Flowers barricaded her front door. Neighbors had been leaving them there for weeks now. Baskets of hibiscus, and twine-bundled cones of begonias. Colorful envelopes overflowed from the mailbox. Bills went unpaid, and the phone got disconnected. A myriad of tools had been stolen from a handful of neighborhood garages. This all came after Francine Meriweather had told everyone at an HOA meeting that soon, she would cease to exist.
She’d been sneaking out the sliding glass door in the back and climbing over her fence to avoid being seen by anyone in the condominium complex. If anyone did see, they would probably be insanely impressed that a woman of her age would be capable of that kind of athleticism. She’d been taking care of herself in retirement. Frequent swimming expeditions in Key Biscayne kept her lungs in peak condition, and it wouldn’t be uncommon for her to be seen running at sunrise while simultaneously reading. Ulysses was a favorite of hers, given she was born on Bloomsday. She read and reread Kierkegaard, one of the many men with whom she frequently compared herself, as they both were melancholically born into significant wealth, and despite having both been engaged, never actually marrying.
The end of Francine Meriweather began on a very beautiful day in January of 1992, a few weeks after the Cold War had officially reached its armistice. She’d been waiting for the war to end because she didn’t want to be provocative— it wasn’t in the spirit of any pro-USSR declaration that she’d decided on the name, but more so as an homage to the young woman whose life had been changed by the knowledge that life itself could be brought outside of the very planet which fostered it; A childhood, adolescence, and education in the vacuum of Iowa had inspired a ravenous palette for some great unreachable otherness in her. Had she been born into a more liberal family, they would have likely had her diagnosed with something, but they took Francine for who she was and let her do what she wanted. She digested libraries, and while studying mechanical engineering at The University of Chicago, made great strides in her studies of both Aero and Thermo Dynamics. Then brought to Florida for the obvious work for NASA, she made her permanent home in Coconut Grove around a decade ago when she retired. As much as the palm trees swayed and the ocean was blue, Francine Merriweather was recognized as an irreplaceable icon of her community. Thus, when she announced her cessation, people had automatically assumed the worst: cancer, dementia, blot-clots, diabetes, or colloquially known as ‘The Betes’. They had forgotten about their pillaged bicycles and incomplete toolboxes to grieve for the passing of the neighbor they’d all described to various friends and family members in other parts of the country. And of course, they all would leave her flowers. Her next-door neighbor, Darius, more so than anyone. Not that that made Francine happy— well, that was kind of the problem itself, almost nothing ever made her happy. Not to say that she was generally sad— there were lots of things that interested her, obviously, but the only time she could ever really recall the feeling of true happiness, of ecstasy, was that day they’d first launched a man into space. So it seemed very obvious that towards the end of her life, she wanted to feel what it might be like to be happy for a second time, and so there she stood, after sneaking out of her own home, in the courthouse petitioning for the name change. The papers were signed and filed to be processed the following Monday, but for the time being, she at least felt like she was precisely the person she’d wanted to be. The one who could make herself happy. She walked all the way home and it took a few hours. She was tan and her skin was deeply wrinkled, but still, there was a kind of beauty to the earthiness of her face. Again though, this earthliness was something to which she’d grown deeply indifferent. Yes, there was much beauty here on earth, as she walked down the beaches for the last time, she’d felt the same mild pleasantness she’d felt from pretty much everything else in life. When her parents died, she cried but it didn’t feel that bad; she had assumed they would only be returning from the place in which they had begun, that great inscrutable somewhere wherein she presumed god lived. She was happy for them, actually. She was an only child and had inherited all of her family’s wealth. And she was grateful, yes—but still didn’t feel much of a difference compared to when she was a struggling student. She enjoyed art and engineering so much precisely because it was the only taste of that other thing she’d always wanted. It signified, or maybe referenced, the pool of experience that existed outside her immediate material reality. On the walk home, she briefly thought of her ex-fiance, then stopped, as it was vaguely uncomfortable to consider the asymmetry of their brief engagement. She saw someone who looked like he did back then. Perhaps now, he was dead.
In the small grassy cubicle of her backyard, she wheeled the Vostok II out of her shed. Built from the frames of two Schwinns secretly welded together in the night, the chimera of pink and purple chassis was affixed to the jellyfish-like parachute that dragged behind it. The idea was actually rather primordial, which was one of the reasons she’d trusted it so much— with the right wind lift, it was likely that whatever ascension she’d get would be sufficient. She’d purchased a neptunic immersion suit to offset the possibility of pressure-death, but also didn’t really care that much one way or the other if that’s how things went down. She believed in god and trusted the nature of things. So as the sun reached its apogee, Francine, or Yuri, pushed the Vostok II out into the driveway that connected the blocks of condos that shorelined Coconut Grove. The bay was an endless expanse of bright turquoise. Yachts were like ants, and birds merely flecks of dust. The wind was perfect, blowing up and eastward. She closed the back gate and got a running start onto the bicycle. There was a noticeable bump on the sidewalk that she had estimated would provide the significant boost needed for her to catch a lift. A discovery made thanks to the local skateboarders who frequented the little neighborhood cliff. Terminal pedaling speed was reached by the time she approached the boost— she rang her bell incessantly as she approached to warn the skateboarders to move out of the way. The wind was blowing hard as ever, pushing her from behind as she rang harder and faster until she hit the lip, caught a breeze, and was carried upward, maybe some ten or twelve feet. Below, the houses looked insignificant, with their stucco walls and terra-cotta roofing materials. Red BMWs and Corvettes. She could see the grid made of the grassy back yards of her apartment complex. Their lush suburban geometry, all facile and kempt. What was she doing up there, she asked herself facetiously, in place of the lack of reaction perpetrated by the people who weren’t there ogling at what in her mind might’ve been a spectacular sight. No one had any reaction. The skateboarders barely looked up. Her design was based on old sketches of the Air-Velocipede developed in the late 1870s by un-notable aeronautical engineer Carl Edgar Myers, and his wife, Mary, more commonly known as Carlotta. She’d decided to do this to remember what fun was: the feeling of something different, something manmade, or maybe something natural. For the whole afternoon, she would dawdle above the bay aimlessly, looking down on the world while considering her options. Varied wind speeds carried her further out from the grove. For a second, she thought she saw the man who reminded her of her ex-fiance, but then again, she was probably too far away to see. Once she thought she was in love, but she never had anything to compare it to, so she didn’t know for sure. Maybe a dog would’ve done the trick. The man’s name was Alexander, and he studied poetry. She recalled a line of his verse as she was carried further out to sea, whispered it beneath her breath as if to keep it safe from the wind.
She wouldn’t see, but back at her doorstep, Darius was setting down another bundle of flowers. He’d been leaving them there every day for a while now, expecting to hear something back. He would’ve liked to get to know his neighbor, as he’d always thought she seemed interesting. As he walked back across the street to make himself some asparagus and grits, he thought he heard laughter, but must’ve been mistaken. He looked around the neighborhood and saw that it was empty. Where is all the life here? He thought. Then, while looking out at the bay, he saw someone parasailing, dropping rapidly into what he presumed was their designated landing point. Must be fun, he thought, and then walked into his home to make and eat dinner alone.