The air quickly re-encumbered the plush rodent shaped toy as it let out a long squeal. Abigail Fischer lifted her left foot from the cat toy and proceeded to bounce corner to corner around all of her mid-century furniture. Struggling to get her right leg through the hole of her blue Levi’s. December third, the day that had a red sharpie circle surrounding its place on the calendar for many months now and she had overslept. Today was meant to hold special value to her, she was told by friends and family how great it would be, but for a reason unknown to Abigail it was not. She had overslept today just like she has overslept many days in the past; it was beginning to become a real problem for her. It wasn’t that she had slept through her alarm but rather did not bother burdening herself with setting one the night before.
Regardless of how she felt, the day held importance to the people around her and she had no intention of not doing what was expected of her. She had gotten this far by doing what was expected and wasn’t about to abandon a working tactic. Abigail knew all too well how to stick to game plan and knew how to follow a procedure, being a Comdiv for the USSR air force. Although she dreaded the thought of war, it was only a logical course of action for achieving her real goals, besides, she was too close now to throw in the towel. Abigail’s main goal in life was the same that it was when she was nine, the same that it was when she was fourteen and was the same now at twenty-five; space. Abigail was an adrenaline seeker. She started with her bike, but when that wasn’t enough, she moved to cars, and when that wasn’t enough she took to the skies. The only step up now was to hurtle through the vacuum of space, and December 3rd was the start to it.
Eighteen grueling tests, one day, which would determine whether Abigail was fit to go into space. Her long brown hair strapped back in her beat up green helmet, the same one she wore in the air force. As she entered through the white oval shaped door, Kermin Kerimov, the director of the space program, yelled down to her, “This is the Human centrifuge, it will test your bodies ability to handle large amount of g forces, similar to how it will feel in space. At any time hit the dark red button inside of the chamber to stop the centrifuge from spinning.”
No problem, Abigail thought to herself. “Whenever you're ready!” she yelled back. Truthfully, she was more frightened by Kermin that she was of the test, there was nothing scarier to her that a man whose emotions she couldn’t read. The chamber began to spin, rotating faster and faster. As the speed increased it became almost impossible to hear the man next to you, and Abigail held on for dear life. Everything she hoped to achieve relied on this and the other tests, she would not let herself fail. In the chamber she lost track of time, lost track of her orientation, and her mind became blank. Not sure whether she had been in there for two hours or two minutes, the chamber’s speed became to dwindle, and it slowly came to a stop. The chamber door’s hydraulics sounded, and the door lifted straight up like the butterfly doors of a new McLaren. Abigail hobbled out to an expressionless Kermin studying a monitor of her vitals. “Well how’d I do?” Abigail asks without an answer. A few moments later, Kermin lifts his balding head from his clipboard.
“The next test will be much harder,” Kermin boasts as if it were a good thing.
Abigail continued to pass test after test, some with flying colors and some by the skin of her teeth. Her goal seemed in sight, all that was left was one more test before the final psych evaluation, and she was beyond determined. The final test made her the most anxious; the simulated flight. Many others have made it to this point and fallen short. This wasn’t like the other tests she had just taken as it relied on her knowledge rather than her body. She began to worry as she had not studied as much as she wished she had. She repeated the steps over and over again in her head. “Adjust the absolute zero, set the aperture, and then realign the accretion disk,” wait no. “Set the aperture and then adjust the absolute zero,” she debated back and forth to herself until there was no time left to debate.
“Final test Ms. Fischer,” Kermin said enthusiastically.
She boarded the flight simulator and become to go over the steps, she disengaged the blueshift and became to take off. Lucky the takeoff is mostly manned by people on the ground, it was once she was in space that she was worried about. This flight was an exact simulation of Soyruz 4, the first mission she would go on if accepted. The mission started out rocky with her reaction time to certain events falling behind average. She struggled through the mission and left through the pod bay doors uncertain on how she did.
“That concludes the tests for today Ms. Fischer, your results will be sent to your mail, expect them on Monday.” Kermin muttered.
“Thank you, how do you think I did?” asked Abigail. Kermin’s head did not peak past his clipboard and he continued to write without answering her question.
Abigail went home that night terrified, so focused on her results that she almost hit two mailboxes and an old lady on the way home. Monday could not come soon enough, Abigail was afraid that she would be unable to sleep however, it was the opposite. Abigail did not step a foot out of bed for the next two days. The only thing that would get her up with the door bell ringing once on Sunday, however, it was nothing of importance. She laid in bed until Monday rolled around and finally the doorbell rang. She ran to the door and standing there was her landlord, unable to fully slide the enveloped through the shoute before the door swung wide open. Tearing through the white envelope as if it were air, she unfolded the paper and read the letter.
Dear Abigail Fischer,
My name is Georgi Shonen, I am writing to disclose your results of the USSR Soyruz 4 recruitment test. Your scores on the physical portions of the test were very excellent, your tests for the simulated flight were also superb. However, I regret to inform you will unfortunately not be chosen to a member of the Soyruz 4 crew. Your scores were very good, if not exceptional, but we have had to make that hard decision not to accept your application. After careful consideration with our expert psychiatrist, we have deemed your mental state not suitable for the mission. The psychiatrist believes you may be suffering from crippling depression and should seek help if you wish to be cleared for any future mission.
The letter devastated Abigail as it confirmed her fears and thoughts she has been having for years. What made the matters worse is the letter was from Georgi Shonen, her competition for the open Soyruz 4 slot and probable the man taking her place. She never liked Georgi and his smug face, his blond hair and near unibrow reminded her of a professor that failed her in grade school, and she would never get over this letter. Abigail laid down in her bed, pulled the sheets over her head and, as always, tried not to think about it.