In 1998, back when the “I” in IFF stood for “International” and not “Interstellar,” a single small rose was sent into space. You know that it was enshrined in the high-tech Astroculture box, perfectly calibrated and optimized for nutrients and germination. But you always imagined it spinning in a glass cloche, shedding a petal to mourn each extraterrestrial mile it travelled from its flowerbed.

If you had sent that rose to Mars, and if it were able to write letters and sketch out exclamation marks of its own—perhaps by carefully wrapping its stem around a small quill made from a pine needle—those letters would have to travel at most 378 million kilometres to reach you. Each would take between four and twenty-two minutes to reach the other’s eyes; not that long when, for instance, you stand in line to receive a hot cup of tea, but an eternity when attempting to lessen the weight of waiting.

You would be impatient for the first letter, and when it came, it would be confusing and vague, necessitating a follow-up as you write back asking for clarification. The reply would reassure you and things would be fine for a while as you both rotated around the sun, and breathed and slept and dreamed about each other in parallel. Then the letters would stop coming and an ancient wellspring of anxiety would roil inside you. Then one night, after it had been particularly hot out and you’d seen a lot of slick skin out in the streets, young people laughing in a tangle of arms, you’d go home and write an angry letter.

You would regret that letter, but then you’d remember that, in the absence and loneliness, you had no choice, that the rose decided that without you, that it decided it didn’t want to put down roots, it didn’t need the same air and sun as you, it wanted to be free from Earth, from your life, from you. Then you would write letter after letter and not bother waiting to hear back.

After several months and many twenty-two minutes of silence later, the rose would write you at last, gently explaining that it needs space, and you would pounce on it immediately and write back asking why, and it would write back saying that there is so much out there, and you would write back saying that space is empty, and it would say that there’s no way you could know, and you would say that space is all you’ve given it, and it would write back saying that space was not yours to give to begin with, and you would write back saying that’s true, space will always be and has always been, and even after the two of you and all the flowers and plants and good things in the world are gone, there will always be space. The rose would not write back after that; it would spin quietly and find itself another orbit, another side of the sun from which to gather warmth. And though the two of you would be in the same galaxy, it would feel infinitely far away.

Later that same year, the rose returned and IFF conducted the usual experiments on it, examining it with solid-phase microextractors, analyzing its molecular volatility, studying its essential oils and eventually weaving its unique fragrance into a perfume called Zen.

After thinking for a long time about the colour blue—the sky on Earth, the burning Martian sunset, her eyes—you decide it’s perfect. After all, Zen requires the practice of meditation, of being in the present, of letting go of everything. They say that Zen is a finger pointing to the moon or, in your case, at another heavenly body, far beyond your reach.