Bruce Esaw: A Short Story

Bruce Esaw looks around at his family one last time before he sets off.

“I love you!” he says as he kisses his wife on the cheek and picks up his daughter.

“Daddy,” his youngest daughter Marley asks, “When will you be back?”

“No more than six months.” Bruce promises and gives her a big hug.

“We will miss you!” Lisa, his wife shouts as he gets into the car that will take him to Kennedy space center. Bruce blows them kisses and the limousine driver shuts the door. He looks inside the car before settling in the left corner and grabbing a coke from an ice bucket in front of him.

“Good day to you, Sir” The driver says and starts the engine.

“Thanks, good day to you too, man” Bruce replies with a mouthful of chips his wife packer for him. He spreads out along the soft, leather

He rubs his eyes and the door is opened, revealing a woman with blue eyes and blonde hair standing there with her arm outstretched.

“Hey there, I’m Abbie” She says warmly, “I hear we will be seeing a lot of each other over these coming months.”

“It should be a blast,” Bruce says sarcastically but with a smile on his face. He walks towards the towering rocket in front of him, and he can just make out a crowd of people about 2 miles away and pictures his family standing there and waving. He puts on a big, chunky suit that barely fits over his broad shoulders and his big mop of brown hair. He sits down and tries to process how amazing this will be. He’s going to space! He looks at Abbie and she seems to be thinking the same thing.

They are woken from their daze by a voice over the loudspeaker “T-Minus 10 minutes, Astronauts get into position.” The staff doing the final checks get into a car and drive away as fast as possible.

“That’s us” Bruce says and offers a hand to Abbie to help her up. They walk to the colossal rocket and strap themselves in. Bruce looks around at all the controls that he was been training with, and gets everything into