in the distance.
'I think we're out of the woods for now.' I stood and offered Tabitha a hand. I looked around and remembered that we were actually in the woods and laughed at the pun.
'What a day.' She grabbed and kissed me hard. 'That's for marrying me.' She kissed me again. 'That's for getting us back to Earth alive.' She kissed me once more and said, 'That, is just for the hell of it.'
I gazed into her eyes and commented on how beautiful she looked.
'Phew! You're blind.' She shrugged.
I started to respond to her when the world suddenly started spinning. I tried to keep focused on Tabitha's face, but I couldn't. Everything spun around and around as if I was on a merry-go-round moving at fifty miles per hour. Then I lost my balance and fell sideways into the creek. I struggled to keep my head above the water level, but I had no connection to what up or down was. My sense of direction had completely vanished. Tabitha pulled my head above the water and grunted from the painful effort.
'Anson, what's wrong?'
I was able to make it onto all fours with my face slightly above the water. Then I vomited violently. Tabitha didn't move. She made sure my head stayed above the water. Several dry heaves later the nausea subsided somewhat and I was able to get to my feet with Tabitha's help.
'Your inner ear isn't used to the gravity yet,' Tabitha told me. 'That happened to me the first couple of times.' She tried not to laugh. 'Can you stand on your own?'
'Sure I can.' She let go of my shoulders and I fell flat on my face. This time I was able to pull myself from the water without her help. I rested on all fours for a couple of minutes. 'Just give me a minute or two. How long does this take to pass?' I cupped creek water in my hands and splashed it in my face several times.
'It took me a good couple of hours before I felt okay the first time. But some people it never bothers. Motion sickness is weird that way. Take your time. What else have we got to do?'
We sat at the edge of the creek for another ten or fifteen minutes while I regained my equilibrium. I should have realized that I would be affected. I had such a hard time adjusting from gravity to microgravity that it just makes sense that I would have some difficulty with the reverse process as well.
'This is about like getting the drunk spins. Did you ever get so blasted that all you could do is just lie on the bed with one foot hanging off and stare at the ceiling? You know that if you move you'll throw up.'
'I did a few times in undergraduate school and when I was accepted into the astronaut program.' She replied. 'I had an inner ear infection once in high school that made me just as sick. I remember sleeping in the bathroom because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to make it there if need be.'
'Yeah. I had an ear infection like that once. That's exactly how this feels. It is slowly subsiding though.' I shook my head hard a few times hoping to reset my inner ear. The first time I did it I thought I was going to heave again. The second time the spins stopped. I saw stars for a split second and then I was better. 'That is much better,' I told Tabitha.
'What are you doing?' she laughed.
'Trying to reset my inner ear gyroscope system. Friday does it whenever she falls a long distance or gets tumbled. I figured if it works for cats, why not humans?'
Tabitha laughed at me and said, 'I've heard flight surgeons suggest that to folks before, but I've never seen anybody do it.' She laughed again, 'You're weird.'
'Well, it seems to have helped.' I stood up with no help.
I reached to my EMU pockets and realized that I wasn't wearing my EMU.
'Tabitha. We have to go check out the probe.' We helped each other out of the creek bed. I will always remember thinking that we must have been quite the sight, two people wearing white Spandex long underwear, covered with mud, soaking wet, and traipsing practically barefoot through the woods. We basically had no survival tools other than ourselves, a wrecked spacecraft, a few multi-million dollar hand tools that would only fit the million-dollar bolts on that spacecraft, and two highly damaged spacesuits at our disposal.
We made our way through the debris, backtracking the hundred or so meters we had covered while running from the storm. Tabitha picked up a hailstone that must have been the size of a softball. It was beginning to melt in the heat.
'Have you ever seen a hailstone this large?'
'Nope. I've also never seen a tornado that size.'
'Yeah,' she replied. 'It was an F-five I'll bet.'
'Uh huh! How are your ribs?'
'I don't think they're broken. But I guarantee they're bruised badly.'
As we approached the probe I noticed a very very low pitched humming sound. I found my EMU and dug out the engagement ring. I took Tabitha's left hand and put it on her ring finger. I got down on one knee.
'Marry me,' I said.
'Get up idiot. I already said yes.' She pulled me up. 'Besides, we need to figure out where we are.'
The sun poked out from behind the clouds and rays of sunlight filtered through the pine trees. It was good old Sol all right—I could tell by the color. Any fantasies about having warped off to some other planet had been parlayed.
'Earth.' I said.
'What?'
'We're on Earth. That is where we are.' I held up my hands as if to encompass the world.
