The ICBM
By Robert Mariner, East Sierra Branch
I awaken, and by some means know my exact location on a sphere of a given diameter, with a known gravity, rotating at a given rate.
I sense my body, know cold and pressure within. Power flows through my being, dangerously hot.
I am somehow told to leave this place and leap high, to land at another exact location on this rotating sphere. I know how to do this thing, but nothing else.
I send power to my pumps; feel them spin up to a given speed. I send power to certain valves, and feel the surge of cold fluids through them and the pumps – I cough, and roar my celebration of Life!
I am released to leap upwards upon a searing column of cold turned to heat – feel air ripping past me, pressure mounting and decreasing, skin warming and then cooling. Cold.
I make sure I am on course to land precisely where I was told, and cease my soundless bellow of strength.
Drifting, cooling, weakening; at peace as the sphere rolls close by. I start to fall back towards it, content.
I eject something unwanted from me that I was to carry until now. Good riddance.
Pressure, heat – again air rips past me; I start melting into a bright meteor trail.
Some distance below me erupts an intolerable glare –
Robert Mariner tells us, “This was written when I was in high school,
and in it I was trying to get my classmates to distinguish between
rockets and weapons. I wasn’t successful.”