Clues to the Universe – Christina Li
THE LAST TIME I watched a rocket launch, I learned that there is no sound in space. Over the tinny sounds of the TV, it had sounded like someone was ripping a sheet of paper right next to my ear. But I knew that to the people standing there, wearing soundproof earmuffs with their T-shirts and sandals, it was louder than that. I’d tried to think of the loudest things I knew: the washing machines at the laundromat on the corner of the street near my dad’s favorite breakfast place, my neighbor’s lawn mower that growled to life early every Saturday morning, the firecrackers that the kids down the street set off on the Fourth of July, starting a chain of events that led to a crew of wailing fire trucks and a furious army of neighborhood moms, all swarming around one of the kids’ porches. In that order.