38 for Tex for OC asks!
What memory do they revisit the most often?
Oh boy. Well, I think he has two of about equal weight.
The first one is a formative childhood memory. It's 1990, and six-year-old Leon Walker watches in awe as the Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off the pad at Galveston Spaceport like a massive white dragon leaping into the sky. The world is consumed by the unspeakable force of the rocket. It becomes the only thing he can see, hear, feel in his chest like the stirring of his own soul. The big screens show the laughing faces of the shuttle crew, the Terran contingent of the Trident 1 expedition on their way to Jupiter, filled with excitement as they ride the world's most powerful explosion into orbit. In this moment he knows exactly what he wants to be when he grows up. He wants to go.
Flash forward. It's 2007. The war with the invading aliens has been over for one year, and 23-year-old "Tex" Walker is finally home safe on Earth, lying in a field with his childhood sweetheart at midnight, watching the night sky. A shuttle starts its ascent from the spaceport, miles away, just a dot on a trail of light. But the power of it still thrums through the air and the ground, and as Tex looks into the adoring eyes of his beloved, he focuses instead on the reflection of the stars he finds there. In this moment he knows exactly what he's become now that he's grown up. He can no longer stay.
