Soviet satellite, destroyed upon re-entry, April 14th, 1958

A man and his dog, separated by almost 2 millenia,

Both dead twice;

how does that story go, again?

After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he lived for thirty more

(unrecorded) years.

Or, the Lord killed Lazarus twice, 30 years apart. 

Tell me again how this story goes. Remind me.

Originally, didn't the Soviet scientists say Laika orbited the earth for six days? 

Then, 40 years later, they said she died almost immediately after launch.

The Soviets told two different stories.

Or, they killed her twice, 40 years apart.

Let's tell this story differently. If we keep talking, nobody dies. Nobody can live beyond the bounds

of their story, right? Isn't that what they say? 

If we keep telling this story differently, maybe we can keep them alive for just a little bit longer.

Maybe in some version of this story, nobody dies at all.

Tell me a story about a man and his dog, separated by almost 2000 years.

Tell me about who they were before they died a second time.

Was the made-undead Lazarus the same after (re)rising?

Was he just Theseus’s ship embodied?

If you take a man out his body and then put him back three days later, is he still

the same man?

A week before sending her to her death, Vladimir Yasdovsky took Laika to his house to meet his children.

He said he wanted to do something nice for her. He knew she would die

Alone.

She was left alone in her capsule for three days before takeoff. 

It was, Soviet scientists noted, freezing cold.

In those days before launch, the Soviets gave her a sponge bath and they kissed her nose.

Lazarus was raised from the dead by the lord. He lived another thirty years.

Laika was given new friends and a bath just days before she was killed twice.

There is, in one version of this story, a boy in white, standing alone in a field of wheat, dreaming

Of flying.

He doesn’t talk about second 

or third

or fourth lives.

He doesn't talk about ships, about resurrections, doesn’t talk about dogs
from the streets of Moscow;

The boy in white doesn’t talk about how her name, Laika, translates to “barker;” 

doesn’t talk about how they found her alone
on a frigid autumn day, 

Or how the closing of her capsule was as much a death knell
as the click
of a trigger.

There are some stories we don’t tell each other.
There are some stories where everyone is still alive.