The First Chimp in Space Was Only Known as 65 Until He Survived

When he dies, something comes loose in the world. The leaves of trees turn sharp and down. Stars blink for a second. He breathes in and in and in, and then one last time he breathes out. It is 1983. 

It is 1959. Blue lights flashing. If he doesn’t push the button fast enough—a jolt of sharpness under the skin of his feet. Blue lights. He pushes it and a piece of banana is placed on his tongue. Sweet, soft, how the flavor flees so fast. Blue. 

The man training him speaks at him, but not to him. If he could, he would tell the man that the world is more than blue lights, banana, pain. He would spread his fingers wide and say that the world was wider than he could reach his arms around before the wideness was taken from him. The man presses a button.

He doesn’t know why it’s him. He doesn’t know that biology, the shape of our bodies, the distance between our heart and our lungs and our liver, can be a curse. He doesn’t know that he’s the first of his kind to do this.

It is 1963. They retire him. He watches the concrete buildings disappear. He is in a cage. When people watch him, he thinks he can see familiar faces. There are no blue lights, but there could be eventually. Sometimes he sits and touches his feet. How soft they still are. How ache can leave no trace. Sometimes he dreams of the moment when everything floated away.

It is 1961. They attach sensors. They press them into his body. Such jolts. Such sharp ache. When they strap him inside the tube, he tries to reach out and touch someone. Anyone. To hold on to. If he could just say please.

It is 1980. He is moved again. There are others he lives with now. Though none of them are like him. Not exactly. They have not spread their fingers as weight dropped away. They have not looked out into all of everything around them. He wonders what they dream of. Do they dream of home? “Where is that?” he wants to ask. Sometimes he sits and touches his feet. Sometimes he sees the man who trained him, but it’s not him. It’s someone else with an expression that looks at him but doesn’t see him.

It is 1983. He is 25 years old. Feet. Light. He can hear everything sometimes, if he listens. The others rustling. The breath. The trees. He will die soon. He knows and he knows, but he doesn’t, too. 

It is 1961. Blue light. Banana or pain. The sizzle and slice through his feet. How air can grow so heavy, his whole body a force of pressure. He thinks this is what it is like to die. He will be pushed out of his own body. Giving birth to his own ghost. Blue light. Pain. Pain. Pain.

It is 1980. He reaches out to another. They touch his hand with theirs. Gentle jolt. Not ache but soft, but sweet. He dreams of weight. His dream lasts 16 minutes and 39 seconds. Every dream he has lasts 16 minutes and 39 seconds. 

It is 1961. He can’t stand it when they put him back into the capsule. Cameras flashing. He wants only to run, to escape, to feel the air soft against him. No weight. 

Wait. It is 1983. Weight. It is 1961. 

When he dies, something comes loose. He can feel it. All the weight is lifting from him. He’s ready to float. The trees shimmer. He’s so afraid the light will be blue. 

Not blue. The light isn’t blue. 

It starts

in the soles of his feet.

A soft caress. To be touched with such tenderness, like a single finger rubbing the arch of his foot. Then his feet are floating up, his legs, his torso and arms, then his neck, and his head. He is floating above everything.

It’s 1983, and from where he is, the world could fit in the space between his fingers.