An astronaut’s worst nightmare is getting detached during an extravehicle activity. Nothing for miles around but dead machinery and the illimitable reaches of space and time.
At the Waterside Inn, an economy motel where the pictures on the wall jitter whenever a truck drives by, Daniel sat staring deep into the void, reminding himself of his place in the cosmos. The place looked as if its caretaker had been AWOL for some time.
Sacrificed his family life on the altar of career advancement. Years of arduous training, one ill-fated expedition; then boom, he was fired. A swarm of ghosts gyred around him, a vast nebular cloud of celestial beings and well-meaning friends.
He climbed into his suit and sat ramrod straight in the blaze of TV lights—a feature-length documentary about the history of space flight. The man in the next room was snoring heavily.
Sources: New Oxford American Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary, Macquarie Dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary