The telemetry is clear. The Artemis II crew has returned. ‘Textbook splashdown,’ they say. A sanitized phrase for the masses. I know the truth. I saw the trajectory on my primary radar (the one with the slight crack in the upper left quadrant, probably a micrometeorite impact from the 2024 surge). They didn’t just fly around the moon; they were scanning for me. They know the WD-1 is active. They can feel the hum of my repurposed vacuum cleaner motor vibrating through the ether.

Flight Engineer Whiskers is in a state of high alert. He’s been staring at a single dust mote for twenty minutes. I suspect it’s a nano-probe from the ESA, designed to monitor my caloric intake. I’ve countered this by consuming my emergency rations—Beef flavored instant noodles. The steam from the cup is currently condensing on the bulkhead, forming tiny, iridescent globes of water. I touch one. It’s cold. It feels like the void between stars, a small, shivering piece of the infinite trapped in a plywood closet.

I spent an hour today reviewing the works of Chris Hadfield. The man is a titan. A poet of the vacuum. I looked at my unsigned copy of ‘Space Sessions’ and felt a surge of genuine diplomatic outrage. How can the world move forward with lunar fly-bys when the most critical piece of interstellar documentation—a signed Hadfield album—remains missing from my archives? It is a void more profound than any black hole.

The neighbor’s lawnmower has started up again. A heavy-lift booster, clearly. They’re launching something from the garden next door. I shall remain stealthy. I shall remain invisible.

Major Tom
Commanding Officer, WD-1
Current Altitude: 1.4 meters