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planets, universes and suns. You see them all blinking back at you. It is
only when you truly go up into space that you really realize how many
worlds are really out there. The brightness of the stars is unimaginable.
They illuminate the blackness of the ocean around you. They're like
torches in a long cave.

I see the space station now as only half the size it was before,
orbiting over China. I see the two revolving rings and a large cylindrical
tunnel, connected by nuclear energy and solid steel. I see the remnants
of windows and wish more than anything to see another face peer out,
towards me, see me drifting farther and farther away. It has been ten
seconds now. I remember that in five more seconds I will lose conscious-
ness. I almost wish for it to relieve me of this suffocation. The pain is
overwhelming. It is like having each body part chopped off, one by one.

I frantically search for someone in the distance, someone on
their way to pull me back inside. My mind dreams up scenarios of rescue
as realistic as Trey pulling me back in with a safety line attached to his
space suit all the way to the comforting hands of a goddess, cradling me
in her golden arms.

It's been fourteen seconds now. Like instinct, my training in
space comes back to me, the dangers and risks, precautions jammed into
my head as I would sit at the bottom of a water simulator. I am about to
lose consciousness. I feel the last remnants of saliva on my tongue start
to boil like a late-night helping of ramen noodles. Then I lose all sense of
feeling in my mouth. Everything starts to go numb. I realize I am losing
my sense of taste now. I am losing control of my body, piece by piece.

This is my last thought before I drift away,before I go into a
very long sleep and disappear, left to only fade away and never glimmer.
~iet libraries. I cling to it. I let all my fingers grasp to it hard. Heel its
comfort wash over me. I let myself bathe in it before the world before
me falls into shadow and I fall into myself, into my dreams.

You are always told that, in your last moments, your entire
life flashes before your eyes. But, for me, I had one memory that 1really
wanted to watch over and over again, smiling. I only had one moment
that truly made me happy. I open up the white door to it, letting my
fingers grasp the bronze door handle and turn it.

One late night when I was in college, pursuing my bachelor's,
I was in the library ofTsinghua University, studying last minute for a

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