The Satellite
Have you ever thrown a tennis ball up into the sky? If you have, then you’ll know that it goes up for some time, but it can’t tolerate that high potential energy and continuously tries to transition into low potential energy like a ball happily rolling in the park.
I believe that we humans are much like that ball, when exerted force upon and thrown into chaos, we run back to order and try to stabilize ourselves. And no matter how much we people like to be in comfort, the hard truth is that a tennis ball is made to play throw( and catch), and humans need chaos to find meaning in their existence.
But we are not here to talk about tennis balls, we are here to talk about satellites, the size of a tennis ball is packed up in a spaceship and shot up at a speed greater than eleven kilometers per second into a similar trajectory as a tennis ball. And just like the tennis ball this satellite wants to lose all its energy and wants to be sitting in a park or (say) a laboratory.
So the satellite does the same as a tennis ball and falls, yet there is a problem. It doesn’t hit the ground. It keeps falling down faster than any tennis ball, a speed greater than forty thousand times faster than the speed of the fastest bullet out of a gun. It is lonely there, with low pressure, radiation eating away the material, and the constant danger of hitting debris.
After a few years and thousands of orbits, when the satellite fails no matter the speed. It gives up trying to transition to low energy levels and finds meaning in being suspended in the orbit around earth. It sees the beauty of watching the celestial bodies ticking like clockwork and changing faces of dazzling blue and green earth. It has a wide understanding of thousands of people’s whereabouts, something that is impossible anywhere on the surface of the earth.
Eventually, the satellite started to understand his reason for being up there. He knows that if he looks enough he’ll realize the way back as well (to slow instead of speed”), but he doesn’t wanna know. He understands that though he doesn’t have the same comfort as billions of other equipment, his function is essential to the very working of mankind. The satellite has a mission, a very important mission.
I once asked the satellite “When do you think this mission of yours will be over?”, “I don’t know” he replied, “I am just a satellite, I’ll go back when they call me”
Work of fiction