| ASTEROID | ||||||||||
Was my life of value? Did I make the right choices?....
The music teacher is telling my parents that the results of the music listening test I took indicate I have near perfect pitch.
"What instrument would you like to play Stevie?" the music teacher asks me. So I'm supposed to pick an instrument, right now? Based on what? I'm only eight years old. "The violin, I guess." "We have your grandpa's piano at home, honey," Mom said. "You want to play the piano, Stevie?" "Can he play the piano?" she asks the music teacher. "Certainly," he replies. "So you'll play the piano, okay Stevie?" "I like the way the violin sounds, Mom." "Well, okay. We'll give the violin a try. If you don't like it you can switch to the piano, okay Stevie?" I shrug my shoulders implying "yes". I like the violin. I like it a lot and I get good at it. Because it's portable I can take it with me wherever I want to play. I join the band in elementary school and stay in it through high school. In my freshman year of high school during Christmas time a few of us are asked to play at the senior home nearby. They loved our visit. We do it each year afterward. I visit my sick cousin in the hospital and bring my violin along to cheer her up. The hospital staff asks me if I could come again sometime because the other patients loved hearing me play. My mother talks to my school and gets the school service program expanded to include musical visits to the hospital. We often visit the hospital to play now. I see how happy I make the patients feel, and I see how the nurses really care there. I decide to study to become a nurse in college. After graduating I get a job in a hospital where I make a difference in the lives of my patients. I do my best to help them with both their physical and emotional needs. I bring my violin in sometimes and play to the patients to improve their hospital experience and their outlook on recovery. I work there for several years making the world a better place. I'm driving home late one night from the hospital before I barely see it. A speeding driver runs a traffic light at an intersection and hits me broadside and I die instantly.
Our ship silently slices through space towards Ceres. Space is silent, as there are no sound waves without air. The only sound from outside the ship is the noise of the engine and the micro-thrusters being transferred to the atmosphere within the crew cabin through the walls and structure of our craft. Inside the ship are the sounds of intermittent conversation among the crew and the continuous beeps and clicks of the computers. We're finally approaching Ceres the captain announced. It's just a small but expanding dot from this distance. This means this long trip is finally over and the real mission can start. I've never really grown accustomed to the cold, burnished insides of this spaceship. It is an unnatural environment and I wish the designers had made it more calming visually. I've been doing my best to emanate a positive presence on board to help strengthen the camaraderie among the sapped crew. The asteroid appears light gray in color. A typical pockmarked orb but with some intriguing bright and dark spots. Ceres may be the largest asteroid in the belt but it's still small. Its surface area is about the size of India. We plan to land during its nine hour sunlight window. It won't be very bright though. Being almost triple the distance away from the sun as compared to Earth, it will be dimly lit similar to a dusk. Still, I'll appreciate any light as opposed to total darkness when I perform my hydrologic investigations. I hope joining NASA was the right thing to do when I could have continued to help communities back on Earth. Our ship seems to be drawing near quickly.
"The trumpet!" I say emphatically. "We have your grandpa's piano at home, honey," Mom said. "You want to play the piano, Stevie?" "Can he play the piano?" she asks the music teacher. "Certainly," he replies. "So you'll play the piano, okay Stevie?" "Dad is always playing that Wynton Marsalis album and I kinda like it. I think I want to play the trumpet." "Well, okay. We'll give the trumpet a try. If you don't like it you can switch to the piano, okay Stevie?" I shrug my shoulders implying "yes". The trumpet is hard. Too hard. I don't sound like Wynton. It takes a lot more practice to put in than I'm willing to do. Luckily the following year I get braces. "The trumpet hurts my mouth with the braces." I'm allowed to quit. I'm forced to play piano though. I hate it. I don't want to play the piano. After a few months I stop practicing. I clash with my parents. I get punished. "Either practice or stay in your room with no playing with friends after school," they say. I stay in my room. I start to smoke cigarettes at school with some future bad kids. I get caught and get punished. I keep smoking. I get caught again. I try marijuana after school and get caught. I rebel more. I get caught stealing food at Wawa. In a few years I'm running with the wrong crowd. Some of my pals break into a 7-11 while I watch. We get caught and I spend time in a juvenile detention center. After release I barely finish high school and move in with some buddies. I sell weed and the occasional speed to make ends meet. Our place gets raided, and with the three pounds of stash they find I'm now doing real time. I'm lost. There's a prison-ashram project there. I listen. They give me a book about looking within which helps me to get centered. I learn to meditate. I lose the anger and search for a way to find meaning in life. I volunteer in the Scared Straight program where I talk with foolish teenagers headed in my direction. After my release I get work helping run community sports in the city to keep idle youth from falling into poor behaviors. Meanwhile I enroll in a community college. After two more years I finish at the state college and get a degree in business. I open a lawn service and it's pretty successful. I hire ex-cons when they first get out helping them get back on their feet. I counsel them without judgment and give them encouragement whenever I can. After the work day is over I spend my time running an evening community basketball league for teens. I collapse forward while sitting at my desk reviewing schedules. I die from a heart attack due to a blocked coronary artery.
There's some kind of malfunction. My heart is racing. I think we're coming in too fast! I'm paralyzed as I stare at the asteroid rushing closer and closer.
The two surveyed the scattered wreckage.
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