VIRGEN MILAGROSA UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Martin P. Posadas Avenue, San Carlos City, Pangasinan 2420
Tel. Nos. (075) 531-5222; (075) 955-5222; (075) 634-1111 local 136
Website: http:///www.vmuf.edu.ph/ Email : vmuf1068@gmail.com

THE COSMONAUT
by Giane R. Padlan

Kyler grasps with his inner gloves what seems to be the electrical harness of his
coveralls as blinding lights gradually lighten the room. A blear, tinted vision of the ceiling
baffles him when his eyes unfold from discomfort in the nape. With constraint, he slowly
glances over his torso, and in a monochromatic yet bright hue, sees his raiment in
confusion.

“The suit looks good on you,” a familiar feminine voice insists nigh. “Where’s the
backpack?”

Despite the heft of the shell and a sore sensation in the chest, he immediately rises his
upper half to the resounding echo among the void’s emptiness. Thereon, the woman of
whose utterance was heard looks back at him and proceeds to exit through a pellucid
door just across.

He hauls off all the visible wirings along his trunk without hesitation, and quickly stands
up from the bunk he was reclined in. He approaches the lucent doorway, promptly turns
the knob with a pull, and feels himself getting relatively featherlight as he enters another
space.

Looking afar, all he sees is a dusty, rocky place surrounded with craters in nooks and
crannies; all beneath a dark, yet scintillating sky. He barely feels the fiberglass’ weight
on his body any longer, but it requires him more force to tread over the surface. After a
while of wandering, a certain dim area tickles his curiosity as the woman in white he
means to trail brightens up the spot.

“Have you seen your backpack yet?”, the faintly seen lass queries.

“Gia?”, he calls out from a distance. The gravitational pull suddenly becomes greater for
him as his enthusiasm livens up to run after his inamorata. He feels the same weight as
before; not heavier, nor lighter.

© 2020 Giane R. Padlan All Rights Reserved

 VIRGEN MILAGROSA UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Martin P. Posadas Avenue, San Carlos City, Pangasinan 2420
Tel. Nos. (075) 531-5222; (075) 955-5222; (075) 634-1111 local 136
Website: http:///www.vmuf.edu.ph/ Email : vmuf1068@gmail.com

Shortly after, he sights a similar snow-white door nearby, and sees the girl heading out
for it as he approaches near. All but depleted in strength, the door is seen closed when
he reaches it, and he once again releases the door latch while heavily ventilating.

A tepid sunlit grassland with a firmament of blue awaits him, but he begins to see down
as where his feet are in spite of a more significant ground pull. It seems like home to
him, but the difficulty to focus on walking and turning is worse. On the plus side,
breathing takes him much minimal effort and appears to be an easier task than before.

Awhile later, he remarks a broad canopy of a discerned Narra tree providing an ample
shade around it; howbeit, the silken dress that Gia wears tends to illuminate amidst the
shadow. A presumably alike hatch is yet again spotted close to it, and the damsel
makes her way past the door anew.

With difficulty remaining in balance, much less sprinting, Kyler exerts as much vigor as
he possibly could to follow his gal. As he makes his way for the outer path, he finds
himself in the dimness that the tree bestows.

This time, he nearly never opens the door. The solace that he obtains under the Narra’s
umbra gives him a warm sense of comfort, peace, and belongingness – better than
ever.

“Kyler, Kyler…” a soft effeminate voice addresses repeatedly while the man himself is
apparently dozing. The napping lad gets jolted awake – perspiring – by the resonance,
and with the afternoon sun’s fervent cast at him, sweatily seeks to unclose the barrier
beside.

The luminescence from the savanna afore is replaced by the gloom of his former
bedchamber. Thither lies a hindsight of his past self: the nine-year-old Kyler hearing
chaotic noise from beyond – avoiding it by rushing to his safe zone, constantly hopping
to reach for his papier-mâché helmet, prepping his backpack life support subsystem,
and finally heading towards his cardboard spacecraft in the corner.

“Liftoff!”, hollers his young self after a second inside the orbiter.

