Caught

Instinctively, Johdi stops breathing.

Around her unfolds the universe, infinite and dark, an ocean of inky black. She tightens her hold on the rail running around the space station and stares, but it's impossible to take it all in. The Earth is below her—not that that means much in space. She can see an expanse of swirling white over serene blue and lively green past her dangling feet. She catches sight of her home country—all of it—from there. It's beyond words. The vastness of the world hits her with full force as she's clutching this miniscule hunk of metal suspended in the nothingness, caught between it and the universe. The silence of space stretches out before her, never-ending.

She sucks in a stuttering breath, and the locker room smell of her space suit brings her back to herself. It reminds her that she's tethered and safe, and for all the enormity out there, she has a tiny world of her own aboard this space station.

"Johdi?" her teammate's voice crackles into her ear.

"Shh, give her a moment," says the captain, and like that, she's back.

"Sorry Cap. On it now." She drags herself slowly, painstakingly across the side of the station using only her own arm strength. A tiny figure against the hulking metal side, she makes her way through the emptiness. She reaches the robot arm they use for docking the supply shuttles and begins maintenance, her teammate's fuzzy voices delivering instructions into her ear. Even so, it's almost silent as Johdi works, and she catches herself more than once gazing into the darkness of space, balancing on just her fingertips. Her legs hang limp, dangling over everything she's ever known - the Earth in its entirety. Once more she feels caught, trapped between the vastness of space  and the smallness of her own existence. Her breath hitches, but she continues working.

Eventually, the silence that seemed so oppressive eases into something serene, almost meditative as she works methodically in the enormity of outer space. When she finally drags herself back to the hatch, she's tired. Not just any tired, but a bone-deep exhausted, the type of tired you get after working hard for what feels like an eternity. But she's satisfied, Johdi realizes, halfway through the procedure of opening the hatch. She holds Earth in her gaze once more, and somewhere in her gut she knows no experience will ever compare to her first spacewalk.