One More Thing (8 page)

“If it’s full size,” said the head engineer, “you’ll only see the reflection of what is in your field of vision up to your horizon
point. That’s not what you want, is it? You’re picturing seeing, like, China, right?”

“Yes,” said the impatient billionaire. “Exactly. Things like China.”

“So let’s figure out how big,” said the engineer.

“I want you to be able to look up with binoculars and literally wave at yourself,” said the impatient billionaire. “But you could also look at the White House, or your grandmother in Florida, or see two people on a date in Brazil. My God, do you realize what this is going to mean for humanity?”

“You’re only going to be able to see one hemisphere at a time,” said the head engineer. “That means you won’t be able to see China and Brazil at the same time. Which one is more important to you?”

“I don’t know. Same. Brazil,” said the impatient billionaire.

The engineer took some notes with a little pencil.

“Wait!” said the impatient billionaire. “Is this mirror going to burn up the whole planet? Don’t just ‘yes’ me on everything, really think about it: a mirror that big, reflecting the sun, facing us? I do not want to burn up the planet. I do not want to be ‘that guy.’ ”

“No, that should be okay,” said the head engineer. “We should be able to come up with a material that reflects plenty of light but not a meaningful amount of heat. Let me talk with the team.”

The engineers talked numbers and said they could probably have something up in eighteen months.

“Why not six?” asked the impatient billionaire, trying to force into his eyes the rogue, intoxicating glimmer that he knew had served him well in life so far.

Eighteen, said the engineering team.

Fine, said the impatient billionaire. If you can really guarantee eighteen months, fine.

We can, said the engineering team.

Thirty-five months and two weeks later—more than a year late and seven hundred million dollars over budget—the Mirror for Earth finally went up into the sky.

But nobody remembers how long anything takes; they only remember how good it was in the end.

And in the end, the mirror was magnificent.

After a very short amount of time, the Mirror for Earth became one of those things that people couldn’t ever imagine not existing.

When people caught sight of themselves in the mirror—individually and as a species—they thought twice about how they looked doing whatever they were doing. Crime disappeared. Wars evaporated. Meanness declined dramatically.

The mirror changed everything, forever, for the better.

Besides all that, the thing was, quite simply, beautiful.

One summer night a few years later, the impatient billionaire couldn’t sleep. The air-conditioning in his master bedroom was broken, and even an impatient billionaire didn’t have a way to get an air conditioner fixed in the middle of the night without waking up a wife who was asleep in the same room.

The impatient billionaire’s mind started running through all of the projects he had in the works, none of which was going as fast as it should be—you’d think the man who put up the Mirror for Earth would attract the best and brightest and most resourceful people, but apparently not, he thought to himself.

Impatient for nothing in particular, the impatient billionaire wandered outside to his bedroom balcony and picked up a pair of binoculars that had been a gift from the head engineer, but that he had never actually used.

After a couple of minutes spent searching and focusing, he found what he thought to be himself up in the sky and made some specific gestures with his arms to confirm that he really was staring at himself, and not at one of his neighbors who might just happen to have a similar pair of pajamas and late-night impulse.

Yes, that was him.

That was him, waving widely. That was him, the little figure in red, jutting out into the endless black.

And then, after the impatient billionaire had established that it was definitely, certainly him up there in the sky, he made a few more funny gestures anyway, just for fun.

What a cool thing he had made.

