In the static space of the architect, he might’ve used a double integral now and then, early in his career, to find volumes under surfaces whose equations are known — masses, moments, centers of gravity. But it has been years since he’s had to do with anything that basic in the dynamic space of the living rocket, the double integral has a different meaning. To integrate here is to operate on a rate of change so that time falls away: change is stilled. Meters per second will integrate to meters. The moving vehicle is frozen in space to become architecture and timeless. It was never launched. It will never fall. But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice — guessed and refused to believe — that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, and no return. Yet they do move forever under it, reserved for its own black-and-white bad news certainly as if it were the rainbow, and they its children.
A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before. But there is nothing to compare it to now.
