I can think of it as another spaceport.
I can think of it like another trip.
The thing he can't think of it is, is a homecoming. That's too hard for this weak vessel.
He's very weak.
#
Look at him. He's eleven, and it's the tencennial of the Ascension of his homeworld — dirty blue ball, so unworthy, yet — inducted into the Galactic fraternity and the infinite compassion of the bugouts.
The foam, which had been confined to just the newer, Process-enclaves before the Ascension, has spread, as has the cult of the Process For Lasting Happiness. Process is, after all, why the dirty blue ball was judged and found barely adequate for membership. Toronto, which had seen half its inhabitants emigrate on open-ended tours of the wondrous worlds of the bugout domain, is full again. Bursting. The whole damn planet is accreting a layer of off-world tourists.
It's a time of plenty. Plenty of cheap food and plenty of cheap foam structures, built as needed, then dissolved and washed away when the need disappears. Plenty of healthcare and education. Plenty of toys and distractions and beautiful, haunting bugout art. Plenty, in fact, of everything, except space.
He lived in a building that is so tall, its top floors are perpetually damp with clouds. There's a nice name for this building, inscribed on a much-abused foam sculpture in the central courtyard. No one uses the nice name. They call it by the name that the tabloids use, that the inhabitants use, that everyone but the off-world counselors use. They call it the bat-house.
Bats in the belfry. Batty. Batshit.