That was his escape – the ironic freedom attained under such confinement – wishing he
could beam into another location.

© 2020 Giane R. Padlan All Rights Reserved

 VIRGEN MILAGROSA UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Martin P. Posadas Avenue, San Carlos City, Pangasinan 2420
Tel. Nos. (075) 531-5222; (075) 955-5222; (075) 634-1111 local 136
Website: http:///www.vmuf.edu.ph/ Email : vmuf1068@gmail.com

But the vista for the current Kyler brings him new realizations; the similar experience
when re-watching a favorite childhood movie or re-reading a cherished teenage novel at
an older age. For the young boy, it was merely for distraction; but for his roaming
presence, is a different story. The spaceship in which he was used to for neglecting the
thin atmosphere around him progressively turned into an ascertained attitude he would
later in his youth develop.

Thirsty to make up for a lost opportunity, he attempts to exit his bunkroom but finds the
door stuck and remotely impossible to unlock. He then decides to bash the handgrip off
with a kick, and the door carefully opens outwards.

The dusk from his bedroom is nothing compared to what the exterior beholds. However,
the vacuity minutely irradiates when Gia is seen walking and asking for his hands.

“Dance?”, the splendidly dressed lady requests.

Kyler nods twice with unseen teary eyes as a response, and without any worries, they
sway perennially into the unknown.

All the weight has seemingly vanished off his body. The vacuum increasingly gleams
like the galaxy as he whispers into her ear:

I love you, Gia… more than anything.

“Anything?”, she asks.

“Everything,” Kyler replies, “among all the celestial bodies in the universe.”

“Spread your wings and soar beyond the stars,” she mutters back.

The woman of his dreams fades like moonlight softly into the darkness – like the mist of
a breath on a mirror – and the lacuna eventually blares with thousands of small screens
surrounding him.

Turning around, he gives a skim on the displays and recognizes all the occasions that
he eluded the troubles ahead of him, and more importantly, where he sought
consolation.

© 2020 Giane R. Padlan All Rights Reserved

 VIRGEN MILAGROSA UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Martin P. Posadas Avenue, San Carlos City, Pangasinan 2420
Tel. Nos. (075) 531-5222; (075) 955-5222; (075) 634-1111 local 136
Website: http:///www.vmuf.edu.ph/ Email : vmuf1068@gmail.com

A notably bright panel he sees next to him flashes the moment of their foremost dance.
It was on the grassy backside of their publicly funded middle school when Kyler had
some problems, and decided that Gia was the best confidante in the world.

They were fond of each other, let alone did they get along well, and they slow waltzed to
their beloved song with their white uniforms on till sunset. The afternoon later counted
as their first quarrel, too, after having been espied by Gia’s mother.

Latterly, another centrally positioned monitor pops up from above with great candor and
flaunts their last encounter: his lady picking him up after a few drinks at the bar with his
girlfriends.
Kyler looks up to the flashback laid out and witnesses every second of what seems to
be their last fight. He finally sees in first person how he even had the nerve to ride on
Gia’s passenger seat. And as they exchange profane, thundered language, a crescively
blinding flash bides.
A blear, tinted vision of the moon baffles him when his eyes unfold from discomfort in
the nape. With constraint, he slowly glances over his torso, and in a monochromatic yet
bright hue, sees his raiment in confusion.
The physician bespeaks that a woman named Gia Palmore is dead on arrival after a
severe car crash alongside a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, another neurosurgeon on call performs a mandatory assessment on the
casualty’s husband, Kyler Palmore. Arterial pressure is at 60 mm Hg, desaturation is not
subject to misinterpretation, and cardiac arrhythmias are verified present. Not long after
the observation, arterial PCO2 drops to 27 mm Hg and respiratory movements are
confirmed to be no longer detected.
Family members are out of sight as he is taken off the ventilator, and nurses are
forewarned, as Kyler Palmore failed the apnea test, and is declared brain dead on 12:09
AM, 17th of March, 2020.

© 2020 Giane R. Padlan All Rights Reserved