‘The Twin City Skylight’ is a dark rectangle in an otherwise blue sky. It’s difficult to conceptualize and then it isn’t, really, and a series of instinctual fight-or-flight reactions suddenly vie for control of my body. ‘The Twin City Skylight’ is an open wound, a window into space. It’s windy beneath it and the sound like wind is atmosphere whistling into the vacuum. It blows steadily upward and it feels like falling. I do fall- groundward, thankfully. A bout of nausea washes over me. Hector hops over to paw at the pocket where I keep little bags of salad. He’s oblivious to ‘The Skylight,’ not at all worried by my erratic behavior in what must smell, to him, like a normal field.
My head itches under the rented helmet and thoughts of lice and skin disease and other mundane terrestrial concerns center me. I roll onto my back and try again.
‘Nothing feels quite so dangerous as ‘The Twin City Skylight,’ though it remains among the top five safest destinations recorded in this edition. Had it occurred naturally in the early stages aeronautic development, ‘The Skylight’ may have garnered a Bermuda Triangle-type reputation for the tendency of its uncommon air current to catch unsuspecting pilots off guard. In reality, the area’s quirks are so well documented and pilots in the region are so well-briefed that ‘The Skylight’s’ airspace is safer, by the numbers, than almost anywhere else. No accidents have been reported there since the sky-rending in 1968.
The creation of ‘The Twin City Skylight’ remains something of a mystery. Details regarding the technology involved in maintaining an atmospheric gap are classified and classified alongside is an explanation as to why ‘The Skylight’ was installed in the first place. A common suggestion seems to be that ‘The Skylight’ represents a half-baked idea about venting some of the world’s ‘bad air’ in the same way one might handle a smoking passenger by cracking the car windows.
An equally likely explanation is that Russia was doing it first. ‘The Sochi Skylight’ seems to represent the same technology and appeared on the same timeline as its Minnesotan twin. Interested parties might research ‘The Whistle War,’ which refers to four months in 1971 in which the USA and the USSR would aggressively adjust the sizes of their ‘Skylights’ to create sudden, high-pitched wailing in the middle of the opposition’s night. The fallout is documented in Michelle Lee’s bestselling ‘Mutually Assured Annoyance,’ which can be ordered for $13.99 via the slip at the back of this book.’
I spend an hour in the field- long enough to see at least one other person react to the sight as dramatically as I did. He collapses into his teenage son and Hector startles at the sound of their helmets cracking together. I move as though to offer support without any real intention to help and the son waves me away. He looks up at ‘The Skylight’ and is relatively unfazed.
I lay back on the grass and rest for a while longer and just when I think I’ve wrapped my head around the thing, the moon begins to cross above ‘The Skylight’ and I throw up. I wave the teenage son away and crawl back to the motorcycle. Space is stupid and scary and if the Wayside leaves orbit in my lifetime it will go without me.
-traveler
