The man's footsteps echoed through the empty hospital corridors in time with the ticking of a clock. A young nurse greeted him warmly. She told him they were waiting for him.
“Welcome, Mr. Mortimer Onlyman! Mr. González is in the room. I just wanted to tell you that I really admire your work; you’re a true inspiration.”
Far from feeling flattered, Mortimer continued on his way, unperturbed, without stopping to look the woman in the face or pay any attention to her words. As he entered the patient’s room, he discovered a full suite: it had its own bathroom, high-quality furniture, hardwood floors, and a small hallway leading to the bedroom, where the patient was resting. The nurse stayed outside.
“You must be the doctor I’ve order. All right, have a seat over there,” the patient instructed him, pointing to a chair next to the bed.
“It’s a beautiful day, don’t you think? There’s a reason they call Florida ‘The Sunshine State,’” Mortimer remarked, half-sitting and with a forced smile. “This part of Orlando stays around seventy-five Degrees all year round.”
After a faint grunt in response, the patient turned on the TV. Mortimer knew the protocol: it was time to wait. The work had come to do was easy, but even so, it was a task that few could perform better than he could: it consisted of being present during his clients’ deaths. There were quite a few wealthy elderly people who hired his services out of fear of dying alone. He, for his part, didn’t feel good about what he did, nor did it make him feel like a better person: he worked solely for money.
He kept waiting. He never knew how long the agonizing process would take. Sometimes it was weeks; other times, months. Suddenly, Mr. González began to mumble, his eyes wide as saucers. He was pointing at the television.
“They’re going back to the Moon!” he exclaimed when he saw the new rocket, the “Artemis II.” “They’re getting it ready for launch.”
–I understand your interest… I understand that you were a professor of astronomy at Harvard.
“It’s not just that,” he frowned. “It’s just that I was there, on the Moon, alongside Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin.”
Mortimer Onlyman was stunned to hear such nonsense—Had that patient gone senile, or…
“Ha, ha, ha!” the doctor laughed nervously, clapping his hands lightly. “You almost had me buying it. For a moment there, I thought you were serious. It’s been proven that the moon landing was a hoax, a charade designed to intimidate the Russians.”
“What farce? What the hell are you talking about, man?” he shifted in bed. “I’m telling you, I was there—just like my name is Paco. And I can attest that the sky seen from the Moon is more beautiful than anything money can buy. I’ll never forget it. Just as I’ll never forget the sorrow I felt for poor Collins.” You know, we could touch the sublimity of creation with our fingertips, but he couldn’t get off the ship.
“And here I was thinking you spent your youth in Spain, your native country…” the doctor said sarcastically.
“And that’s how it was, in my town, Lanjarón. Look,” he slumped back onto the mattress, “I was born into a poor family. My father worked as a construction laborer in the mornings, and in the afternoons he plowed the fields for a landowner. Meanwhile, my mother took position me, since I was a sickly child. At birth, I was diagnosed with a condition that weakened my bones; I could barely move. I spent my days bedridden. The quacks predicted I wouldn’t live past twenty, so I spent my childhood days as if I were a plant awaiting its death. That’s how I reached adolescence, which coincided with the summer of 1969. On that blessed July 16th, I was glued day and night to the radio, which described the Apollo 11 launch in great detail. And suddenly, just like that, in one of those miracles that sometimes happen, I found myself on the spacecraft itself, as if a magician or an angel had transported me there. And I tell you, while Armstrong and yours truly were figuring out how to plant the American flag on the lunar surface, Buzz and Michael, focused, remained silent.
“I see,” he said coldly. “Have you told anyone else this story?”
–To everyone, but to this day no one has believed me. My wife and children have treated me as if I were crazy. They don’t understand that humanity went from traveling on horseback to conquering the Moon in less than a hundred years. Because that is the role we play in history: conquering unreachable peaks, each one higher than the last. That’s exactly what Neil meant when he said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” And that spirit—so human and so true—was what brought me back home after we completed our mission statement, what allowed me to move freely and get out of bed—Paco, overcome with emotion, burst into tears—. Or are you going to tell me that’s a lie, too? Can’t you see me and touch me, even though I should have died before I turned twenty?
Mortimer couldn't think of a reply when they heard the countdown begin on the TV. The launch of Artemis II was imminent. Both the doctor and the patient felt their nerves get the better of them: one clenched his teeth and dug his feet into the floor; the other fell into a deathly silence.
–…Two… One…–they heard the end of the countdown.
The rocket shot up into the sky, shrouded in a cloud of white smoke. Immediately, the two men saw an orange shadow flash past the bedroom window. They thought their eyes were playing tricks on them when they realized it was the rocket itself. Without a moment’s hesitation, Paco leaped out of bed and ran to the window. Mortimer watched him open-mouthed, as that behavior didn’t fit the old man’s frail condition.
“Ah…” Paco sighed. “Here I go again,” he said, closing his eyes. “I can feel it—I’m going to go up there again… You believe me, don’t you?”
Mortimer nodded in amazement. Just then, Paco González collapsed to the floor. Shaking, the doctor hurried out of the room as best he could. As he closed the door, he bumped into the nurse he had ignored earlier.
“Please, hold me and don’t let go… Don’t let go of me, please,” he begged her, “because for the first time, I feel human.”