Missed Connection: Grocery spill at 21st and 6th 2:30 pm on Wednesday

I was outside the Trader Joe’s at 21st and 6th at around 2:30 pm last Wednesday. I was wearing oversized sunglasses and a small straw fedora hat, light blue jeans, a black t-shirt-like top, and had freshly washed shoulder-length dirty blond hair with bangs. I’m 29 but people sometimes guess I’m anywhere from 28 to 30. I was carrying two paper grocery bags. You were walking by me in the opposite direction, carrying groceries, too, but only one bag. You asked if you could help and when I tried to explain that then your hands would be just as full as mine, I dropped a bottle of salsa, red, medium spicy Trader Joe’s brand (or Trader Jose’s, as you corrected me) but it didn’t shatter which we both found interesting. I told you my name was Lila (L-I-L-A) and you told me you had a cousin who pronounced it the same way but spelled it differently (L-E-I-L-A). It turned out we were both from the same area code in New Jersey (551) and we talked about our hometowns for a bit and that diner where everyone used to go after games in high school. Then you walked me home carrying one of my two bags even though I said it made
no sense to, and you insisted on bringing them all the way inside for me, and then I made a pot of coffee even though I was only making one cup for you, and then you explained about French presses and Kerrig (sp?) machines. Then we both looked at the clock at the same time and realized we had somehow been talking about coffee for over an hour! You looked in my eyes and said it felt like we had somehow known each other for a long time and I said “I agree” and then we made out on my green quilted couch with a blue stain on the left armrest, and after our very first kiss you pulled away from me and caught your breath and just said the word “electric.” Then you kissed me again and we made out until we both looked at the clock at the same time
again
and realized we had been making out for three hours. Then we watched Iron Chef together and then Planet Earth, the African plains episode, and we both agreed how that was totally the jackpot Planet Earth, because so many are about jellyfish or algae but all anyone wants to really see are giraffes & monkeys & elephants, etc. I said I didn’t want you to leave and you said “me neither” and you slept over at my place in borrowed navy blue pajamas w/ yellow stripes and a hole in the left knee from when my brother visited me and we both said we weren’t cuddlers but we cuddled anyway for almost an hour, and then finally you slept on the left side of the bed which was perfect b/c I sleep on the right. I slept on my back which you said was pretentious and I said “what do you mean? That’s just how I sleep! How can it be pretentious?” and you said “like you think you’re a beautiful angel or something” and I said “maybe you’re just really into me” and we kissed again. Then you turned to sleep on your stomach w/ your head facing left and I said “doesn’t that hurt your neck?” and you said for some reason usually not, but sometimes yes, and that your fantasy when you were a kid was to get a bed with a hollowed out hole straight down from the pillow
so you could sleep with your head face down and straight and I said, “Like a massage chair?” and it turned out you had never had a massage, so I said let’s go this weekend so you could check out if that was similar to what you had been thinking of as a kid, and if it’s how you want to sleep, it’d be weird, but hey, it’s your life, and you laughed and said “deal” twice. “Deal. Deal.” Like that. Then you realized your phone (a Motorola) had died and I didn’t have the right charger, and you said that’s probably a sign that you should get going anyway and take care of some stuff at home, and I said cool, and then we made a plan that you’d come over on Friday and I’d have to cook a dinner that included every single ingredient that I had in those Trader Joe’s bags, Iron Chef style. But then the next day, you didn’t come over or call to explain why, or reschedule it. I know that I gave you my number but now I realize that sometimes I write numbers in a scribble, especially when I’m excited, which I was, so maybe you haven’t been able to decode it or left a message for the wrong number. I know this sounds crazy to say after one encounter but I kind of fell for you pretty hard & it has been forever since I’ve connected to anyone like this & my heart is kind of broken in a million pieces. Hit me up if you think anything in this description matches
anything
you remember, and if so, maybe we can chill sometime? You were wearing a red t-shirt with a pocket.

I Never Want to Walk on the Moon

I never want to walk on the moon.

Just because so few people have ever done it, people assume it’s this great thing they should be jealous of and should want to do, too.

But is it that great?

Let’s break it down. Here is what actually happens.

You go into a space capsule. Very cramped. It takes three or four days just to get there.
Days
. Then, you’re still in the capsule for
six hours
waiting to get out. Can you imagine? Taking a flight that lasts three to four
days
—and then, when you finally get there, somebody tells you,
Sorry, we have to wait another six hours to deplane
? Those six hours probably feel even longer than the rest of the flight.

You also have to wear this unbelievably heavy suit and helmet the whole time. If you don’t? You die.

Finally, you get out, ready to stretch your legs and go on this amazing walk … and … you can barely move! After all that! Have you seen video of these guys? They’re plodding forward, bobbing up and down with almost no gravity, like slowly floating their way to the next step more than walking.

Then, hope you liked your moon walk—because it’s going to take another three to four days just to get back. And even though it’s the same length of time, it probably feels a lot longer because you’ve already done the “fun” part. And then there’s re-acclimating.

I am a pretty serious walker. It is my main form of both exercise and recreation. And I know of at least a dozen walks within fifteen minutes of my front door that make for a better walking experience on every single level. They don’t require space suits or eight full days away from your loved ones. You don’t have asteroids flying at your space ship. Just a bunch of beautiful, beautiful paths, where you’ll see parents pushing little kids in strollers, and bigger kids playing on bikes and Big Wheels.

Some of those bigger kids might even be dreaming of becoming astronauts someday. You know what? Let them.

The only area I can think of where the moon experience might have any edge at all over the walking trails of Knox County, Tennessee, would be in the symbolism department, in the sheer majesty of it all. When you think about how the moon is a celestial phenomenon that has dominated the nights of humans since before humans were even humans, a place so foreign to our understanding that, until recently in the history of our species, people didn’t even think of it as a place, or even as an object, but as an abstraction tied to God; a place that is still, even now that we do understand it, so alien to our everyday thinking that it is never included on any of our maps or globes and can only be reached by a dangerous voyage across hundreds of thousands of miles of literal, actual nothingness; and to know that you have been there and stood on that rock/God/place, with your own two feet, and kicked the dust and moved it a little, and come back home, with the story to tell … . And then, no matter where you are in life, to be able to always look down
at those ten little toes that carry you through your house or the hallways of your job or around the same walking path you’ve been walking for years that you still love in a way even though, somehow, at some point, its loveliness lost its dust of luster in your eyes—to know that no matter where you are, no matter how dull the favorite colors of your life become, you can always look down at those ten little toes and think about how they have been with you to a place that almost no one alive can imagine, and no one dead could have conceived of. And then someday, when you’re about to die yourself, and you’re scared, at least you know you’ve already been somewhere mysterious.