{"id":1142,"date":"2015-01-22T11:11:20","date_gmt":"2015-01-22T19:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=1142"},"modified":"2015-05-08T11:14:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T18:14:03","slug":"radio-silent-cosmonaut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/22\/radio-silent-cosmonaut\/","title":{"rendered":"Radio Silent Cosmonaut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Postaday for January 22nd: Fireside Chat<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>What person whom you don\u2019t know very well in real life \u2014 it could be a blogger whose writing you enjoy, a friend you just recently made, etc. \u2014 would you like to have over for a long chat in which they tell you their life story?<\/em><\/p>\n

Laika is dressed in a cheap white dress shirt, no tie, a black jacket, black slacks that have flares and have seen better days. Her shoes are scuffed, and her socks are too light for this outfit. A cigarette dangles from one hand, idly, the ash too long, precarious. She sits in a beaten up canvas director\u2019s chair, slouched into it. On her head a fedora with a white band\u2014 a generous viewer would say the band matcher her socks. She gazes at me, a half-smirk on her face.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m in the other director\u2019s chair, in my tweed and loafers. I\u2019m not stylish; I\u2019m unassuming. My hair\u2019s slicked back, in the style, and my horn-rimmed glasses are frosted so as to not catch the overhead lights. Mark, our camera man, gives me a silent count down- three, two, one go.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello and welcome. With me in the studio today, we have Laika. Hello Laika, it\u2019s good to have you here.\u201d<\/p>\n

She ashes, takes a drag, remains slouched. Her voice is gravelly, low, but undeniably feminine. \u201cThanks man, likewise, likewise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s get right into it, Laika. How old are you.\u201d<\/p>\n

She takes a deep breath. \u201cI\u2019m three, going on four. Of course, I was born back in, like 1989, sooo\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight. If you had been born in 89, you\u2019d be, what,\u201d I do some math in my head. \u201c99, 2009, 2019, you\u2019d be-\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYep, 26, how about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you weren\u2019t actually. Born I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n

She takes another drag, smirk, leans forward to put out her cigarette. \u201cNo, man, I guess I wasn\u2019t. I\u2019m a, what do you call it. A fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right. You\u2019re the daughter I would have had if I\u2019d been, ah, a little less cautious as a teenager.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah man. You know, you got, like, classmates who are grandparents now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHa! Think of that!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThink of that, man.\u201d She pats her pockets for her cigarettes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed. So you\u2019re three, going on four. Why that age?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean, why not 26?\u201d She asks, and peers at me with one eye closed as she lights the cigarette and inhales.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

She shrugs and eases back once more. \u201cYou were, what, 17 when you would have had me? Life\u2019s weird, man. But you know what, things work out. Maybe some of the details would be the same, but more or less, the you you are now is the same you you woulda been.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExcept for those three years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExcept for those three years, man. So here I am. Talking to you. Your daughter Laika.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy Laika, do you think? Isn\u2019t that a Russian name?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I mean, yeah, it was the name of that dog they sent up into space, the Russians. Sad story, really. She was a stray, and they picked her up, you know, and fed her and trained her and all that. Treated her okay, I guess. Had to get her used to smaller and smaller boxes, since they were going to, you know, launch her into space and stuff. But she was a good little thing, took to the training. Smart. One of the scientists, though, I don\u2019t know. Took her home to play with his kids, just the once. Said he wanted to do something nice for her. I guess that\u2019s sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut she died up there, ran out of oxygen, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no,\u201d she shifts around in her chair, switches the cigarette to her other hand. \u201cThat\u2019s what they said, but actually there was a problem during the launch, and her, uh, fan broke. She got overheated, died a few hours into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s,\u201d I take off my glasses for effect, rub my eye. \u201cThat\u2019s very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

She takes a drag. \u201cYeah, pretty sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, anyway. You probably weren\u2019t named after the first animal in space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNah, probably not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother question, Laika\u2014 you\u2019re only three years old. Why am I talking to what appears to be a grown-up?\u201d<\/p>\n

At this she chuckles. Shows her teeth. She\u2019s got one snaggle-tooth, like the father she would have had if she\u2019d ever been born. \u201cYou wanted my life story, man, short as it was. But kids can\u2019t talk, not at that age.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd neither can dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNope, neither can dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n

I turn to the camera. \u201cWell folks, I want to thank you for sitting down with us today.\u201d I turn to the daughter I never had, never, truthfully, ever came close to having. \u201cAnd thank you, Laika.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood night.\u201d Mark counts me down, the fade as the credits come up, until I\u2019m not on the screen anymore.<\/p>\n

I go find a drink somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Postaday for January 22nd: Fireside Chat.\u00a0What person whom you don\u2019t know very well in real life \u2014 it could be a blogger whose writing you enjoy, a friend you just recently made, etc. \u2014 would you like to have over for a long chat in which they tell you their life story? Laika is dressed … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Radio Silent Cosmonaut”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[13,123,122],"class_list":["post-1142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-postaday","tag-fiction-2","tag-interview","tag-laika"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-iq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1143,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions\/1143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}