Something Made of Vacuum

“We’ve got your tests back,” the doctor said to Tom, “and you don’t have any of the genetic or blood markers for agoraphobia.”

“So I just freaked out?” Tom said. Helene was sitting at the side of his hospital bed, holding his hand. As a precaution against another freak-out, all of the windows in the room were covered with curtains to shut out any glimpse of the sunny day outside.

“Laymen should not try to use technical terminology,” the doctor said. She smiled, and was pretty enough to give Helene a little twinge of jealousy. “Otherwise, why would you have to pay us? Okay, so here’s what you need to know. You have what’s called ‘cognitive agoraphobia,’ which means you talked yourself into this condition and you can talk yourself out of it again – it’s not a pathology that needs to be treated with medicine. I looked it up, and apparently this has happens to other Moon Men pretty regularly. It’s just that we don’t see you on Earth all that often. Anyway, you actually do know that gravity holds down the air and has for a zillion years. You just have convince yourself of that before you walk out under the open sky again. In the meantime, try to always keep a roof over your head while you’re here. If you have to go outside, get a hat with a brim you can pull down. You can leave the hospital now, and you should be fine.”

“How about the bump where he banged his head on the sidewalk?” Helene asked.

“We checked the scan, and there’s no concussion,” the doctor said. “We’ll give you some pills for your headache, and that will go away too.”

“Thank you,” Tom said.

“Is it okay if I open the windows?” Helene asked, and the doctor nodded.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Tom said. “I get it, I’m okay now. That blue sky just caught me when I had a lot on my mind about other things.” The doctor left, and he got out of bed, walked with as much dignity as he could in a hospital gown to the locker, and retrieved his clothes. Helene opened the curtains to let in the sunlight.

They cleared up remaining details at the front desk, and then Helene led him to the gift shop. The only hats they had were white cowboy hats with “Chicago North Community Hospital” written on them. “You’re kidding me,” Tom said. “You want me to wear that?”

“Either you wear it or I don’t let you outside of this building,” Helene said. “You heard the doctor.”

“It’s for kids!”

“It says one size fits all.”

Tom submitted. They bought the hat, and Tom pulled it down so tightly that the brim obscured his view of the sky. The tight band made his headache worse. They went outside to the parking lot and sought out Helene’s car. “You’re not stable yet,” Helene said. “Hold on to my arm.”

“I weigh too much, and my arms and legs don’t work the way I’m used to,” Tom said. “It’s not agoraphobia or the bump on my head.”

“You still hold on to me.”

“Helene, thanks for taking care of me,” Tom said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Helene said, and sighed, “We are so screwed.”

Tom was better inside the car, with a roof over his head again. The day was nice enough to roll down the windows, but Helene thoughtfully kept the windows up and the air conditioner on, to suggest a barrier against the outside air. He pulled off the cowboy hat with some difficulty. “Where should we go?” he asked.

“Back to my place, I guess,” Helene said. “It doesn’t make sense to put you in a hotel, and I don’t know where else we should go.”

“I should have asked before, do you need to go to work or something?”

“I don’t have a job, remember? Actually, I’m going to ask for my old job back. Since I’m a salesman who gets pretty good orders, they’ll probably take me. But I haven’t done it yet, I needed a couple of days off. I am supposed to see my parents for supper. You might as well meet them.”

They drove through quiet residential streets. In the daylight, the houses were even shabbier than by night, and Tom saw many that were abandoned. “This looks like the neighborhoods in movies,” Tom said. “Movies that are fifty years old or more.”

“Things don’t change much on Earth anymore. All the changes are happening on the planets, because that’s where all the people who make changes have gone.”

“What kind of food do you have at home?” he asked suddenly.

“Nothing much. We were just going to go out to a restaurant.”

“You have stores here with food you can buy, right? Why don’t we get something and I’ll cook it?”

“Oh, god. Don’t tell me you don’t have grocery stores on the Moon.”

“I think they have them in air town, for the locals. Travelers eat in restaurants and Moon Men order food for the whole family from wholesalers. I’ve never actually been in a grocery store, no.”

