The first thing I notice about my cryostasis chamber is that it looks like a coffin. Actually, I'm pretty convinced it was modeled after one.
They told us that it would take a year or two to make it to Saturn. I remember that I once joked to my fellow astronauts about wanting to sleep in for a week. So, this is a hundred and four times what I wanted.
The door to the chamber opens up like a coffin's top, and I step inside of it with Dr. Taylor's help. He says he'll go in last. I half think he doesn't want to do it again, and that he'll just end up staying awake for the whole two years. Even though I know that he's done it fifteen times before. I know I'd dread having to do it each time.
I lay down. It's kind of like laying in a water bed, considering the fact that there is, well, water all around me. There's a bag that I've stepped into with a zipper on it (the bag reminds me of a body bag); the thin plastic is the only layer separating me from the water.
It's scary, really. There are so many ways I could die in this thing. The bag could puncture and all the water come into the bag and drown me. The chamber could never open. A comet could hit the ship and suck everything into space.
I lay inside of the damn thing, the bag going over my body, the water cooling down my system so I don't metabolize as quickly and sleep the whole two years. I wonder if I'm ever going to wake up. I did once ask-pray, actually, though I know us scientists aren't supposed to-that I be as ignorant about my death as possible, that I'd be shot and die instantly, or that I would succumb in my sleep.
The water gets colder and colder, and I start seeing colors, like what you see right before you go to sleep. I hope I wake up. And I also hope there's actually something waiting for me on the other side, that I'm not the only one to survive. I wonder if I'd rather die or be the only one alive.
The water is so cold, I'm numb, and I can feel myself falling deeper and deeper into sleep. I see an image of the earth, all nine billion people on it, and I wonder how many of them are getting ready to leave it.
How many of them are wondering, as they go to sleep for the last time, if they're going to ever wake up again? How many of them are just like me?
[Thanks to Interstellar for the inspiration.]
