The Infinite Tides

by Christian Kiefer

  He wanted more than anything to be back in the microgravity of the ISS, back in that series of interconnected oxygen-filled tubes, but the mission was over and there was nothing he could do about that now. At least they might have simply left him alone to work at his desk in Houston. During the weeks after returning from the mission he had become involved in a variety of projects at the Space Center. But in the end the Astronaut Office could not even allow him that. The only question remaining was when he could return and what he was to do in the meantime.

  Around him, the cul-de-sac appeared much as it had when he had left for the launch, as if it had become frozen upon his departure. Diagonally across the street, a skeleton of two-by-four boards framed the shape of a house, the surrounding lot overgrown with weeds. Next to that ghost, directly across from him, was a home so complete and perfect it might have been an advertisement for the American suburban lifestyle. Slightly farther away, the nether end of the cul-de-sac opened into a completely empty lot mottled with golden grasses and the light green of thistle. Yet more distant, an endless flow of rooftops swung over the low hills and disappeared into the fractal maze of freeways and subdivisions beyond.

  He stumped past his neighbor’s house—apparently empty, the lawn yellowed and dead—and followed the curve of the sidewalk, his body like a lead block being dragged through water. When he reached the edge of the vacant lot he stopped, peering across its thistled expanse to where the land curled out of sight into a drainage ditch and then rose again to meet a cinderblock wall that broke up out of the earth, dividing that vacancy from the backyards and rear walls of houses lining some other cul-de-sac. The walk from his front door to where he now stood was only twenty or thirty yards and it did nothing to lessen his feeling of density and weight. The more pressing problem was the faint high-pitched whine that had resumed deep behind his eyes. He felt at his collar for his sunglasses and once again failed to find them there.

  And then, all at once, an explosion of movement so unexpected that he leapt backwards in surprise, his voice making a sharp, quick noise comprised entirely of vowels. Even then his mind did not register what it could be, its size and upward motion impossible. And then he saw it more clearly: a huge black bird that rose out of the field not twenty feet away, its wings pounding up out of the dry grass and thistle, already past the rooflines and rising into the flat blue of the sky and then its wings extending into a single flat plane as it began to spiral upwards in slow lazy circles.

  He did not know how long he stood watching it, but the circles it described continued, the dark shape so wholly unmoving in its rotation that it appeared as if a shadow cut from darkness or a bird-shaped hole in the sky revealing that black space beyond the color of the sun, that point shrinking so quickly that when he momentarily glanced down to the field and then looked up again he could no longer find it. It was as if the bird had risen into the atmosphere or beyond and was itself in some kind of low orbit. He continued to stand there for a long while, scanning the sky, but now he did not even know what he was looking for. A speck of movement. But nothing would be revealed. The only evidence anything had occurred at all was the quick, rhythmic beating of his heart.

  At last he returned to the car and pulled into the street and to the end of the court and then turned onto the farther street beyond and turned again. Another court amidst more stunted trees and the occasional empty lot and he followed the curve of that cul-de-sac and exited only to find himself approaching the rounded sidewalk of yet another court. The lawn beyond the windshield: a yellow waste of dead grass. It is true that things turn out this way. One moment you are an astronaut floating high above a space station at the end of a robotic arm of your own design, the next you are driving through an endless suburb. He again swung the car around and cursed to himself. Grass-covered squares and rectangles. Seemingly identical cul-de-sacs appearing and disappearing as he passed, different only in their state of completion: a perfect model home, then the skeletal structure of a wooden frame, then a patch of bare dirt holding an unfinished foundation. Between these states: a fractal landscape of courts and ways that turned inward upon themselves, thin and many-legged spiders that had, in death, curled into their own bulbous bodies, clutching the empty, still air between perfectly manicured lawns.

  He found a Starbucks and parked. In contrast to the absurd blinding brilliance and slowly rising heat of the parking lot, it was cool and dark inside and he lifted the bag that contained his laptop and approached the counter as his eyes adjusted to the change in light.

  “What can I get started for you?” the girl at the counter said.

  He looked up at the menu on the wall behind the counter and as he did his phone began to vibrate in his pocket.

  “Just a cup of coffee,” he said quickly. He looked at the phone. A Houston area code but a number he did not recognize. “Hello?” he answered.

  “What size?” the girl said.

  “Chip,” the voice said through the phone. “Bill Eriksson.”

  “Eriksson,” Keith said. Then: “How are you?” And then, to the girl: “A medium is fine.”

  “I’m doing good,” Eriksson said. “Doing good. But I’m calling to find out how you’re doing.”

  “What?” Keith said.

  “I want to know how you’re doing,” Eriksson said again.

  “No,” Keith said. “Hang on. I’m at Starbucks.” Then to the girl at the counter: “What?”

  She told him the price again and he fished out his wallet. “Sorry about that,” he said into the phone.

  “Hey, no problem,” Eriksson said. “So how you doing?”

  “Fine. Grabbing a cup of coffee.” He handed the girl his credit card and she pulled it through the edge of the register and then handed him the card and the receipt.

