Reach for the Stars

This month, our monologue was written by Guy R Newsham and stars (pun intended!) Clinton Haycraft...enjoy an out-of-this-world experience!

Transcript

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Hello there, and welcome to another episode of Shouting in the Evening. Brought to you by the Schreit International Theatre Company. This month's monologue was written using the prompt word astronaut.

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Headmaster, teachers, graduating students, of course, and their family and friends, thank you for inviting me here today to give the commencement address of this amazing group of young people. Hello to you all. And a special hello to Paul there in the back. Paul is the fellow in the black suit and sunglasses, black tie, black shoes, and black briefcase. Paul's is a simple aesthetic. Paul is a lawyer for Spark Corporation. My employer for four and a half years, whose name and letters the size of the Hollywood signed emblazoned the side of my rocket. Spark.com. If we can deliver to Mars, we can deliver anywhere. I've given hundreds of speeches since I came back to Earth, and Paul has attended every one of them. How bored he must be. I know I'm bored. But oh not this time. This time is truly special because this time I'm returning to where I came from. And my audience is the young people who might be most motivated to follow in my footsteps. So let me assure you that everything you've been told by your parents and your teachers is true. You can achieve anything. You can reach for the stars and get there. And you know that it's literally possible because I am the evidence. I'm not just some blowhard spouting stock phrases. I'm the real deal. I've been there, done that. But there are things you need to know. Oh, and there's Amy over in the corner. Amy was in my class here, and I remember we competed endlessly over who would be asked back first to give a commencement address. Now Amy's a doctor and a civil rights activist. She volunteers for the Red Cross in far off war-torn lands, saving lives and advocating passionately for peace. She is truly a remarkable human being. But she never had a chance of being the first to this podium after I returned to Earth. I wasn't supposed to return. I mean, they said I would in public, a thirty-six month round trip to the red planet. But those of us on the inside knew there were a hundred ways it could go wrong. And a very good chance I would die along the way. Then they might have named this school after me. But I wouldn't be delivering this speech here. Hey, Amy, beat you. This place, this auditorium looks so small. No offense, headmaster. When I was a student here it seemed so big, and the journey to the gym or the science block seemed immense. The five minutes between classes hardly long enough to travel in between. Of course, everywhere looks small now. Compared to the vastness of space, Wimbley Stadium looks small. The Grand Canyon looks small, and I've given speeches at both. But if you want small, try a one-man capsule to Mars. The rocket is immense, of course, the biggest firework ever constructed, but the little capsule it spits forth after all the various booster stages have dropped away, is tiny and packed with stuff. Enough room to swing a cat? If only. Imagine thirty six months in an old mini cooper with a bucket for a toilet. That's the first question kids always ask me. How do you go to the toilet in space where everything floats? Well imagine making love to a high powered vacuum cleaner or being taken from behind by the same appliance. Oh, sorry, headmaster. Must do better. Sorry, Paul. But why send a man at all? We've sent probes and rovers. Why send a human? Because we have an inherent adventurous spirit? Perhaps Because we might want a permanent settlement one day? Maybe. To satisfy some billionaire's narcissistic idea he might go himself in the future and wanted to send someone else first, like a canary in a coal mine? Well, take your pick. I had to sign a lot of nondisclosure agreements before takeoff, eh, Paul? And what possessed me to apply for the job of being the first man to Mars? Truth be told, I applied on a whim. I was at a party, a few single malts in, and a friend showed me this thing on his phone about a billionaire looking for someone to ride his rocket to Mars, and I clicked through. Simple as that. And this was a billionaire, not a government program loaded with bureaucracy, so it was more about if your face fit, if you had a rapport, a chemistry. And it turned out this billionaire enjoyed a single mall, too. I was looking for a career change. Like most pioneering astronauts, I was a fighter pilot, and I was pretty sure sometime soon I'd be ordered to shoot missiles into schools tagged as enemy strongholds, and decided I didn't want to do that. Turns out they didn't need a pilot anyway. That machine was pre-programmed, and if anything went wrong, AI took over. What they wanted was a warm body with a winning smile. Up until my launch, a one-man mission to Mars was considered an absolute no-no by NASA, far too dangerous. No one to share the load. They wanted a crew of four. But along came budget cuts and a billionaire willing to co-fund the trip, but only for a scale-down project. A billionaire less concerned with the astronauts' welfare. My goodness, Paul is looking twitchy. So, it was a one-man mission or no mission at all. You'd think they'd want someone free of emotional ties. But no, they wanted a married man, and I had Debra. They thought a married man was more stable psychologically. What do the married men in the audience think? Show of hands? There is a battery of psychological tests before takeoff, and I passed them all. At least that's what they told me. Hmm, I'm not sure I would pass them now. What with all the Paul, are you married? I thought I'd make Deborah proud of me. And maybe she was at the beginning. But she soon came to resent my absence, and the reporters camped outside her door 24-7. Did you know that radio signals between my capsule and Earth took up to 25 minutes in each direction? Can you imagine fixing a marriage with a one-hour delay? Of course, the good folks at Spark tried to keep a lid on our problems as the shattering of my marriage was hardly good publicity for their brand. And they brought in the best counselor that billions could buy. The counselor would ask, What isn't working for you in the marriage, Charlie? And half an hour later I'd say, I'll let Deborah go first. Sixty minutes would pass until I heard Deborah say, I don't feel listened to. Then I'd say, I don't understand how you can say that. Then another hour and she'd respond, What, Charlie? Your voice was breaking up there. I'd say, I'm sorry, something isn't working. And sixty minutes later the counselor says, I think we should take a break until tomorrow. And then build spark for four hours of their expertise. We never stood a chance, Deborah and I. We were literally further apart than any couple had ever been. And a distance makes a difference. But I hope Deborah's happy now. Wherever she is. We knew there were issues health-wise with being in space for so long, the lack of gravity, the cosmic ray bombardment, severe loss of kidney function, eyesight impairment, blood clots, degradation of muscle mass and bone density. It would have been healthier for me to stay on Earth and take up chain smoking. Oh, sorry, headmaster. Don't smoke, kids. And Spark doesn't sell cigarettes anyway. Sorry, Paul. The doctors designed a whole workout regimen. There was a pulley thing I was supposed to yank on for two hours a day, and a kind of exercise bike. But I just kind of lost interest in my health after the whole thing with Deborah. And the folks on the ground couldn't force me to work out. When I got back to Earth, it took me two months to relearn how to stand up straight. No, instead of exercising, I just stared out of the little window into the void. The blackest black you can imagine. The darkest dark. Some people have asked me if I saw heaven up there. If I saw God. A big man in robes with a white beard. Nah, he's not there. But I did feel something. Something I couldn't see. But I could sense it. I could sense them. A chill in a capsule with perfect climate control. Sounds the onboard system told me weren't there. Not a hum exactly, more like a pure chorone. Or tones, because there was more than one of them sometimes. They were at their loudest at my approach to Mars, as my capsule rounded the red planet on the gravitational slingshot back to Earth. And that slingshot was just a bit more powerful than our physicists could explain. Although you never heard about that in the press releases. Oh, and now it looks like Paul is heading my way with a couple of other guys dressed in black. It appears I've stirred something up, both here in this school and on Mars. You see, those noises came back. Those tones, those voices, even after I returned to Earth. I can hear them now. Can you hear them? They're louder than ever. The Martians are here in this room. They sent me back to tell you they are not happy with Spark Corporation. They are not happy with us. I'm sorry, headmaster. I'm sorry, students. I'm sorry. Jesus, Paul, you don't have to.

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That was Reach for the Stars. Written by Guy R. Newsham and starring Clinton Haycroft. Thanks go to our esteemed technical wizard Ian for sound manipulation and button wrangling. Join us again next month for another Shouting in the Evening monologue. Cheeriously, you know, you're going to