“You’re just having one new experience after another, aren’t you? Okay, there’s a place up ahead. Come to think of it, wasn’t that your big move with the ladies back home, to cook spiced meatballs for them?”

“You bet. It worked, pretty often. Think it’ll work on you?”

Helene glanced at him while driving. “Listen, lover boy, you have already worked on me. Any more work on my emotions, is just twisting the knife.”

Tom looked down, then said, “I’ll make you and your folks some good food. I know a big twenty-bite meal called A Fleeting Scent Recalls a Fading Memory. Want to try that?”

“Why, that sounds delicious. My parents would love a hot wad of Fading Memory. Does it come with Fleeting Scent sauce?”

“It’s lamb meatballs with ...”

“Don’t tell me. Don’t tell my Mom and Dad, either, they hate it when I take them to weird ethnic restaurants. You understand we’re just going to slap all the food on big plates and eat it in any order, so the meal will be totally incoherent, right?”

“Right. That’s okay, I’m feeling pretty incoherent myself,” Tom said.

Tom had to put his cowboy hat back on before Helene would let him walk into the grocery store. He was astonished by the scents and smells of all the fresh produce and meats, amazed by all the food in cans. “Putting stuff in cans,” he said, “doesn’t that affect the flavor?”

“Of course it does. You don’t have cans?”

“There’s no sense paying the freight to lift steel cans from Earth, and nobody on the Moon packs food that way. We just get everything in plastic bags. But if I ever get back, I should special-order some cans of something. It would be an interesting change of taste, I bet.”

“I wouldn’t plan on that,” Helene said.

“How many people am I cooking for?”

“Just four.”

“Your parents aren’t bringing anybody else? Don’t you have other family members in the area?”

“My brother and sister, and their families. They’re not coming tonight.”

“Older, or younger?”

“Younger,” Helene said. “I’m the oldest. Yeah, they both have families and I’m still single.”

Tom looked at her. “Okay, then,” he said. He had converted quite a bit of his money to currency he could spend on Earth, and wound up touring up and down all the aisles, loading his shopping cart with more food than Helene would ordinarily bring home in a month. When they got back to the parking lot, wearing the cowboy hat again, he was so winded from the experience that she had to load it all into her car herself.

“Home, sweet home,” Helene announced, as she pulled into the parking lot of her building. It was a small apartment building of pale brick, with six units.

Tom looked it over from the car. “The building protects you against the weather?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that’s what it’s for.”

“Solid brick and glass and concrete like that, the weather must be pretty fierce. What do you have in Chicago? Hurricanes, snow storms, tornadoes?”

“No, yes, not usually, and because this is Chicago, in answer to any other question about the weather, yes. Help me carry this stuff inside, please.”

“I don’t want to wear this hat anymore.”

“It’s okay, I’m on the ground floor and we’re parked right next to the door. Keep your eyes down, will you?”

Tom carried bags in, his eyes on the ground, and followed her into her apartment. He looked around at the kitchen while she put the food away. “All of this, set up all the time even when you’re not at home or not cooking,” he said. “I guess it makes sense, it just seems strange.”

“Also a living room, set up even when I’m not living in it,” Helene said. “Which is most of the time, when I’m working. Also a bed, which stays right there even when I’m not sleeping in it. We’ve got a few hours before my folks get here. Want to see the bedroom?”

Tom looked at her, his eyes bleak. “Is that a good idea?” he asked.

She came to him, embraced and kissed him. “It’s going to hurt like hell when you have to go and I have to stay,” she said. “You’ve hurt me pretty bad by following me to Earth, and I’m still kind of mad about it. But do you think it’s going to hurt less if we don’t spend the afternoon making love? We haven’t got any way to make this better, but being together now isn’t going to make it worse.”

“That’s the worst reason for sex I think I’ve ever heard.”

“When we’re in bed, I can get half on top of you and the gravity will pull my body down onto yours,” she murmured. “Press us together. Me and you, skin touching skin.”

“I knew this gravity was good for something,” he said.