The Infinite Tides Read Free

not find it now. Instead there was only the ever-present sense of fatigue, the heaviness of his body that he had felt so keenly since returning to Earth’s gravity six weeks ago. Nothing else. And as he lay there the only thought he could muster was a vague confusion as to what he was to do next. It had never been his intention to stay at the house for any significant length of time. The garage was likely filled with whatever she had decided was his. His personal effects, whatever they were. Maybe he could simply leave the sofa and the bed and his dresser and the little television all behind and he could move into a hotel, at least for the next few weeks or months or whatever it turned out to be. The real estate listing could read: “Three-year-old house, comes with leather sofa and mattress. Random other pieces. Stale cereal a bonus! Canned yams! Mystery garage!” The sofa, of all things. That had a sting that could not have been accidental.
    When he opened the front door he thought the blinding light might set off another migraine. Despite the medication, the thin keeningwhine of that condition floated somewhere in the back of his mind. He tried not to think of it, tried to will the moment away, all the while knowing that neither force of will nor ignorance could divert the tide of pain if such a tide was indeed coming to claim him. He briefly pawed at his shirt for his sunglasses before remembering that they were in the rental car, and then stood for a long silent moment, his eyes staring at the blank square of the garage door as the feeling of pain or of panic wobbled and at last faded. There remained a sense of unease in his chest, a feeling that had been present upon waking as if he had been delivered out of some obscure and mysterious and already forgotten dream, the trappings of which still clung to him everywhere in thin silvery strands.
    He wanted more than anything to be back in the microgravity of the ISS, back in that series of interconnected oxygen-filled tubes, but the mission was over and there was nothing he could do about that now. At least they might have simply left him alone to work at his desk in Houston. During the weeks after returning from the mission he had become involved in a variety of projects at the Space Center. But in the end the Astronaut Office could not even allow him that. The only question remaining was when he could return and what he was to do in the meantime.
    Around him, the cul-de-sac appeared much as it had when he had left for the launch, as if it had become frozen upon his departure. Diagonally across the street, a skeleton of two-by-four boards framed the shape of a house, the surrounding lot overgrown with weeds. Next to that ghost, directly across from him, was a home so complete and perfect it might have been an advertisement for the American suburban lifestyle. Slightly farther away, the nether end of the cul-de-sac opened into a completely empty lot mottled with golden grasses and the light green of thistle. Yet more distant, an endless flow of rooftops swung over the low hills and disappeared into the fractal maze of freeways and subdivisions beyond.
    He stumped past his neighbor’s house—apparently empty, thelawn yellowed and dead—and followed the curve of the sidewalk, his body like a lead block being dragged through water. When he reached the edge of the vacant lot he stopped, peering across its thistled expanse to where the land curled out of sight into a drainage ditch and then rose again to meet a cinderblock wall that broke up out of the earth, dividing that vacancy from the backyards and rear walls of houses lining some other cul-de-sac. The walk from his front door to where he now stood was only twenty or thirty yards and it did nothing to lessen his feeling of density and weight. The more pressing problem was the faint high-pitched whine that had resumed deep behind his eyes. He felt at his collar for his sunglasses and once again failed to find them