Silence

They say space is silent, but inside his helmet there was a whole universe of sounds. There was a gentle hiss of oxygen pump, rotation of ventilators, crackling radio. Live support components – heating, water supply, were accompanied by the sound of the live they supported. His steady breath, heartbeat, swallowing, followed by other digestive track noises. If he was really quiet he could hear computer scratching data onto hard drive and calculations of the processor. His father’s watch was ticking away. Every two minutes there was a beep confirming that all systems worked within specified parameters. Every seven minutes 23 seconds there was a ping, from the element that did ‘ping’. He couldn’t figure out what it was for and every 8 minutes or so, he would try to make an educated guess, only to forget about it a minute later. All he could think about was how stupid he had been. There he was, paying the ultimate price – drifting through space to his death. It would be another 51 minutes before the oxygen runs out. More than enough to go over that moment he had unhooked the rope and did a somersault. But what a selfie…