1KWHC 2022 Winner, For Infinity by Catherine Ogston

For Infinity by Catherine Ogston

Prompts: Psychologist | a Joke

‘We need to be sure you are doing this for the right reasons,’ says Sam. ‘We can’t make a mistake with our selection.’ 

    I look over his shoulder at the row of certificates on the wall. Gold embossed letters, red looping lines on cream paper, dark navy and teal ink. On a shelf there is a framed photograph of him in a graduation cap. My finger finds the patch of skin high up by my left ear and begins to tap a small rhythm. 

    ‘I know a joke about flying to the moon,’ I say. 

    Sam looks puzzled. ‘This mission is not for the moon.’ 

    ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but do you want to hear it?’

    Sam’s mouth twitches and he rubs the skin under his nose. 

    ‘Self-soothing,’ I say and he pulls his hand away like his flesh has burned him.

Gracie and I would lie on the lawn when the sky was dark and the stars were calling to us. She would tell me that one day we would build a rocket and fly away. She would tell me that we would burst through the clouds in a space-bound vessel; our old lives left behind. We would touch the tails of shooting stars, ride through asteroid belts, travel to new galaxies. We can start over, she said, free from everything.

Sam makes me fill in questionnaires. He asks about my childhood. He gives me imaginary scenarios and asks me what I would do, how I would feel. He doesn’t ask about Gracie and I don’t tell him. 

    His pen scratches on paper when I talk. He clicks the top of it, in-out, up-down, and I smile even though I want to launch it in a perfect arc into the bin. I let myself think about zooming into the cosmos, the Earth growing smaller and smaller until it is only a blue marble in one window. 

    ‘You won’t be coming back,’ he says, in his serious doctor voice. ‘We need to be sure that you fully understand that, on every level.’

    I stare at him and wonder how to make him realise that never coming back is all I want. 

    I stand in the doorway on my way out. ’Can I tell you my joke now?’ I say. 

    He swings away from me on his swivel chair and raises his hand in farewell.

The hospital tried to be cheerful. Murals covered the walls and the nurses wore bright colours. Gracie had a favourite doctor, one who spoke to her like she was an adult who could make all her own decisions, even though we knew that wasn’t what was really happening. 

    We lay on bean bags in the sensory room. There was a lamp that projected planets and constellations onto the black ceiling, letting everything spin in a slow, mesmerising loop. Gracie’s eyes sparkled now and then with the light of a passing star.

    ‘Some astronauts wanted to have a New Year’s party on the moon,’ she said.

    I waited. 

    ‘But they didn’t planet in time.’

    I squeezed her hand because laughing was hard with boulders in your throat.

Sam and I watch each other, like suspicious animals. All the tests and all his questions feel like a game where I don’t know the rules. 

    ‘I don’t know what you want me to say,’ I shrug.   

‘It’s my job to assess how you handle stress,’ he says. ‘Make sure you have coping strategies.’

    ‘Want to hear my joke now?’ I say, faux joviality in my voice.

    ‘Humour is important,’ Sam sounds like he is trying to be gracious. ‘But it’s not going to work all the time. And then there is the impact of knowing that you are never coming back.’

    We stare, each waiting for the other to make a misstep.

    ‘How does that feel…knowing that you would never see your family and friends again?’

    I wonder how to tell him that I would feel closer to Gracie, without telling him one thing about her.

    ‘I think you are hiding something,’ he says slowly. ‘Are you running away from your past?’

    ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘You know everything about me.’

    He rubs the skin under his nose. I tap my finger gently on my cheekbone. 

Gracie left me all her space books and her telescope. I went to Space Camp that summer and let Martin Burroughs kiss me, just to see if it lit something that had been extinguished. But there was only anger and fury inside, lying like dry tinder refusing to entertain a spark. There was only Gracie’s voice, her warm skin next to mine, her eyes twinkling as those artificial stars twirled above her. I felt alien in my own world. 

Sam asks to see me one last time. 

    ‘I’m about to write my report,’ he says.

    ‘Crunch time,’ I say and he nods back. 

    Then he slides a rectangle of card across the table to me. I turn it over. It’s Gracie and me, grinning toothy teenage smiles into the camera. I hold the photo like it might disintegrate if I’m not careful.

    ‘Who is she?’ Sam asks.

    And then I tell him everything, how bright she shone and how she made me feel like a star spinning in the same orbit. I tell him the good bits and the hard bits, and I tell him Gracie’s joke, and how she was the bravest person I have ever known because she could joke about time when she had none left.

    He doesn’t write any of it down but his face looks different. 

    That night the stars call to me. I stare at them and they stare back. There is infinite time and distance between us, and I can’t tell how close I will ever get. Gracie knows but she can’t tell me yet.