Art by Cindy Duhe

Astronaut Down He staggers across the last stretch of yellow brick sky, following in the shadow patterned footsteps of the forbidden dance, out of place and out of rhythm like a needle kissing heat-warped vinyl. Measuring his progress by the piles of dead animals stacked in alphabetical order along the throughway, he resonates with the vibrations of home and packs his head with hummingbird sounds and heroin sunshine, combining to leave him free of charge and full to the bursting. These are the things he's missing: value meals and mood rings, humbucking guitars and ball-bearing fans, a beautiful wife and a meaningful past, baseball bats and circus clowns, but most of all a safe place to land. Startled out of his reverie by the disconcerting sound of a chainsaw rumbling and grumbling where it doesn't belong, he catches a whiff of gravity and splashes down hard in the buzz-cut fields of grain. All mission control can do is watch on cable TV as he slides beneath the boiling horizon, arms waving, legs tangled hopelessly in the chaff, lungs quickly swelling with the home-baked possibilities of Wonder bread and blackberry tarts, his fingers still frantically programming in the final descent. John Whitted Back to the Astrophysicist's Tango Partner Speaks