10 minutes

Shereen Nabil Nagib Ramadan

Egypt - Cairo




I woke up from the noise my son was making; he was jumping in bed to wake me up. I smiled and said "Adam, why are you not in school?"

He told me in a low voice "Because I want to spend more time with you before you go to space!"

I looked towards him weirdly and said "what space?"

"You have just received a fax from your work; they will send you to an exploration mission” He made a sound of an airplane and said "to space!"

I read it and I said “Oh my god, my dream has come true, I will go to space!"

Adam came next to me holding some papers and said "Mom, read what I wrote!"

"I am sorry honey. I am busy, I will read them later."

The next morning I was on the spaceship and the last thing I saw was Adam. He was waving towards me while he was holding his papers.

On space, we began our work to fix a satellite.Then I was sent to explore an old satellite. George, my team mate, was sent with me too and he was joking while we were going to this old abandoned satellite "What if there were aliens, huh? And they eat us."

I said seriously "We don't have time to make jokes George, we are getting close to this awkward satellite."

"It is weird that we don't know whose satellite is that, and when and how did it reach this area."

We got to the satellite and we began to look at every part of it. When George was looking at an awkward red glass part, I heard him screaming "Oh my god Maya!" I tried to reach him but suddenly the wire that was connecting George to our spaceship was cut off and in a minute he vanished. I tried to move to the place where he vanished, but unexpectedly my wire was cut too. The rest of my team mates on the ship were screaming "What is going on there?”

I couldn't answer them from astonishment as I was getting lost in this crazy non-gravity place! However, I began to calm down and shouted to one of my team saying "Alex, mine as well as George’s wire were cut."

Alex said in panic "What? How?"

I said angrily "I don't know how, do something!"

Alex tried to calm me down "Ok, don't panic, tell me where George is?"

“I don't know; he vanished.Is he not communicating with you?"

After a long scary silence Alex said in a melancholic tone "No” He took a deep breath and said "Maya, tell me what do you see right now?"

I said stuttering “The old satellite is on my left and our ship is on my right but both are too far—Iam staggering!"

"Is there anything you can stick to?"

"No, nothing"

"Ok, Listen.You will be staggering like that for a while.Try to catch anything to stay still, we’ll send someone to catch you."

I said quickly "Alex hurry up because my oxygen tank will be dead soon"

After a long time which felt like 10 hours, I saw someone coming slowly towards me. I tried to stretch my hand to reach him, but I was falling into a deep sleep. Alex kept screaming in my ears "Maya stay with me!"

Unfortunately, the astronaut's wire was cut too when he came close to me, but he managed to hold my hands. Alex began saying "What the hell is going on there? Why does the wire cuts off? "

The astronaut replied "There is something strange here Sir, the wire just dissolved!" Suddenly I heard the astronaut screaming and I couldn't feel his hands holding mine anymore. I tried to open my eyes and I found myself alone, moving very fast in circles. I heard Alex talking but I couldn't understand what he was saying, I just heard "...10 minutes..Come on... wake up!"

At that moment I was taking my last breath and began to flashback all my memories. I thought about Adam when he was born, when he had taken his first steps, and his papers—I wish I had read them. Then I remembered Louis, my husband, who was lost with his team in a space expedition at the same place—this old awkward satellite. I wished I had never received that fax. I felt that I was suffocating and so began to breathe very fast. But then I suddenly felt a vibration. I opened my eyes and found Adam jumping on my bed. I was in my house, sleeping on my bed! I hugged him strongly and he said " You felt asleep again mom! Come on! you will be late for work"

"How many hours did I sleep?"

Adam said laughing "Hours?You just slept for 10 minutes after I handed you that fax!"

I hugged him again and tore the fax into pieces. "Adam, where are your papers? I want to read them?"

He smiled and said slyly "you don't have time!"

I smiled back and said "another 10 minutes won't delay me!"

__________________________The End__________________________