Ayurnamat ✔️

Far From Home

He'd never been this far before, this deep in space. It was different from what he had expected, to be fair. They had told him what to expect for years, but to actually experience it... He marveled at the black expanse before him, the small speckles of white splattered around the Earth, the silk blanket draped behind it.

His wife's dress was silk at their marriage, the gown flowed like the waves of the beach at the ceremony, but they weren't half as beautiful as her, nor the children that she would bear only a few years later.

He wasn't going to see any of them for years; for him, being so far from the sun, many more years than his family will experience. He turned away from the view before him and sat down, rubbing his hands over his face. He let out a sigh, "Why did I come here?" He thought to himself.

His wife had hugged him, liquid seeping through the shoulder of his shirt. Of course the children would take the lead of their mother, and tears began to stream down their face as well.

He felt the prickle of liquid in his eyes, but blinked the blurriness away. His eyes suddenly felt so heavy. He breathed in, feeling his ribs expand, held them there, and exhaled slowly, deliberately.

"Don't worry about us," his wife had whispered into his ear, as she wiped the tears he hadn't even known were spilling out of his eyes, "you'll come back, right?"

A hand was placed onto his shoulder, making him jump and furiously rub at his eyes before standing up and facing the other man. "Hey man, just wanted to know if you wanted to check this out," the man cocked his head in the direction of the window, "beautiful, right?"

He turned around at the Earth, as it floated in the expanse of thick darkness, familiar, strangely comforting. His eyes crinkled around the edges as the corners of his mouth raised for the first time since they took off.

"Right."