My dear pal and former BB guest blogger Jenn Shreve wrote a deeply-moving short story called Space Junk that was published in Seed Magazine a few months ago. The story is about a decidedly down-to-earth woman who is drawn into the wonder of the universe when she has her late husband's ashes launched into space. Space Junk is now available as a PDF download and a beautifully-read audio recording. Here is the beginning of the story:
Sonia had always assumed she'd be the sort of widow who wore tidy black suits and babbled to an engraved granite stone. Where would she go to leave the roses? Or tend to the weeds? Leaning against John and Anne's floor-to-ceiling window, which looked out over the Bay from its perch in the green Berkeley hills, Sonia felt the stem of her wine glass slip ever so slightly between her fingers and clutched it more tightly. On the other hand, it wouldn't do to spend her remaining days chained to a box of rotting flesh and porous bones. She pressed her cheek against the glass and felt the sun's warmth pass through it. She'd known since the beginning this day would arrive and still it had come as a shock.
That morning his skin had been cold and damp like risen dough. The air above his lips and nostrils, cool and still. She had jerked away, as though death were a sudden rustling in the bushes, a snake slithering in the corner of her eye. A callous response, she'd silently scolded, though Seymour wouldn't have agreed. She pictured him hinging upright at the waist, opening his eyes, and saying with a wry smile, "Instincts, my sweet pea. It is only natural and wise for the living to fear the dead." But no such thing occurred. Instead, she had placed her head on his silent chest and hastily split apart his purple eyelids to make absolutely certain nobody was home. Her question answered, she took his stiff hand and ran his fingers through her short, black hair. She kissed his face and wiped her tears off of his cheeks.
When satellites are launched into orbit, they often have surplus cargo space, John explained, certainly enough for a crate of ashes. Once they reached their destination, Seymour and his fellow travelers would circle the planet for a year or so before plunging back into earth's atmosphere, at which point they would be eviscerated once more in a sudden flash of fire. That's good, Sonia thought. Her husband had of late railed against earthlings polluting the sky with their high-tech debris, as if ruining their own planet hadn't been enough. Besides, space had always been his first love.
