Mockingbird and Christmas Oxygen

Tami, you cannot believe how sorry I am. I cannot make Christmas morning or night. I would have loved to see my little man tear into his gifts. Yet another mistake in a long life of mistakes. My last, to be sure.

Here I am. 

Hiss,

I only wish you could see the Crab Nebulae as I do right now.  The colors are so awesome as to be unworldly. 

Or, even the common Orions Belt, with Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka on full display minus any man-made light or air pollution.

Hiss,

Funny, right now ‘Mockingbird’ is running through my mind. 

You know?  The Carly Simon and James Taylor version from a century or so ago?  Well, maybe you don’t.

Hiss,

Twezzle it, turn it up, let it run over and around you.

With Carly’s sweet voice running out in front of him, Sweet Baby, bringing it home.

“Everybody, have you heard?

He’s gonna buy me a Mockingbird.

And if that mockingbird don’t sing.

He’s gonna buy me a diamond ring!”

Another hiss,

“And if that diamond ring won’t shine…….”

Why am I using what is left of my oxygen singing?  Well, my CO2 scrubber has been saturated for the last 20 minutes, and my battery is down to ten minutes.  I screwed up by not securing myself to the transporter and it left me here, engines punching out to the stars.

So, I will freeze to a minus 400 way sooner than my Oxygen runs out.

What is left for me, anyway?

I must say, this is the smoothest ride I have ever had.

Yes, I started life on Terra 2, but quickly showed the world I had little to offer anyone.

I never hit 24 on any test.

I was never ever a Pilot from here to THERE!

I could never show anyone how to fix a micrometeorite hole, if my life depended on it, and yours.

I was just a waste to all.

So, my beginning; my mother rarely showed love, and my father was too busy shuttling titanium from Regis 12 to the Still Station.  All they both knew was survival and work.

Me, I was just a complication, a dent in the life they had planned.  A missed opportunity for birth control, because they were in a hurry.

I was borne in zero gravity because my father decided to take a shortcut and not worry about the guidian piles the shuttles needed to make it from one port to the other.

But, I met you, Tami and my world changed.

I instinctively knew you were my shortcut to happiness, never a thought about anything else.

So, here I am, and I will be looking at the beauties of the Cosmos this Christmas, and wishing one of these stars were you and me, forever.

I so hope this recording makes it to you.

“He’s gonna buy me a Mockingbird.

And if that mockingbird don’t sing.

He’s gonna buy me a diamond ring!”