You can hover in the air if you want, or you can push off of

Host: The space station floated in silent orbit, a silver prayer circling the endless blue marble of Earth below. Outside the small oval window, the curve of the planet glowed — oceans like brushed glass, continents veined with gold where cities pulsed faintly in the night.

Inside, everything hummed quietly — the soft whir of air filters, the gentle vibration of machinery, and the occasional sound of something drifting past in weightless rhythm. In this world, gravity was a memory, and movement had become a kind of choreography.

Jack floated near the window, legs crossed midair, his body turning slowly with the grace of someone who had surrendered to the absence of down. Jeeny drifted a few feet away, holding a pouch of coffee that bulged and shimmered like a tiny brown planet suspended in space.

Her laughter was soft and disbelieving as she read from her digital tablet, her voice echoing lightly in the metallic stillness.

Jeeny: smiling, reading aloud
“Sunita Williams once said, ‘You can hover in the air if you want, or you can push off of something and glide through the air — just like a fish. I also think it is like being a fish, since you can catch food in your mouth easily because it is suspended in the air — just like when you put fish food in a tank — the fish swim up to it, open their mouths, and eat the food.’”

Jack: grinning, spinning gently in place
“Now that’s poetry — astronauts comparing zero gravity to fish feeding. The universe has a sense of humor.”

Jeeny: laughing softly, watching a droplet of coffee drift past her nose
“She’s right, though. Look at us — two floating fish in a metal aquarium, orbiting the world.”

Host: The sunlight poured through the porthole in a slow, steady rotation, gilding their faces, their movements, the floating droplets that looked like tiny, drifting pearls. The Earth below turned silently, every fifteen minutes a new horizon — dawn, day, dusk, night — repeating without pause.

Jack: quietly, his tone more reflective now
“You know what’s strange? Down there, we walk on ground, thinking gravity is what keeps us safe. But up here… you realize it’s motion that holds us. Constant falling — but never landing.”

Jeeny: softly, her gaze fixed on the planet below
“Like faith. You can’t stand still in it; you just keep orbiting, trusting that invisible pull not to let you go.”

Jack: smiling faintly, turning upside down mid-conversation, his voice half amused, half philosophical
“Yeah. Floating — the perfect metaphor for existence. No real up or down, just perspective. You move only when you push off something, only when you dare to.”

Jeeny: watching him rotate slowly, her voice full of quiet wonder
“Sunita said it like a scientist, but it’s a spiritual truth, isn’t it? In zero gravity — just like in life — you can’t force motion. You have to surrender to direction.”

Jack: grinning, drifting near a window, brushing his fingertips along the metal rim to stop himself
“And eat your problems like fish food while you’re at it.”

Jeeny: laughing, shaking her head
“You’d make a terrible astronaut. You’d philosophize yourself into a corner.”

Jack: playfully defensive
“No corners in space, Jeeny. Only circles.”

Host: A floating spoon glimmered between them, slowly spinning. It caught a shaft of sunlight and scattered it into tiny halos of light that danced around the cabin. The air itself seemed alive with small miracles — food pouches, droplets, floating crumbs, a single hair turning gently in the air.

Jeeny: reaching for a drifting coffee bubble and missing, smiling as it bounces away
“Williams compared it to being a fish — I love that. It’s so human, isn’t it? Even up here, surrounded by eternity, we still find our metaphors in small, familiar things.”

Jack: softly, his voice lowering into something like reverence
“Because we’re not trying to escape Earth. We’re trying to understand it — from a distance, where it finally looks whole.”

Jeeny: nodding slowly, eyes distant
“Yes. Maybe that’s what awe really is — seeing the ordinary from a new angle. Even feeding, floating, breathing becomes sacred when gravity lets go.”

Host: The Earth rolled beneath them, Africa glowing gold, the Indian Ocean a sheet of cobalt silk. The sun began to rise again on the horizon, its light spilling over the curve of the world — a thin line of fire separating night from day.

Jack: whispering, almost in awe
“Look at that. Every ninety minutes, a new dawn. Imagine if we lived like that — treating every sunrise as if it were our first.”

Jeeny: softly
“Maybe that’s what being up here teaches — that beauty doesn’t wait. It just keeps happening, whether we notice or not.”

Jack: smiling faintly, turning toward her
“And when we do notice, it expands us — like Gandhi said about sunsets. Awe becomes worship.”

Jeeny: nodding
“Exactly. We float not to escape life, but to remember how small and wondrous it really is.”

Host: The two drifted silently, watching the sunrise unfold beneath them — the thin veil of atmosphere glowing orange, pink, and blue, fragile as breath. For a moment, the space station felt less like a machine and more like a cathedral of light — built not by hands, but by wonder.

Jack: after a long pause, voice low
“You know, Sunita’s fish analogy — it’s funny, but it’s also perfect. Fish don’t fight the water. They just move through it. Maybe that’s what enlightenment looks like in motion.”

Jeeny: smiling softly, her voice like a whisper in the hum of the station
“To live like a fish in faith — never against the current, never afraid to float.”

Host: A small droplet of water drifted between them, catching the light and splitting it into color — a rainbow suspended in nothingness. They both stared at it, wordless.

And in that silence, Sunita Williams’ words took on their deeper orbit:

That to hover is not to be idle, but to belong completely to the moment.
That to drift is to trust what holds you.
And that even in the infinite silence of space, life reminds us — we are not separate from creation, only swimming inside it.

Jeeny: softly, with a smile
“So, Jack — would you trade the Earth for this?”

Jack: after a long pause, watching the planet turn below
“No. But I’d trade my fear for this feeling.”

Jeeny: nodding slowly, eyes reflecting the light of sunrise
“Then maybe that’s what space really gives us — not distance from home, but perspective.”

Host: The Earth spun below them — vast, fragile, luminous — like a blue heartbeat pulsing in the dark. The stars beyond burned silently, infinite and indifferent, but somehow, that indifference felt merciful.

And as they floated there — two human souls suspended between gravity and grace —
the world turned, and time disappeared, leaving only awe, laughter, and the quiet truth of being alive:

We are all fish in the universe’s tank —
feeding on light,
moving through wonder,
and learning, at last, how to float.