Overflight

"David?" she said in a quiet voice.

I was standing in the middle of the street watching the sky. She was in our driveway making for the door.

"Yes?"

"I don't have a key."

We had just returned from walking the dog who had been cooped up alone all day, and it was time for his treat and time for us to kick up our heels, and there I was in the street looking at the sky, the only one with a set of keys.

A few minutes earlier we had noticed a bright star moving across the sky in a steady arc, southwest to northeast, and we both recognized it as the space station, and the street offered the best vantage point.

Our Saturday morning plan had been to get up at 5:38am and watch it as it passed overhead, but Friday night's tea had kept me up all night and so by the time morning came I was quite attached to my bed.

So we missed it Saturday. But here we were on Sunday in the right place at just the right time when out of the southwest the station found us.

I stood there and watched it pass over our Monterey Oak, and then it flew between the next door Cedar Elm and Chinquapin Oak trees. It sped along until the bright light that had flown almost overhead was no more than a dim pinprick that finally disappeared -- somewhere, I figure, over St. Louis.

And I walked back to the house to open the door.

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