even start treatment.

“It’s ready.”

They walked out to the garage. The rocket stood almost as tall as Angie. She had laid a drop cloth around it and spent the week painting it in a tribute to her father. The night sky with all of the constellations wrapped around the tube, the astronomy book she stole from his collection still open on the floor. She even included the Southern Cross, which could only be seen from the Southern Hemisphere. Her dad always talked about going to Australia to stargaze.

“This is amazing, Angie! Your dad would be so proud! He’d love it!” Her mom walked around the rocket slowly, examining her daughter’s artwork. “You did such a beautiful job.”

“I think if we strap the mask here, near the top, it won’t throw off the balance too much and when the parachute is triggered, it’ll float back down… as long as it’s not blown to pieces during the launch.”

Angie found a slim rope in her father’s workbench and wound it around the mask, strapping it to the body of the rocket.

“Help me carry it out?” She motioned her mother to grab the top and Angie lifted the heavier bottom. Her dad had rigged it all, configured the engine and formulated the propellent. He showed her how it worked before he went into the hospital the last time. He made her promise to launch it today, no matter if he could be there or not.

They carried it to the field behind their house and set it down on the launchpad made of old bricks. Angie heard her father’s voice giving her directions.

Make sure the nose is secure and the rocket is balanced on the launch pad. Check.

Make sure the wires aren’t knotted so you can get a safe distance for launch. Check.

She grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her back. They ran, holding hands to a small copse a safe distance from the pad and pressed the ignition.

Angie looked back towards the house and could just make out a figure in her bedroom window. Her father gave her a thumbs-up and pointed towards the rocket, just starting to lift off.