There were three children sitting on a log near a stream. One of them looked at the sky and says: “look! Huston has just launched a magnificent spaceship. It’s their fourth try of the year. Space exploration is going to take a big leap again!”
Obviously, delight and unconcealed excitement came into his countenance because the streamlined spacecraft and cascading speed trailed by roaring fire have symbolized his dreams. His dreams to be an astronaut. His dreams to take the pace on exotic land with bizarre landscape. His dreams to not only limit his eyesight with city mechanics or rustic countryside. He wanted to get outside his obscure neighborhood, get outside overly homogenized state areas, get out distorted viewpoints of patriotism. But in his imagination of all the far-flung planets, he loved Jupiter the most, the biggest chuck surrounded with hugely attractive asteroid belt in the solar system. Whirls of dense clouds, no matter earthy yellow or white, create stripes of layers. The clearly dissecting lines involve a sense of mysteriousness. And that mysteriousness is all he wanted to explore.
   That was 1969. Apollo 11 was seen flying direct towards the nearest Moon. White trails followed by the spaceship were enduring reflection in his eyes. Gawked watch with mouth half-open implied his uninhibited awe. Fists firmly attached to the side of the trousers gradually clenched to the fullest degree of strength. Long afterwards, flurries of wind produced from giant stream swept over the three children. Almost stuck to the extent of bending, the other two children faced back the similarly fascinating imagery of spaceship. But the boy stood defensively. His eyes were constantly luminous entity embedded in winds of rolling dust and ashes. Needless to say, he could not just lose the sight of that infinitesimal dot rushing through the azure atmosphere. Every portion of rising moments was going to be recorded by his human camera. Though wind kept adding up in its power, the boy took his face upwards, having his complexion parallel to the track of white trails. Until it became the black dot far in the skyline. Until he was knocked by the wind to unconsciousness.
    Soon, he was sent home by two other children. Instantly shocked by the increasingly plausible condition of their kid at first, parents were petrified to the peak of anxiety. As they came closer to their kid, what could be heard only was swelling vagueness of words: “Jupiter is on the way dream.”
   1984 is the year for the wondering boy, Jason. NASA was recruiting another flow of intelligent engineers and, of course, daring astronauts. Space years of succession have both been a promise and opportunity of dream realization for copious teenagers. The main hall of NASA was occupied with zealous throngs. Jason went great length to get ahead the crowds of registration, despite people in the front shouting and NASA staff complaining. Rendered hastily the application form, he skimmed the tablet, writing down “Jupiter is on the way dream” at the bottom, with every brushstroke forcefully written with commitment, with people in the back reviling in the possibly highest decibel.
   By the next years, Jason had been one of the few luckiest astronauts among aspiring teenagers. Coupled with continuing stimulation from the unfinished dream, he compelled himself to receive huge physical training and numerous knowledge related to the mechanics of spacecraft. After the sight of spacecraft escalating freely both in the broad horizon and in his root of the mind, he promised himself to make every effort possible. Ever after, body was exhausted of any vigor but he still decided to do 100 push-ups in the frosty winter days, when everyone was wrapped in thick blanket surrounded by warmth of burning fireplaces. The other two children were indulged in the self-enjoyment of games and fancy parties while Jason was bent on his study of mechanic engineering of space exploration. Sometimes, the two other children would still deliver dissuasion and even minor reproach. But Jason was unbelievably resolved.
   “What do you guys know? Do you guys even know dream? You are just slackers hidden in shadows and afraid of challenges in the real world.” Jason condemned them in reversed role, jumping rashly to two companions’ comparatively lowly “status”.
On the other side, comparisons consigned him not to self-debasement, but rather a stronger awareness of conviction and differentiation from commonness. Yes, the world he saw could be only extracted from laborious training and a closet of drearily black-and-white book pages. But his cortex has already been colored with broadness of cosmic existence, with imaginarily breathtaking view from the top of Jupiter mountains, with his first human step in touch with the exotic land. To the extent of such self-encouraging thinking, he had already set off another journey to get “willingly” physically afflicted.
Fortunately, the news of getting accepted as an astronaut was not late.
1985 is the year that dream entered into its main path. Jason was promoted as one of the potential astronauts in NASA and received exactly the same training as the official astronauts. Faith inflated and stringency augmented as well. Daily training and huge amount of book knowledge trapped him in almost unbearable exhaustion. From time to time, he was even taken from illuminated desk at the dawn or slanted sunlit playground by his dorm-mates. In sudden retrospection of the two children questioning years ago, sitting together in one log of obscure part of stream: “don’t do fantasizing, Jason!” “All your dream to be an astronaut was pure nonsense!” Finally, he confronted his growing realization of doubts and worries. “Never mind, Jason! Those two guys are just different from me, who possessed no single amount of passion and life-long pursuit. They are people who consider they are normal and hence their self-undervaluing thinking really becomes their realities.” Days passed by with cycles of dawns and dusks. Alternation of days and nights push Jason into the sense of long-remaining loss. He questioned himself over and over: “Is there any real meaning of dream realization? Were parents’ and friends’ remarks truly noteworthy? Should I ever continue the path I deeply convinced?”
Softening sunshine walked down the rusted metal bars on the outside columns of bricks and merely single one beam of sunlight directly crossed into the opposite seat of Jason. It seemed that the shining seat sat a person. It seemed a mystic lore or passionate public speaker, telling: “Jason Winchester, the road you took in the past and would take in the future is one that is realistically defined and truly meaningful. Once you got touch with long-craving planet in the paper material and on the informative Internet, it would all become the feeling privately produced. It would become the human-pioneering feeling unexperienced.”
