Picture Fiction Challenge

Picture Fiction Challenge is brought to you by the amazing, handsome, and oh so creative REH also known as the Madman. The challenge is to write a story based on the pictures we are given. The above picture represent the photos chosen for this month's challenge.

Photographer to the Stars

I am a wildlife photographer for the stars. Not the skinny mindless ones that grace the entertainment world but the real ones, the hot hydrogen gas ones. I was picked for the first long distance mission. I’m still not sure why or how it happened but suddenly I found myself working for NASA and heading out on the greatest endeavor man had ever set out to accomplish. The “One small step for man” kind of thing but on a much bigger scale.

Our journey began with a bang, lots of music and celebration. But not long after our send off we settled into the quiet vastness of space. Very vast and very empty space. I can’t even tell you how many books I read.

But after two and a half years of a great deal of darkness we arrived in the most promising galaxy for life. And life we did find. Large, amazing, unbelievable life.
And though we could see semblances of an earthen counterpart everything we witnessed was strange and wondrous.

I took over 500,000 photographs during those years. My journal would make Audubon and Darwin cry. I had to find a way to describe what the photos were and where they were from. Entries like: “Gross red mushy thing found in the great swamp like area of XB911” or “Icky crawly thing living in disgusting smelling pit” And then there was the oh so girly “Cute fuzzy creature with big eyes that just calls out to be hugged and loved and taken home” My editor is still not sure what the hell to do with the journal. He would have published it as is but was afraid that NG would loose it’s credibility.

Sometimes I had to pinch myself to make sure this job, this adventure, was real. But other times I would have given anything to be back home photographing tigers at play in the wild. Under all the excitement, the newness, the discovery and wonder, was a great deal more empty time and space. It can be so lonely out there. So very very lonely.

I was amazed at what I missed, coffee, M&M’s, pizza. Oh god what I wouldn’t give for a vente mocha. Ice cream, burgers, fries. Not to mention shoe stores, movie theaters, the smell of popcorn. Crickets, I miss the sound of crickets at night.

It’s been 32 years now. We are just over 18 months from earth. The return is bittersweet for us all. So much will have changed. And the greatest part of our life will be over. And all of us will be coming home to fewer family and friends. So many are gone. So many we never got to say goodbye to. All we will have are our stories, and our memories. And even those aren’t as reliable as they used to be. We joke that space has made our minds soft. How far from the truth are we?

When I get back the first thing I will do is go to the beach. Feel the sand between my toes. The sun on my face. The wind in my hair. And I will sit there until the sun sets, until the crickets come out. And I will breathe deeply the life on earth. And I will remember. And I will be thankful for all that I have been given. For all that I have seen. And then I will get up, brush myself off, and wonder what is next.