Posts tagged poetry

The Astronaut will not be at work today. He has calling in sick. He has turned off his cell phone, his laptop, his pager, his alarm clock. There is a fat, yellow cat asleep on his couch, raindrops on the window and not even the hint on coffee in the kitchen air. Everybody is in a tizzy. The engineers on the fifteenth floor have stopped working on their particle machine. The anti-gravity room is leaking. And even the freckled kid with glasses, who’s only job is to take out the trash, is nervous; fumbles the bag, spills a banana peel and a paper cup; nobody notices. They are too busy recalculating what this will mean for lost time; how many galaxies are we losing per second; how long before the next rocket can be launched? Somewhere, an electron flies off its energy cloud; a black hole has erupted; a mother finishes setting the table for dinner; a Law and Order marathon is starting; the Astronaut is asleep. He has forgotten to turn off his watch, which ticks like a metal pulse against his wrist; he does not hear it. He dreams of coral reefs and plankton. His fingers find the pillow case’s sailing masts, he turns on his side, opens his eyes once. He thinks that scuba divers much have the most wonderful job in the world. So much water to glide through.

(Source: ted.com)