as time and space passed by

             If there was no wall of aluminum silicate glass and the shuttle wasn't moving, the deck on which I stood could have been the large balcony of an estate house.  I leaned against the railing with a dozen or so classmates and watched the scenery go by. We passed Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, really just asteroids caught by its gravity—we could see every individual rock.   Speeding by Uranus and Neptune, they seemed stunted after the real gas giants.

            I thought we were headed to the moon.  The Earth was now a tiny blue dot in the dark expanse; we had passed its dusty grey satellite long ago. 

            We left the solar system and space was hardly empty.  It was filled with bright stars of blue, green, yellow, and red.  Some were young when I saw them, but so far away that they had already died.  And there were asteroids and comets and planets that had yet to be discovered.

            I stepped to my telescope and focused it on Earth’s pinprick of light.  I saw gladiators fighting in the Roman Colosseum, entertaining bloodthirsty crowds.  I watched as laborers stacked bricks to connect fortresses and smaller walls into one Great Wall that slithered through mountains and across the Gobi Desert.  I saw the Sphinx sitting regally, rising from the sands as peasants cultivated the fertile river delta. 

            Shocked, I checked to see if anyone else had seen this.  But my classmates stood idly chatting, gazing out the window as time and space passed by.   I turned back to my telescope and watched the history of humanity and the Earth rewind to nothing.