« 51. Reasons to Tug and Bite | HomePage | 53. Kidman’s Gift - Prelude »
17 April 2008
52. A Little More than Lift-Off
Eighteen astronauts have died on space missions of one kind or another. Well, 18 that we know about! Another 11 have died as part of training exercises and 70 ground personnel.
In the library I looked at their faces and found it impossible to think that any one of them could be haunting me. It’s curious to me that most of them have died either trying to leave this planet or trying to get back to it. seven on space shuttle Challenger in 1986 when they had just left the ground, and another 7 on space shuttle Columbia in 2003, just minutes before landing. Three Russian cosmonauts from Soyuz 11 died of asphyxiation during re-entry. How many have actually died in space? None.
There have been, I’ve found out, countless rumours over the years of other Russian cosmonauts who died on space mission under the Communist regime, but the incidents were never publicised – hushed-up, in fact, as America and Russia competed for the kudos of gaining particular milestones in space exploration. Could that be the clue I’m looking for to discover my astronaut’s identity?
If so, how can I possibly find such things out where other researchers have failed? Especially tied to this house and with only a slow internet connection to navigate my way around the world and beyond? All I have, it seems, is this house and a very basic library focused more on Barbara Taylor Bradford and Wilbur Smith!
If that’s the way it is, then the house will have to be my own rocket, and the journey I take will have my suite of rooms as my cock-pit, the phantom apparitions as my guide and my own burning desire to understand as my fuel. Yet, if the truth be told, my own death during take-off or re-entry is strongly anticipated!
I keep returning to thoughts of the files in the cellar of Mordan House. Somewhere in there is the secret of space adventurer number 19 – the 19th astronaut to die in space, and the one who’s haunting me. if it hasn’t already been stolen.
I feel self-belief in my investigations rise up and for a minute I’m certain that I will solve the mystery. Then I feel nothing but emptiness and misery and hurt. Then certainty comes back even stronger. It’s like mapping the night-sky by daylight!
I’m going forwards. I’m taking systematic, logical steps. Maybe that’s all I can do. In trying to understand, I have just a little more than lift-off.
It’s as I leave the library to return home to Kidman’s gift, that I nod and smile over at Mrs Ormsley. It’s then that I take a glance at the public noticeboard. It’s then that I notice a flyer from a local psychic named Susan. And it’s then that I write her name down and leave the library, my head spinning with a new way forward.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
19:05 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal