WHO REALLY BELONGS IN SPACE?
Is it just billionaires and astronauts? Read on…
I am a garbage man and I belong in space.
From the dawn of civilization, I have swept up and kept up the refuse of society, the poptops, styrofoam and plastic bottles of generations, fighting a losing battle to keep our once-pristine and unblemished planet livable. One future pickup day, let me leave my reeking, peeling sanitation truck behind; let me board a cleaner, brighter spaceship and ride it to where there is no litter, yet. Give me two things — the vastness of space and a head start, and I will keep space just that, without clutter or trash or derelict satellites, so that we can all move out of Earth’s cradle into a new and litterless future.
I am a musician and I belong in space. Since the first singing of Pan’s pipe, I have stirred mankind’s yearnings for that pure, unfettered spirit that is music. Let my celestial “music of the spheres” become just that, of and among them. And there in the heavens, let me compose a universal song that all can sing together, the next great Symphony of Mankind.
I am a real-estate agent and I belong in space. The Earth’s land which we pretend to buy, sell and own but really only borrow, has been divided and subdivided over eons. Let me travel into the “realest” estate of all which can never be subdivided nor diminished. Space, where there is truly room for all, nothing down and no qualifying; the ultimate suburb, where our future has been held in escrow since caves first converted to condo.
I am a farmer and I belong, to cultivate the red soil of Mars and virgin furrows of Ganymede.
I am a fisherman and I belong, to cast my nets into the azure seas of Venus.
I am a miner and I belong, to mine cadmium on Saturn, and unknown metals on quasi-planet Pluto.
I am a teacher, but also a student, and I belong.
I am a mother; a child; a laborer — surely you will need me; an accountant; a clerk; a longshoreman; a vagabond who surely belongs; a poet who has been there in verse and longs to return; a policeman — please allow me to build a world where there is no need of me; a truck driver; a writer; a busboy; a waitress, an actor…
I am anyone who has ever gazed at a limitless sky and wondered — what is my purpose? My destiny? Both are bound up in those twinkling stars and someday I will go out there to fulfill them.
Space isn’t just for Buck Rogers or billionaires, it’s for everyone. We were born there; we will be reborn there. And together with the garbagemen, the cops, the sales clerks, the executives, the housewives, the artists, the cable repairmen, the bus drivers, secretaries, ditch diggers and every other category of human endeavor from menial to magnificent — together we will fly with our seatbacks and tray tables dutifully in their original upright positions, and make our mark on the stars.
Kirby Timmons is a writer living in Valencia CA and, yes, he belongs.
