Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  The green lights, each representing a meteor or hunk of drifting space junk, blinked steadily on the computer screen before me.  Thirty minutes till I would reach U.S. Space Command Station XXXVII, almost a five years journey from home.  Home.  It had been a long time since I had thought of home.  A long time since that gentle Spring day when I'd waved good bye to Mam and June, both standing on the front porch crying, and ducked into a checkered yellow taxi that took me to the space launch.

I smiled wryly, remembering how excited I'd been, how heroic I'd imagined myself to be.  Come to think of it, I'd only been running away.

Suddenly a voice blared over the intercom, "Captain Greves, you are approaching Command Station XXXVII, be prepared to unload."  A pause.  "And keep an eye on that little meteorite to your left.  It's highlighted red on your screen."

I barely glanced at the tiny meteorite.  Most likely they'd identified it to be carrying some unknown element, nothing unusual in this "great age of exploration and discovery".  I sighed and flicked a switch to turn the radio on.  "Summer of 69" by Bryan Adams. 

I allowed the lyrics to pull me into a kind of heavy nostalgia, and started thinking about Daisy Wright.  We'd graduated high school together, but she'd gone off to Cambridge to study classic literature, while I'd stayed in Tennessee to get my degree in starship navigation.  It had sounded so glamorous then, to leave home for thirty years, cruise through an ocean of stars, and come back a hero.  Too bad I lived in the real world.  Five years of delivering steel, new uniforms, and dehydrated ice cream had been enough to kill any spirit of adventure lurking inside me.  And even one hundred years running around space wouldn't be enough to convince Daisy I was good enough for her.

In the middle of a sentence, Mr. Adams was rudely cut off.  The lights flickered once, and then total darkness.  "Shoot!  I must've nicked a meteor", I mumbled.  I always talked to myself when the lights went out.  It kept the blackness at bay.

I kept mumbling, until I found a working flashlight.  I pulled on my crumpled spacesuit, which was growing tight around the middle, and brushed through the narrow hallways to the exit portal.

Outside, I took a few moments to float in the freedom and silence before making my way towards the damaged wing.  I had not hit a meteor.

A grey blob stared back at me.  It was about half the size of me, with a shapeless body, resembling some kind of deep sea fish.  It didn't exactly have eyes, but there were two big, black circles on what I assumed to be the front of its body.  The creature stared at me with a sort of dumb yearning, as if it too were miles away from any kind of home.

     I shot it.