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The Space Cadet, by Greg Vander-Haeghen

25/2/2022

 
Since my early formative years, as a daydreaming passenger on 600-mile weekend family road-trips to the Colorado River, I believed in most things that people didn’t: unicorns, Leprechauns, the Loch Ness Monster, telepathic tarantulas and was even convinced that root beer floats were the Ultimate Truth.

But let’s start with my appearance. I am short, rotund with blonde, balding hair. In fact, having a receding hairline, I once proposed marriage to a single hair follicle on Swedish Television.

That earned me a cool million and I parlayed that into a battery of tests. The psychiatrists and psychologists say I have an Emotional Intelligence equivalent to a complex bipolar-amoeba.

Conversely, neurosurgeons say I have an overactive frontal lobe and the central nervous system of a sleep-deprived Nietzsche on multiple energy drinks. My eyesight is 20/20 (I can see 20 M&Ms from 20 feet) and my toenails need trimming.

I seldom like to engage in shallow conversation, am the proud owner of three-percent of the world’s empty PEZ dispensers, dream in color, think in black and white and smell in sepia tones.

I typically obsess on such things as heavy gravity, wild termites, coffee enemas, putrid tomatoes and public speaking. The following speech was written and addressed by me during my officer’s training with the Vannapolis Space Cadet Academy.


To my fellow space cadet graduates, budding space cadet friends and occupants on our own individual planets, which we will be exploring like a hyperactive stick in the mud.

Sound check. Sound check. Is anybody out there, out there, out there? I really mean out there? You in the front row seem to be out there. Any other takers? (Everyone in attendance stands and breaks into a thunderous applause.)

You know, when you get profoundly intellectual about it, everyone is either like their own planet or like a snowflake; that is no two snowflakes are alike. Or planets, for that matter. Which brings us to the catalyst.

This catalyst occurs when Cadets channel the glacial snowflakes that melt inside their planetary minds, as the molten, bubbling logic oozes out of your ears and changes its state to pure oxygen.

That pure oxygen is then inhaled through the nostrils at a three-Liter flow rate, thus priming our contorted minds with a ninety-nine percent oxygen concentration level, laced with the one-percent smell of a cologne called “Irony.”

And with the smell of irony wafting up my nostrils, that—my fellow space cadets—is my commencement speech.


​
Exactly ninety-nine days after I delivered this speech, I had an epiphany, a vision, or was it just a coffee buzz?
Nonetheless, I saw something GRAND, something IMPROBABLE. Something ASTOUNDING.

It involved the entire 133-person Space Cadet class engaging in a variety of seemingly surreal mental exercises, such as “synchronized thinking,” “conceptual hiccupping,” “reverse-upside-down brainstorming” and the “wow-wow-wow experience.”

Of the four-mentioned exercises, the secretive “wow-wow-wow experience” seemed to grab hold of my attention—and now—it might never let go.
Sue Clayton
26/2/2022 03:20:39 am

Snowflakes one and all. I don't normally lean towards sci-fi but this had me intrigued by its quirkiness.

David Milner
26/2/2022 09:55:25 am

He has seen wonders. In a room spinning endless tween the cologne of irony and the coffee buzz. A budding master (of his craft). What did the follicle say? This could turn into a series - Dispatches from...?

Greg Vander-Haeghen
26/2/2022 03:54:22 pm

Dispatches from the Inner-sanctum of the Outskirts of my Balding Mind. You've inspired a TV series. :)

Greg Vander-Haeghen
26/2/2022 04:18:41 pm

Sue,

I'm delighted to learn that you were "intrigued" with my story, along with its quirkiness. Glad you chose to read some sci-fi.

Greg

Greg Vander-Haeghen
28/2/2022 02:54:33 pm

Thank you Sue and David for commenting on my stories. It reassures me that someone is "out there," "out there," "out there." Is anyone else "out there?"

David Milner
28/2/2022 10:16:17 pm

What say a Podcast?

Greg Vander-Haeghen
4/3/2022 06:28:03 pm

Ah, a Podcast, David. How about "Milner's Musings?"

Susan
18/3/2022 04:04:34 pm

Wow! You have an incredibly creative mind. I loved what you wrote. Kudos to you!!!

Greg Vander-Haeghen
21/3/2022 12:46:43 pm

Thank you, Susan.


Comments are closed.

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