By Aaron Tan (19A01B)
Like a tuna in a tin can, the man rattles in his metallic prison. We see nothing but his tortured face, stifled by shadow, all at once a blur and a clatter, the force of nearly four Gs pressing skin into bone—we hear nothing but the oppressive jangle of loose parts, the monstrous roar of the rocket engine, the altimeter’s tick-tick-tick, counting up thirty, a hundred, two hundred thousand feet. Up, up he soars, past the clouds (his breath is laboured), piercing the stratosphere (the rattling persists) to the edge of light and darkness, clawing at the gates of the final frontier.
