Stranded in Space

- 8 -

But I feel certain that I kicked the spanner. It was lying only a small distance away. The spanner must have been floating within the tiny distance that the body moved to annihilate the reaction caused by the vomit in the small space with in the helmet -- the puke had smashed into the inner side of the helmet.

I feel something bumping lightly on my sides. It's not the spanner. I grope with my hands, but already it's gone. Most likely a screwdriver or a wrench -- one of the tools I laid out at the beginning. The spanner may have scattered them about like a billiard ball. I fling my arms about madly. I only need to catch one of those tools.

It's suffocating within the helmet; there's a feeling of muck filling up the whole helmet. I can see very little, and gastric juice is entering my nose. The circulation tube may be clogged. My eyes are dimmed from tears and gastric juice. I try to open them to find out where I am. The misty surrounding does not seem much different from before.

For a minute, in front of my eyes, I see the screwdriver passing slowly by. I stretch my arms. But I miss it by just a few centimeters. The screwdriver now looks like a gigantic spaceship flying away, leaving me behind. Far away, I can see a vague shape of the door handle. The journey to that handle seems as infinite as an odyssey to the outer planets.