The second day, NASA officially declared the name-lists of first groups of astronauts going to Jupiter. “……George Gwyneth, Johnathan Lowell and Jason Winchester. That’s all.” Shouts were spread in limited accumulation and the rest were certainly struck by disappointment, corollary and broadening impenitence. But, needless to say, Jason was the one mostly surprised. Gawked watch with mouth half-open implied his uninhibited awe. Fists firmly attached to the side of the trousers gradually clenched to the fullest degree of strength. It was just the same impression that another spacecraft climbing to the unexampled height of sky-dome.
On October 5th, 1985, the dream was just a blink away.
“Com check.”
“Check.” “Check.”
“Check, sir.” Jason walked out to the main launching platform. He met everyone on the board and was ready to enter this giant rocket body. At a pause, he coincidentally stared at this alluring object once again: white-streamlined body, black lines outlining the separate parts of rocket fragments, symbolic icon of the flag of the United States of the America immensely painted on the side-wall and those oncoming white trails welcoming the applause of cheering people. He looked farther away. Serpentine stream lined across small portion of bushy forests. And the log in former times still stayed. He remembered his promise of fulfilling the dream one day. He remembered his awestruck appearance at the ascending symbolism, a manifestation thousands of times washing into mindless dreams.
“Come on. Jason Winchester. The space mission cannot go wrong at a single bit.”
He diverted his eyesight quickly to the waiting colleague astronauts and inner-compartmentalized rooms. He said to himself:
“You should be proud of yourself, Winchester. It’s finally the moment to realize your dream. When on Jupiter, there would be no obstacles anymore.”
“OK. This is from Huston. The ignition would be activated in three minutes. Please check if your supplies have been complete and if you are ready to go.”
……
“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2,1. Ignite!”
Tremendous bumping voice thrusted all the astronauts at the back for an instant. Masses of white smoke produced from a sequence of chemical percussion interspersed through surroundings at a stunning speed. The way to dream has started off its journey. The dangling concern long held was going to be settled by Jason’s unshakable determination, by Huston’s tension in control center, by expectation of people of all races.
……
Darkness only remained after 50 hours. No plausibly audible cheers and space control’s center’s broadcasting of parameters. Wearing massively white space suit equipped with the obliquely-rounded helmet, Jason sat back and watched the merely hovering darkness in a cramped window right above his head. With long-enduring stare along the windowsill, he was re-flooded with billowing imagination. It was right there, a magnificently-shining body covered in inexplicable obscurity that stands out in arrays of cosmic attraction. But what has fallen into his eyelids was only nothingness. Therefore, he silently closed his eyes. Sunlight roaming freely finally came into the dormer of the spaceship, sprinkling bits by bits on his face. In the depth, Jason’s mind was filled with fanciful scenes after being landed on Jupiter. He would jump upright from his chair immediately and dash straightforward to the cumbersome gate. He would twist the spinner with all efforts and impatience.
Then…
Then…
“Emergency! Emergency! There is an asteroid in coming in the direction of north-east. We have to speed up. Jason, pull down the rod now!” Jonathan shouted like a roaring tiger. Qualms sprouted in his fixing gaze towards Jason.
Then everything is going to be perfectly smooth. Yellow-red surface would appear like a long-prepared scroll mural. Chains of mountains arrange in the distance. Storm whirling coupled with unknown dust and ashes passes through the sky and the burning ground. It seems like apocalyptic scenery. But it shows peculiar fascination.
“Jason, what are you doing? You gonna pull down the rod!” Jonathan screamed with growing intensity of apprehension.
Flashing signs indicating “Abort” startled everyone’s eyesight. No other options to choose, everyone was ready to retreat to the reserved compartment, except Jason.
Then I would shout with long-preserved hatred: “I made it! You these two cowards! I made it because I am stronger and braver than you. I made it because I put unimaginable amounts of attempts and endeavors. I made it because you are immersed in the self-debasing sentimentalism!”
The time for Jason to retreat was too late.
Asteroid of the size of a small island came right into the spaceship. Right before, everyone ejected from the main body of the spaceship to the reserved compartment.
All of the sudden, smacking sounds no longer reached Jason’s ears because alluringly satisfactory fantasy took up his every attention. Eventually, he opened his eyes. The gargantuan impetus of the asteroid ripped off the later part of the spaceship. He was dragged by the dramatic motions of the impact to turn backwards.
At once, the whole landscape of universe flooded into his mind. The whole universe.
The turning force has made Jason’s seat to a larger degree.
There it is. The Jupiter in the dream. The looming emblem.
This is not a visual image on the Internet webpage. This is not a Jupiter picture on the clichéd textbook. This is not also the abstract description according to some unknown lore in prestigious institutions.
This is Jupiter! I am on the way to you!
Shining with yellow-red stripes, Jupiter seemed to glare in the distance for Jason. The conspicuous red spot was trying to instigate another storm. Extending his arms, he deeply convinced himself that, with this firm grip, Jupiter would naturally come to his palm. His constant passion in seizing super-reality would come to fruition.
“Look! Jupiter is right before me. And I gonna catch it. I gonna catch it anyway.”
……
Late in the afternoon on October 8th, 1985, the other two children at former times but now two business officers gathered on a bustling street. It could be their first time reunion after many years. But the center of the topic would only be Jason.
“Jason really made it. Incredible! I thought this kind of stuff would only stay for three minutes.”
“Neither can I believe it! Jason was really a model.”
Then, the waiter turned on the television accidentally. And the first piece of news took their eyes:
“Just right in the morning, astronaut Jason Winchester was confirmed dead during the impact of asteroid in the journey to Jupiter. Because astronaut Jason was too late in the retreatment, he was struck by huge force that he floated into the depth space area unknown. The other four astronauts claimed that Jason was even unconscious after the collision and had no reaction upon shouts of advice. In face of astronaut Jason’s death, we feel deeply sorrowful. In fact, Jason is the first person……”