  “Yeah? You been home?”

  “Home,” Keith said. “Well, yeah.”

  “And?”

  “And I’m getting the house ready to sell.”

  “Is that what you decided?”

  “Yes, that’s what I decided.” She handed him a paper cup and he took it and mouthed a thank you and then cradled the phone awkwardly against his ear with his shoulder and carried his bag and coffee to a padded chair at the back of the room.

  “She there?”

  “Barb?”

  “Yeah, Barb. Who else?”

  “OK,” Keith said. “No, she’s definitely not here.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Keith said, “She really emptied me out.”

  “How so?”

  “There’s nothing in the house at all. The whole place is empty.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, shit.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “Well, I’m looking for a realtor.”

  “Any chance of counseling?”

  “Marriage counseling? I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Is that something you want?”

  “I want to sell the house. That’s what I want.”

  “All right then,” Eriksson said.

  A pause. Then Keith said, “Yeah. That’s about it. Get the house sold.”

  “Then vacation somewhere?”

  He looked at his coffee and then stood and walked to the small table near the counter and poured creamer and a packet of sugar into the cup. “Maybe,” he said.

  “No maybes. Take a break, Keith. We all earned one. Especially you.”

  “You said that before.”

  “Yeah, but I feel like you’re not really hearing me.”

  “I hear you.”

  “All right. All right. Just looking out for the crew.”

  “Mission’s over.”

  “It’s over when I say it’s over,” Eriksson said. “So how’s the processor?”

  “Funny. How’s yours?”

  “Same sense of humor,” Eriksson said, not without irony. “Listen, the offer still stands, you know. You’re always welcome here.”
r />   “I need to get this house thing done. I appreciate it, though.”

  Keith could hear a child’s voice in the distance of the phone and Eriksson said, “Hang on,” and then, muffled, “Daddy’s on the phone. I’ll be off in just a second. No, you cannot have a Pop-Tart. Just wait a second until I’m off the phone.” And then, to Keith: “Sorry about that.”

  “How are they?”

  “Running me ragged.”

  “I’ll bet.” Through the phone he could hear the sound of a child’s voice yelling, whether in joy or terror he could not tell.

  “Oh, so that reminds me,” Eriksson said after a pause, “my wife keeps asking if you’ve looked at that book at all.”

  “Book?”

  “Yeah, that thing on the grieving process. She was asking me if it’s been helpful.”

  “Oh yeah, sure. Tell her … tell her yeah it’s good. It’s been …” He paused a moment and then added, “helpful.” Another pause. Then, “Thank her for me.”

  “Will do.”

  “So look, you call me now and then. I want some check-ins.”

  “You’ve got my number,” Keith said.

  “I’m serious. Status updates.”

  “OK,” Keith said. “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Sure, buddy. Anything.”

  “I asked Mullins for some files from my office. Can you see what the status of that is?”

  “Yeah, OK. I’ll find out but you know you’re supposed to be taking a break.”

  “Just find out. OK?”

  “All right, I will.”

  “Thank you,” Keith said.

  “You’ll check in, right?”

  “Yes,” Keith said.

  “That’s all I wanted to hear,” Eriksson said. Then: “Talk to you later, buddy.”

  “OK,” Keith said. “Talk to you later.”

  He pocketed his phone again and then he lifted his bag and removed his laptop and opened it. He looked through his e-mail but there were no messages of note, only some general information about changes to health care, some budgetary updates, a newsletter or two. After a few moments he searched the Internet for local real estate agents and wrote them on the back of his coffee receipt and then found the addresses of a nearby building supply store. Then he closed the laptop and lifted the coffee cup and leaned back in the chair.

  There was a discarded newspaper on the small table next to him and he retrieved it and flipped through its pages without any real interest. Fires in some adjacent county. Democrats dumping money into something. Economic downturns and rising joblessness.

  The door opened and closed. A scattering of customers arriving and departing. The static of steam jets and the murmur of conversation.

  He turned the newspaper over. Some hotel in foreclosure and, on the adjacent page, a claim that commercial real estate was remaining strong. The usual murders and crimes. Sports teams winning. Sports teams losing. A brief note about a comet set to crash into Earth, killing everything.

  The door opened again and Keith glanced up to see a thickly built man in a red T-shirt who approached the counter and said, “Hello, Audrey,” in a booming voice. Keith could not hear the barista’s response but a moment later the man’s voice came again: “You look lovely today as usual.” He had an accent of some kind. Keith thought it was likely Russian or Ukrainian. His body was low to the ground and squared off as if it had been carved roughly from a block of wood and his face was friendly even though it too was all square angles below a thatch of close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. He wore a red vest that was stretched over his similarly red T-shirt with a name tag Keith could not read. Coming from work, then. “Time now for morning mocha,” he said.

  “Of course it is,” the barista said, loud enough that Keith could hear her this time and when she came into view from behind the register, he could see that she was smiling broadly.

  “And are you having good day today?” the man said.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Good day for me also,” he said. He shifted his eyes toward the back of the shop where Keith sat with the paper and said, in a voice that was near shouting: “Hello! What is big news this morning then?”

  Keith blinked. “Oh,” he said. “Not much.”

  “No?” the man said.

  “Well,” he said, glancing at the paper again, weighing for the briefest moment whether or not the man was actually asking him a question or if he was simply making small talk to the only other customer in the shop. “OK,” Keith said, his eyes fixing on a headline, “we’re apparently going to be killed by a comet.”

  “Ah yes, about this I know something. Don’t be worried.”

  “I wasn’t,” Keith said.

  “Good thing!” the man shouted. Then he turned back to the counter again.

  The barista worked at her machine of hissing and bubbling and a moment later she handed the man a cup and he paid her.

  Keith finished his coffee and stood and lifted his laptop bag, dropping the newspaper to an adjacent table.

  As he passed the counter, the barista looked up at him. “See you next time,” she said.

  Keith nodded, said, “Take care,” and was at the door when the Russian man said, “NASA?”

  Keith paused and turned back toward him and nodded.

  “This is NASA on shirt?” the Russian man said.

  “Yes, I work for NASA,” Keith said.

  “What is work you do?”

  He froze there with one hand on the door. Then he said, “I work for the Astronaut Office.”

  “For Astronaut Office is being astronaut?”

  Again silence. Then he said, “Yes, I’m an astronaut.”

  “You joke on me I think,” the man said.

  Keith shrugged, thinking momentarily of Eriksson. “Not likely,” he said. Then, “I have to go. Good talking with you.” Before the man could say anything else he stepped through the door and let it swing closed, continuing off the curb then and into the heat of the parking lot, half closing his eyes until his sunglasses were in place. Two old men sat in wire chairs in front of the store, one of them wearing a ball cap embroidered with the words “US Navy Retired,” the other in a battered leather flight jacket covered in patches. Their conversation ceased as Keith passed and a moment later he was too far away to hear if it resumed.

  The heat thick and heavy. He returned to the car with sweat cascading into his eyes and sat for a long moment with the vents blowing upon his face. Huge cars everywhere around him, all of them shimmering with sunlight.

  When he turned onto the street again, he drove in the general direction of the hotels near the interstate but then pulled into a retail lot and slipped the gearshift into park and stepped once again outside. Moments later he was a solitary shape amidst quiet shoppers with bright red plastic carts, trying to recall the last time he had gone shopping for anything. When he had been training in Houston he had rented a tiny apartment, flying back and forth between it and home whenever there was a break, but it remained unfurnished apart from a cot and an alarm clock and he subsisted entirely on takeout and the JSC cafeteria. Before that, in those few instances when he had tried to help Barb with the household duties, he would end up buying the wrong item and she would later have to return it anyway, his attempt to lighten her workload only resulting in making things more difficult. Now he seemed to be moving ever against the general flow of traffic, red carts coming towards him no matter which side of any aisle he rolled down and him muttering, “Sorry,” under his breath in a kind of slow loop as he found himself repeatedly in the way of other shoppers.

  The simplicity of his ineptitude was irritating and he found himself once again thinking of his office in Houston. They had asked him to take a vacation but did they understand that this was how it would be, that the only thing he really needed was to remain at his office? Did they expect him to go sit on a beach somewhere and contemplate the sunset? Did they know him no better than that when all he had ever wanted was to be in s
pace and now all he wanted was to return? He had thought that they understood him but he had been wrong. Somehow they believed that being away from his office was the best thing for him, a concept that made so little sense he could not even ascertain the shape of the equation.

  He circled the store at least a dozen times and the only thing in his cart was a coffeepot. He did not even know what he would need. A rudimentary particleboard furniture section. Would he remain long enough to need furniture? Again he did not know. When he passed the laundry detergent he realized he had not yet opened the door to the laundry room and did not even know if he had a washer or dryer, then wondered if he would be doing his laundry at a Laundromat. He would be an astronaut doing laundry at a Laundromat. That would be fantastic.

  He found a garbage can that was plain and white and plastic and then filled it with ten frozen microwaveable dinners and later found the linens aisle and selected a pillow and a set of white sheets and dark blue blankets. An alarm clock. A cheap set of pots and pans. A table to eat at and a chair of some kind would wait until he determined what he was going to do next.

  The parking lots connecting one after another. He managed to snake his way through them and onto the main artery again, the names of various subdivisions flashing by the window: the Stables, Willow Glen, and then, finally, his own: “The Estates” emblazoned in white letters across a low stone wall attached to one of two tall stonework pillars. It had been intended as a gated community, that had been one of the selling points for Barb, but although two pillars flanked the entryway, no gate swung open and closed between them; whatever any such gate would have enclosed or excluded flowed freely through the entrance. Astronauts. Maniacal shoppers. Soccer moms.

  By the time he reached his cul-de-sac, the sky was flat and white with haze and the landscape had taken on a feeling of desolation: heaps of dirt and half-completed homes and naked foundations spaced between finished homes with their dwarfish trees and shrubs. His own court no different. He looked into the sky momentarily for the bird he had seen but there was nothing.