Wednesday, October 13, 2004

SpaceShipOne Pt 2

............................after a particularly unpleasant bout of spacesickness, Sir Rich suggests we lie down. He unfolds the double bed and straps us in. To help us relax he presses play on the craft's sound system. We are instantly soothed by Sting's voice reading passages from Losing My Virginity: the Sir Richard Branson Autobiography. He strokes our hair and tells us we would make beautiful flight attendants. When we are feeling better the pilot announces that we are about to go weightless. Sir Rich is very excited and plays us A Space Oddity by his friend David Bowie. No gravity enables us to dance like never before. Squealing with delight we invite Sir Rich to join us in a Space Shuffle, but he doesn't answer. He seems unusually distant as he floats by the biggest porthole, staring down at Earth. In a voice we have never heard before he tells us that there were many many times in his life where he felt like he was Major Tom, but ironically, not now. Moved beyond belief, we bob up and down in silent reverence as the blue of Planet Earth reflects in the silver of Sir Richard Branson's hair.