Space sickness

The man lifted the hem of his left pant leg a few inches up and scratched his ankle right above the bunched up top of his plain white sock. I was sitting so close I could see the goosebumps on the skin of his hairy ankle; I watched his nails leave the deep white tracks behind them; I observed that the color of the skin at the tips of his fingers flattened by the nails was pinkish-brown. I wished I were in space again: nothing could disturb me there so much. Sitting on the floor of this tiny windowless room, behind this man with stubby fingers and a meaty ankle, I wanted to cry out with my longing for space. "The ultimate cure for space disease," the doctor was saying into her microphone, "is relaxation. Finding as much space within one's own self as there is out there." She made a vague gesture towards the low hanging ceiling of the basement cubicle. I felt tears running down my cheeks. I did not want to be cured. I wanted to be in space again.