The Escape Pod

Wednesdays were always a big day at the Waterfall Ridge Senior Activity Center – especially for Hiram Eckridge. The octogenarian had been a resident in the independent living wing of the facility for more than 10 years, and stayed active by walking two miles a day every day – rain or shine.

And while he eschewed “Bingo Monday,” “Monopoly Tuesday,” “Charades Thursday,” and “Movie Friday,” he lived for “Arts and Crafts Wednesdays.”

The activity center’s bright yellow walls were often adorned with artwork from the residents, ranging from pictures that were little more than colors haphazardly smeared onto construction paper to some excellent charcoal drawings and solid paint-by-numbers renderings.

As for Hiram, well, his efforts were more about details than style. And each Wednesday – for as long as anyone could remember – he spent all 90 of the allotted minutes at the center showing off his blueprints.

The roll of plastic paper he carried under his arm was taken to a table in the far corner of the center, a work area that had become “his” over time with no objections from the other residents. At first, he appeared to be drawing random lines, numbers and circles, but each Wednesday he’d add another wrinkle, in addition to the ones he had toiled over in his free time.

Nowadays, his drawing appeared to be an elaborate maze.

“So, Mr. Eckridge … how’s it coming along?” asked Mazie, the Ridge’s young activity director.

Hiram smiled, carefully spread his blueprint over the table, and then pulled a mechanical pencil from his shirt pocket.

“Mazie my friend, I do believe it’s coming along just fine,” he said. “Just so many formulas involved. Plus, the math is tough … and my mind isn’t as sharp as it once was because my math professor days are long gone. Don’t know why I started doing this, but now I can’t stop.”

Any time someone would ask him what kind of plans he was drawing up, he always gave them the same story: they were instructions on how to design an escape pod.

“Once it’s finished,” he’d say, “I’m gonna hand it over to a friend of mine and she knows some people who’ll use the blueprint to build the escape pod. Think of it kinda like Noah’s Ark, if Noah’s Ark had been a rocket ship. See, this planet is about used up, and once it is, people are gonna need to get off of it – and get off of it fast. Not sure where they’ll go, though … I suppose somebody else will need to figure that out.”

Most of the Waterfall Ridge staff would smile and nod when Hiram talked about his project, not bothering to take any of it seriously. But they didn’t discourage it, either. He was an 86-year-old man with an active imagination, and they had no desire to quell his creativity. In fact, one of the local news stations had done a feel-good piece on him a few months back as part of their “Quite A Character” series.

It was a different story among some of the residents, though. While there were those who ignored him completely and thought of him as a “silly old man,” at least one was intensely interested in his work.

Mira Dudley claimed to be a retired aerospace engineer and was another active senior who spent her Arts and Crafts Wednesdays doing abstract paintings of what Hiram liked to call “alien monsters” – tall, lanky fuchsia-hued creatures with heads shaped somewhat like an anvil. While Hiram would often break from his blueprint to eye her artistry, she would glance over his calculations and ask serious questions.

“Let’s see … ‘Lift (L) = Weight (W)’ … I know that one,” she’d say. “That’s the formula for flight. And Δv = u * ln(m0 / mf) … well, everybody knows that’s the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. You’re on the right track, Hiram.”

As winter segued into spring, Hiram finished his blueprint. And on a mid-April Wednesday, he excitedly called Mira over to look at the final product.

“This is it … I’ve double-checked and triple-checked everything,” he said. “Shoot, I must’ve gone through 50 refills for my pencil. I think I might have figured it out … I feel it in my bones. What do you think?”

Mira carefully looked over the blueprint, occasionally squinting to make sure the numbers she saw were correct.

They were.

“You did it, Hiram,” she said. “This will work. This ship will sail, I guarantee it. Tell you what … Friday night while the others are watching the movie, meet me by the pond near the assisted living wing.”

Hiram carefully rolled up the blueprints and handed them to Mira.

“See you then,” he said. “Hope you can bring along the people who’ll be able to build it. I won’t live to see it done, but at least maybe they can describe it for me.”

A full moon illuminated the clear Friday sky, and Hiram could hear the other seniors laughing at a screening of “The In-Laws” as he walked past the activity center and made his way to the pond.

Mira was waiting and waved him over.

“Hiram,” she said. “I want you to meet some friends of mine.”

Hiram gasped as several figures emerged from the shadows – all of them resembling the “alien monsters” Mira had painted during Arts and Crafts Wednesday.

“We came here a long time ago, Hiram,” she said. “Some of us, like me, were able to adopt a human form to blend in. But while we had the intelligence to build a craft that got us here, we never could reverse engineer it. Our math and your math are sometimes at odds. But you figured it out.”

Hiram was startled by a rhythmic humming sound, and looked to up see a large black craft hovering overhead.

“Is that my escape pod?” Hiram asked.

“It is, indeed. And now we can help you escape – as long as you don’t mind escaping to our solar system.”

Hiram had seen the end of earth’s days coming, and wanted to give people hope. He assumed such a ship would never be constructed during his lifetime, but if he could provide other humans a chance at survival – especially children – he would die a happy man.

“No,” he said. “I don’t want to take somebody else’s spot. I’m an old man and like the third rock from the sun, my time’s almost up. Just please, if you can, get as many people out of here as you …”

Before he could finish his sentence, hundreds of similar craft littered the sky. Mira took his hand.

“There are more than you see here – they’re all across the globe – and there’s room for anyone who wants to go,” she said. “But you made all this possible, Hiram – there’s no way I’d leave you behind.

“And as for being an old man, trust me – you have a whole new life ahead of you.”