The Space Man

“Mummy, where is my daddy,” he asked, as he had asked every other day.“Uhm,” she stammered, “he travelled.”“But that was what you said yesterday.”“Yes baby, but he travelled to Space,” she told her six-year old son.“Like Neil Armstrong?” he asks excited.“Well, something like that,” she replied, forcing a smile, “and people who go to Space stay there for a really long time.”“Why can’t we call him?” he asked.“In Space,” she explained, “sound can’t be heard.”“Why can’t sound be heard?”“Because that’s how Space is. Now go out and play with your friends,” she said, avoiding any further questions.“My daddy has gone to Space!” he ran out screaming. He was headed to his friend’s next door.As he disappeared, her smile faded to grief. Her son’s father had gone somewhere, but not really Space, although quite similar.He had gone to a dark place, a vacuum, where no sound is heard of him. The place where men go when they walk away, leaving behind their wives, or rather, ex-wives, and their kids with little or no memories of who it was their fathers were.