He Wants to Leave This World When He Leaves This World

I’d like to be shot into space.

Allow me to clarify: when I shuffle off my mortal coil, I’d like that coil to be shoved into whatever receptacle is handy and then I would like that container sent off into the cosmos.

Likely some of you are wondering: “Say chum, the scuttlebutt about town is that you’re an atheist. Why would you care what happens to your leftover organic matter?”

Well I’d say to that chap that firstly, I’ve always been fascinated with space. For a good part of my youth, I would spend balmy Ontario summer evenings lying on the grass staring up at the sky. Living out in the country afforded some pretty spectacular stellar nights.

Trying to formulate the perspective of being on a ball of compressed earth, hurtling through the same non-stuff that those twinkling stars were, well, it hurt my little brain back then almost as much as it does now. A concept so literally massive, I still try and grasp the notion that there is a gigantic universe out there.

Of course, we’re all fully aware (most of us anyway) that the universe is out there. I’ve just always wanted to have a real perspective on how Earth stands in all this, even just in our own solar system. When dealing with such enormity, the brain kind of fizzes out.

The actual chances of me breaking through the atmosphere while I still have a pulse is pretty small. As I understand it, becoming an astronaut would involve a whole lot of school. And also likely a whole lot of math – ugh.

Besides, should I actually possess “The Right Stuff” (dated reference ahoy!), I’d probably be asleep most of the time. Can you imagine how blissfully comfortable zero gravity would be? I’d never get anything done. Other than the spinning-stuff-around thing astronauts do on TV all the time. I’d be a master spinner.

Now that I’ve established that I won’t be manning any NASA gear, I may as well go for my other options.

Space tourism still isn’t cost effective for the casual space neophyte. An eccentric billionaire I’m not. (And trust me, if I had billions, I’d be koo-koo crazy. But I’d let you come over and order my robot butler around.)

We also aren’t going to be colonizing anything out there anytime soon it seems. I dig all the Mars pics and all, but I likely won’t see any Quonset huts on the red planet in my lifetime.

So my best bet is crammed inside a space urn, ejected like Spock in Wrath of Khan kind-of-style.

Let’s get back to the chap with the question: while I’ll have no real concerns about what happens after I die (I won’t be complaining much I gather) I realize the people I leave behind may want some closure. Funerals are for the living after all.

Spacing my remains would at least give me as close to as I’m ever going to get to experiencing a sense of such vastness that the universe is. So why not?

It beats a hole in the ground and there’s the off chance I’ll get re-constituted by aliens.

Hopefully, aliens with jetpacks. I also would like a jetpack.

Anthony Trombetta is the host of Coaster’s Comedy every other Wednesday at 9 p.m. The next show is Feb. 27. He will also perform at a sketch comedy show Saturday, Feb. 23, at 8 p.m. at the Guild Hall. If you want to contribute to a fund to send Anthony into space much sooner than he planned, contact him at [email protected].

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