Moon-dust stained Velcro

She dreamt of falling trees that night, and in the morning, she rushed to see him, hair flung behind her, soaring over her ears. She passed houses that were fresh, yet pale, set against a demanding blue sky. All the houses were vacant, some only half-built, yet to be fully germinated. Every time she went outside, she would look up, hoping that the sky wasn’t too clear, and then she would stare into the clouds as if they were the eyes of her long-lost lover. Most days she sat inside with the curtains drawn, the sparkling sunlight being too much for her when it glared through. She could sometimes see shadows of people through the tiny cracks at the edges of the windows that the curtains did not quite cover. This disturbed her a little. Sometimes she wondered that if she crept outside again, the sky wouldn’t be there anymore, and whatever would she look at then?

Sometimes though, she’d actually look where she was going, so she wouldn’t trip up, she supposed. It was those times that she noticed chestnuts and acorns, and would crush them noisily beneath her feet. It sounded like the pop of crunched snails if she stepped on them hard enough. She suddenly threw herself to the ground wondering how many she could fracture with her shoulder blades, while she let the spacious creamy sky smother her eyes.

It occurred to her that she had intended to see someone in particular, so she leapt up, and walked on further. The smell of tar was at once overwhelming, and she noticed the pink mallow flowers blooming. A few steps more, she sent a glob of tasteless chewing gum smeared with saliva on its way towards the pavement, and saw an abandoned cracked mirror, glimmering in the sun, reflecting bitumen and crumbling grey stones. It reminded her somehow of rockets, and how when she last saw him, he told her about lunar orbit rendezvous. She had cherished those tales of spaceships meeting, painstakingly described in intricate detail, and she always thought she could see the contrails of breath emerge when he spoke. She thought of herself as fuel and he as a spaceship. It was that kind of relationship.

She took a look at him; intrepid hair and screaming eyes, quite neat; she would peer at his tattooed ears all day if he’d let her. She sat on his floor, cross-legged, curious, while he got out his photographs, a whole box full of people in space attire, with astronauts’ signatures strewn across them. She wondered if what they wore had ever actually looked futuristic, also wondered about the people. She knew most would have aged severely or would be dead by now, since the paper looked almost as if it was about to disintegrate. She knew he’d spent a lot of money on the photographs, searching online auction sites, bidding for them while she was sleeping. He showed her his most recently acquired photograph, a man that didn’t look real at all, in black and white. She felt like the image was looking at her and stared intently back at it, noticing the shadows that had formed on the astronaut’s face.

He offered to make dinner, but she wasn’t too keen. Every time he’d make dinner, it was always space food. Rehydrated macaroni cheese and thermostabilized butterscotch pudding. There was never any bread in his house, and at first she thought that he might be wheat intolerant. He told her that breadcrumbs could be hazardous when inhaled, and that bread goes stale so quickly in space. She didn’t remind him that he didn’t actually live in space, although it was on the tip of her tongue, and phoned the Chinese takeaway to order dinner instead.

As they slurped up soy sauce, she asked him why he didn’t just become an astronaut, since she was bored of his obsession. He finally admitted to claustrophobia, that being in a shuttle wouldn’t work for him, despite everything. He dreamt not so much of large planets, but of tight tunnels, and that disturbed him immensely. He told her that she should become an astronaut instead. She responded by telling him of her fear that in the final moments all she would see would be soil, as if she were a daffodil bulb. She wouldn’t be able to smell the soil and it was that lack of being able to that worried her. They both fell silent.

She closed her eyes more than most people, and even her blinking was somehow more deep, but she listened intently as he told her that what he wanted most in the world was moon-dust stained Velcro. She wanted him to want her more than that. He told her that his chest was cold, although it was glazed with a tight black jumper, and she remembered when they had lied down on the cold floor at the national space centre, next to the exhibits of moon rock. Her heart was beating so fast, but then he spoilt the moment by telling her that he thought one of the astronauts on the wall was quite fetching. She presumed he found the astronaut more appealing than her, so she jumped up, upset, and left him lying there on the floor. She imagined herself disappearing completely and ending up on a different planet, where he wouldn’t be.

Eventually, she found out where to buy moon-dust stained Velcro, and spent a lot of money on buying him some. She presented it to him while dressed in a tight silver dress and pretended she was from another planet. He appreciated her endeavours, and thought that if he was a spaceship, then he wouldn’t be able survive without her as fuel. They sipped from shiny pouches of orange drink, and at the same time happened to look into each other’s tired yet bemused eyes, searching for a glimpse of another galaxy. It was then that they realised they had managed the rendezvous.