Descent

Heard a funny joke today.
Modern woman boards a suborbital rocket, the New Shepard.
100K pounds of thrust propel her 50 miles into the sky.
Three times her weight presses down on her.
The engines cut, but she keeps rising.
Another 16 miles, apogee.
Weightlessness.
Descent.

And there, beyond the viewport, the blue-green cradle of the earth unfurls.
Its atmosphere, a thin blue line, a subtle curve, is all that stands between the known and the fathomless dark.
And she, above and solitary, glimpses all for but a moment.
Then she's in front of the cameras, staring at herself while heaven and earth roll by.
She's pushing product, and the product is her.
She's filling the sacred silence with words and words and words.

And when she touches down again, she says how deep the moment was.
She says it was healing.
The media ululate and adulate.
I see her in the streets, the shops, and everywhere.
She's still in front of the cameras, still looking at herself.
She cannot look away.
She fills her days with words and words and words.
She is both the victim and the hero of all her stories.
She is always healing.

Isn't that a funny joke?
I think the punchline was the vessel's name.
Or, if not that, then it's still on its way,
just beyond our apogee.