Lorraine Loiselle Escape Sleep, once her steady companion, has become a fickle eloper leaving her with muscular sighs. She enters the kitchen, starts the dishwasher, thaws out a chocolate cookie, self-prescribed for excising demons, and plugs in the percolator for her 2:00 a.m. cup of decaf. Fitting herself into the captain’s chair, she chews the cookie slowly, returns the room to dark infinity to sense the control panel better: small red and blue lights gleaming. The spaceship is in cruise mode. Gurgling sounds from the percolator, the whoosh and hum from the dishwasher the burble of the fridge and even her calm breaths tell her all systems are working. She is traveling among stars, on course to a distant exoplanet, her coffee cup steady.
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