t and sat weeping the dark for almost two days. It was only hunger that eventually made her emerge, blinking with reddened eyes, back into her apartment, her mouth stained brown by the bottle of shoe polish she had drunk in a rather pathetic attempt to kill herself.
Stuck under her door was a colorful pamphlet that said, jauntily: ASTRONAUT TRAINING STARTS IN THREE WEEKS! WILL YOU BE THERE? (YES.)
****
Three weeks later she stomped angrily from a transport and, after giving the driver (who would wonder despondently all day what he had done to deserve it) a very rude finger gesture, gazed despondently at the world renowned Astronaut Training Facility and Re-Education Center.
She signed herself in, breaking the pen in the process and needing to ask for another form because the one she was filling out had blobs of ink all over it. She was shown, by a smiling man in a white jumpsuit, to her quarters, which were smallish, austere, but really rather nice.
She threw her duffel bag at the wall, denting it (The wall, not the bag, though a small ceramic kitten she brought to lift her spirits was split in half). She sighed angrily and sat on the bed. Then she stood up and paced the room. Most of the afternoon was spent in some combination of these two activities.
The Angry Astronaut, as she was to become known (rather obviously but there wasn't really a lot of work put into the name as it really sort of presented itself as it was) was, in fact, rather cut out to be an astronaut. She hated this, of course. She scoffed at professors, snarled at trainers, and once savagely bit a vacationer who was on a tour of the facility. This last was because the tourist had said how natural she looked in her space-suit. The fallout was fairly severe but did not, to her even more increased distress, get her removed from the program.
Her outbursts were violent and routine. Other aspiring astronauts took extra serving trays at certain times of the day when they knew she was going to begin howling and throwing food in random directions. She was not allowed pencils, and was forced to take her shaky, nigh unintelligible notes with felt-ti
Stuck under her door was a colorful pamphlet that said, jauntily: ASTRONAUT TRAINING STARTS IN THREE WEEKS! WILL YOU BE THERE? (YES.)
****
Three weeks later she stomped angrily from a transport and, after giving the driver (who would wonder despondently all day what he had done to deserve it) a very rude finger gesture, gazed despondently at the world renowned Astronaut Training Facility and Re-Education Center.
She signed herself in, breaking the pen in the process and needing to ask for another form because the one she was filling out had blobs of ink all over it. She was shown, by a smiling man in a white jumpsuit, to her quarters, which were smallish, austere, but really rather nice.
She threw her duffel bag at the wall, denting it (The wall, not the bag, though a small ceramic kitten she brought to lift her spirits was split in half). She sighed angrily and sat on the bed. Then she stood up and paced the room. Most of the afternoon was spent in some combination of these two activities.
The Angry Astronaut, as she was to become known (rather obviously but there wasn't really a lot of work put into the name as it really sort of presented itself as it was) was, in fact, rather cut out to be an astronaut. She hated this, of course. She scoffed at professors, snarled at trainers, and once savagely bit a vacationer who was on a tour of the facility. This last was because the tourist had said how natural she looked in her space-suit. The fallout was fairly severe but did not, to her even more increased distress, get her removed from the program.
Her outbursts were violent and routine. Other aspiring astronauts took extra serving trays at certain times of the day when they knew she was going to begin howling and throwing food in random directions. She was not allowed pencils, and was forced to take her shaky, nigh unintelligible notes with felt-ti
