Conversation: The First Dog in Space with Her Dog Friend

Russia, 1957

Friend: Hey, big day tomorrow, huh?

Laika: I mean, I guess. Probably gonna dig up a bone, eat, maybe take a nap.

Friend: What about...you know.

Laika: No. What?

Friend: The whole outer space thing.

Laika: What are you talking about?

Friend: They're sending you into space tomorrow. You must know about this. Didn't you spend all week at a training facility?

Laika: Huh. I thought they were taking me to some sort of futuristic state fair. I mean, there were monkeys. Why do they want me to go to space?

Friend: Beats me. I saw it on the news.

Laika: I don't watch the news.

Friend: You should, you're on it.

Laika: So you mean they're putting me on a space shuttle and sending me to the moon or something?

Friend: Not exactly. You'll just be orbiting Earth with no destination.

Laika: So I'm just out there in the middle of nowhere, with nowhere to go.

Friend: Pretty much.

Laika: Well at least I'll be in the capable hands of professionally trained astronauts.

Friend: Actually they're sending you up by yourself.

Laika: What?! That doesn't sound very safe.

Friend: It isn't. That's why they're testing it on you instead of sending up any humans.

Laika: So I'm a canine sacrifice? Fuck that, I'm not going. No way am I gonna be a test subject guinea pig. I'm not risking my life for the sake of someone else's bullshit science experiment. Do you know they don't even let me lick up the leftovers when there's company over?

Friend: That sucks. But I hear you get all the freeze-dried prunes and powdered Tang you want for like, a whole month.

Laika: Sold.

*According to BBC News, Laika the dog, the first living creature sent into space, died a painful death within hours of the launch. Seriously.

In Loving Memory,

Adam