When Norman was a boy, he sat with his mom and dad at the lemon-yellow kitchen table, heads crowded together towards the RCA portable TV. When the flickering static became too much to bear, Norman closed his eyes and listened. A moth flapped on the whirring stove light, branches tapped on the window, his mother sniffed from her cold, and Neil Armstrong’s tinny voice changed the course of history.
After NASA announced the last mission of the space shuttle program, Norman knew he had to go. He had always told himself he would go to one of these launches, and it was now or never. In a small way, he blamed himself for The Challenger, as if his eyes on that Florida sky would have made all the difference.
During that year he had used his credit card more often than he liked, but it helped him accumulate 5,000 extra air miles. He bought a used camera online, and new clothes for the presumably sticky Florida weather.
On a Thursday, right in the middle of a CSI episode, his son called him. He was excited because he was offered an internship in the UK, and could he have dad's air miles? It was an expensive ticket.
Of course, Norman said, delighted. It wasn't every day an opportunity like this came along. Norman put his pre-bought ticket into the photo album, and on July 8th he turned on the TV, closed his eyes, and listened. His coke fizzled against the glass, the refrigerator hummed, and the recorded roar of the Atlantis launched without him.
Submitted January 29, 2016 at 10:56PM by mookie8 http://ift.tt/1Pnnv0E lifeofnorman
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