Bridge To The Moon: The Journey Begins

(In which the old man, as a young man, leaves the planet.)

Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad: I won some money in the lottery and decided to go on the train to see the Moon.

Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter: Can I call you 6 times Great-granddad for short?

Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad: Definitely not, Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter. I’ve not been your great-granddad even once, let alone six times! In fact, your great-granddad, (or one of them at least), is my great-great-great-grandson, (I think).

Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter: You can call me… (author’s note: at this point the great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter said her name, which I have left out, so that whomsoever might read this, can imagine her howsoever they like, and not juxtapose an identity on her based on her name, other than that she is a she. Of course if any reader wants to imagine her differently, there’s nothing this author can do about that - apart from ask that you imagine her respectfully.)

Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad: Sorry, Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, I call all my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, Great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson, or Great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchild, for cases where I’m unsure or where I might cause offence, otherwise I couldn’t possibly remember everyone’s names after so many generations of descendants. It’s hard enough to remember how many greats to say - I certainly wouldn’t want to get that confused! Nothing personal you understand, Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter.

Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter: Sure, nothing personal Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad.

Author: And that was how Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad got his nickname “Nothing Personal Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad”, which all his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren eventually started calling him for short, much to Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad’s annoyance. (Of course other relatives called him “Nothing Personal”, followed by their actual relationship to him - also much to his annoyance, especially when his ancestors started doing it.)

Great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad: Very early one morning, I caught the train at Central Station, from which it travelled to the point where the Moon bridge was due shortly to touch down on Earth. The bridge was officially called Lastrange Bridge, I think, (after some scientist or mathematician or astronomer or something, that nobody had ever heard of, but was very important apparently), but everyone just called it the Moon bridge.

The train got to the place where it was to go onto the start of the Moon bridge. Looking up, I could see the end of that huge megastructure at a great height, with nothing but air below it, gradually coming towards us all on the train. After a few minutes I saw the end of the bridge gingerly land in place on Earth, and stay still there while the train moved onto it. Of course the start of the bridge was sloping up from the ground at only a very gentle gradient - otherwise the train couldn’t possibly get onboard it - then it fairly quickly turned upwards. It was amazing to see that bridge climbing up into the sky, getting skinnier and skinnier until you couldn’t see it anymore, with the Moon visible a very long way above, but very pale in the daylight.

The train, which was probably about a kilometre long and a few storeys high, came to a stop on the bridge, and a great number of clamps clicked into place around it. Then the end of the bridge lifted away from the surface of the Earth, and started rising into the sky with our train onboard - still at a very gentle angle - until we were high in the stratosphere. Then the train started moving along the bridge up to the Moon. The track actually moved along the bridge while the train stood still on the track, rather than the train moving along the track, otherwise they would have had to unclamp the train, and it would have fallen back down to Earth - which might have been just a tad uncomfortable. (It also cut down immensely on the amount of resources used to construct the bridge, as they didn’t have to build a track all the way across the incredibly long length of it.)

The seats swivelled so that passengers were always sitting up straight, (unless they adjusted the seat so they could lie back), while the train was climbing more or less vertically from the Earth. This meant passengers were actually looking at what had been the floor of the train, (but was now more like one of the walls), rather than towards the front of the train, if they were looking straight ahead, (but I imagine most were looking out the window, or engaged with entertainment of some kind).

I believe the train then gradually accelerated until it was travelling at a very great speed, and before long it was dark outside - not because it was nighttime, but because we were virtually out of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Next time:

Chapter Two The Awesomeness of Space

(or read the whole story here: https://vocal.media/fiction/bridge-to-the-moon)