Q: Why do people want to be an astronaut?

A: To test the limits of the human body, for one.  To see the world from a new perspective. To fly above the birds and the trees and clouds and the planes and everything we call Earth. To enter the eternal emptiness that is space. To feel closer to God, to feel like God must feel, to feel supreme.

I guess that's what drives most people. For me, it's a little different. You see, I was a lonely child; dad drank and mom wandered. I wasn't one of those kids who  "made friends easily." I wasn't "cute," or "pleasant," or "precocious," or "likable," or "happy," or "good at sports," or "able to escape into the fantasy world of Dungeons and Dragons," or "book smart." I was kinda just weird.

I spent most of my time hanging around the movie theater, reading the posters. Money was hard to come by in those days. Watching a movie was out of the question. But reading the posters, that I could do all day. At least until the assistant manager chased me off with a rolled up newspaper or a hot cup of coffee. But that was rare; he was slow and fat. I could hear his labored breaths from 40 feet away. With the right combination of hiding, ducking, blending into crowds and fleeing, I was able to stare at posters for three or four hours a day.

Most of the posters have faded from my mind, Dim memories of the faces of long dead actors or blue light washing over boats or well-dressed men holding guns, draped in beautiful women. I remember the posters did their job. They entertained. They enticed. But I saw them for what they were: Lies. Fantasies to lure in the squares and get them spending that popcorn money. To some they were the promise of a better world. To me they were false promises in two dimensions. I could look at posters all day and still feel empty inside.

Still, standing around at looking at the posters was better than hiding in the woods or building a fort in the living room out of cases of Old Grandad or trying to find mom. So I kept coming back and I kept looking at the posters. That was my life, day in and day out, winter, summer, spring and fall. I expected it to be like that forever. I'd accepted my lot, made peace with myself. Nothing was ever going to happen to me, and that was okay. This was how it would be, and I could live with it.

Until the day it happened. Until the day I saw the poster that changed my everything. It was a simple poster. Black, with some kind of demonic egg hovering in the center. The egg cracking, leaking some green goo. And beneath the cracked egg, those words, those wonderful words. "In space, no one can hear you scream."

In space, no one can hear you scream.

They were the most beautiful words I had ever read. It was the most beautiful idea I could imagine. A place so large and bleak and empty that your very existence, your very terror, would go unnoticed.

My mind raced.. If no one could hear you scream, then no one could hear you beg. No one could hear you apologize. No one could hear you shout for help. No one could hear you whimper. No one could hear you stumble for basic conversational phrases. And that's when it really hit me.

In space, no one could hear you cry.

From that day, I knew what I had to do. I had to get to space.  I hit the books, did some studying, built some catapults, bought those shoes that made you jump higher. I even had my bones removed and replaced with the bones of a condor. Anything to reduce drag and increase my chances of flight.

I don't have to tell you that everything failed. You've read the press clippings. You've watched the documentaries. You know what I've been through. So here I am, at the end of the line. My last chance to get to space. I'm here to be an astronaut.

The past 35 years have been full of disappointment, shame, broken bones and public humiliation. Through it all I held my head high and went about my business. I never gave up on my dream. But it was a lot of disappointment. More than any one man should have to take.

I look around this room and I see men and women more qualified than me. Men and women with advanced degrees in mathematics and physics and engineering. Men and women with thousands of flight hours under their belt. Men and women who can look a stranger in the eye and have a casual conversation without collapsing into a blubbering mess. Men and women with strong coping skills and no history of mental disorders. But I don't see anyone who wants it more than me. I don't seen anyone who needs it more than me. I don't see anyone who deserves it more than me.

If possible, I'd really like to get to space today. There's 35 years of tears buried in here and I don't think I can hold out much longer.

Q: What is the proper landing angle of an aircraft?

A: Anything below forty-five degrees will get you near the ground. From there a series of small adjustments gets you to right around three degress, a nice angle for your landing. Clean approach. Safe. Comfortable. Conservative. Boring.

Seems to me people have forgotten the awesome majesty of air travel. When I'm in the cockpit I make it a point to remind them.

I make my initial approach at one-hundred-thirty-eight degrees, an angle your average passenger finds terrifying. Most people expect to be looking down, at the ground, at the end of their flight, not up, at the vast expanse of the sky. It rattles them. They question everything. I hold there, for a moment,  so they may contemplate their lives, their choices, the roads not taken, the rings not seized, the lovers they let walk away. When I say "moment," I'm really talking ten, fifteen minutes. Folks make a lot of choices. I want to give them the chance to question all of them. In the middle of this painful reconsideration of their lives, I make a slight adjustment. Ninety degrees, straight down. You would not believe the screams.

I don't think I have to tell you that I'm something of a movie buff. Plane movies in particular: Airport, Airport 1975, Airport '77, The Concorde ... Airport '79, Air Force One, Turbulence.  These films offer a portal to another word, a world behind our own, a world where the Storm Gods wage ragged battle, with metal and lighting and flesh and water and wind and air, against all that is weak and soft and human.

Know this: I have crossed through the portal. I have seen the battles. When The Storm Gods fight the world shakes, the seas boil, the mountains crack; the whipping winds bring razor-sharp raindrops, and the cobblestones clog with blood and brain matter. And there are screams. Screams of the newly wounded, screaming for revenge. Screams of the long wounded, screaming for mercy, Screams of the wicked, screaming for joy. Ten thousand Storm Gods snapping, slashing, cracking, choking, decapitating. Ten thousand Storm Gods screaming, screaming in one voice, screaming  for victory.

It was the most horrible thing I ever heard. You can't even imagine. But it is a Christmas carol compared to the screams in the main cabin when I jack-knife my baby down to ninety degrees. A thousand different voices crying out at once, like something pure has been taken from this world. There is shrieking, sobbing, shouting, tribal chanting, maniacal laughter, soul-clearing bursts of prayer. When I close my eyes I can still hear her, the woman in 27B, clawing at her seat back, screaming "Why? Why? Why? Why is it taking so long? Why won't they let us die?."

Their behavior doesn't shock me. This is who they are. This is who they are when they have nothing left to shield them. I'm shocked they don't act like this all the time. One unexpected descent leads to this? This is all it takes? There exists in the world a madness ready to be unleashed at the slightest provocation. No wonder there's so much violence today. Everyone's on edge. We're traveling on a round, organic bullet that weighs so much that I don't even know how to say how much it weighs; it's a 6 with the 10th power and then 24 more of those exponential guys. It's very heavy. And it's traveling at 67,000 miles an hour. And shit, terrible shit, can happen at any time. Why is anyone ever calm?

Now, I'm not a mad man. I'm not going to kill anyone. I just make them think they're going to die. Once they believe, I mean really believe, I pull out of the plummet and even my baby out at a flat one-eighty. My passengers have earned their reprieve. They've glimpsed the Storm Gods. They know what exists on the other side. They're calmer now, stronger. Now that they've been jostled and soiled, had their faith tested and their appreciation for the miracle of flight restored, I bring them in  for the smoothest landing they will ever have. 99 times out a 100. 98 times. I forgot about Cleveland. But you'll hear more about that at the deposition.

This is the deposition?

How am I doing?