«Second Job»

01-24-2310

As I sauntered through the parking lot of a cookie cuter Caspian Company community, passing by the stereotypical directory map and those weird little trash cans, all affixed with their own dispensers of pet waste bags, I rooted through my pockets to pull out my texti. Well, it was little more than a glamorous pocket watch these days, though it was a time piece that could still be used as a calculator or to play rudimentary video games. I could see that it was five ‘til noon by the hour displayed on the outside of the small plastic communicator. I quickly stuffed it in my pocket and stepped up onto the crimson painted curb. If I didn’t hurry up, I’d be late for work.

I ran into Allan’s apartment with just enough time to get ready. I’d barely be able to get my workstation set up, jacked into it’s alternating-current umbilical, and initiate the grueling start-up sequence before I had to be at work, but I sighed and took a second to breathe in an aging chair by the front door. Technically, I didn’t actually have to begin working immediately.

Even if there were scheduled hours or deadlines I’d have to start and finish by, there still wouldn’t be any need to get my elastic in a bunch. Telecommuting can be a pain, but the job’s really no further than my fingertips are now, and I was only hastening myself so I could get an extra hour in before I’d have to retrieve my best friend from class. But seeing as I could only log up to 20 hours each week, I definitely saw no rush in getting to work on the four hours I’d reserved to slave away today, so I made myself some tea and scavenged the ashtray for a nice butt.

After my weekly couriering gig, my second job is a rather mundane and simple one. I help teach robots that gay isn’t a negative thing… well… basically. I guess you’d call it opinion analysis, or simply data entry, but my task is to sort through user comments from uScreen, Rippler and Spacebook to isolate keywords and terms used to describe music and artist by denizens of the net. Then I compile the terms, along with their connotations and modern colloquial meanings, in spreadsheets so they can be fed into a database to program some sort of artificial intelligence or net app. I imagine, whatever it eventually manifests as, it will be used to automatically rate and rank musicians or tracks based on the assortment of things said about them, no matter how inane or seemingly nonsensical the matter may be.

I found the job on Peakslist, a glimmer of hope amongt the dozens of other frustratingly unsuccessful gigs. I guess it pays to respond to an ad within an hour of it being posted as I got word back almost immediately. Not that any of the qualifications were all that demanding, they only required that I  liked music, had experience with computers, and had enough time to give them out of my week; all of which I could confidently say I possessed. It hardly seemed that intimidating, but at first I was a little cautious of its legitimacy. Most of my doubts were put quelled by the video conference orientation, where I got an idea of who I’d be working with and under. Everyone was excited to get started as soon as they learned what it was we were doing.

I think it’s pretty easy, too. First you establish what is given as fact as opposed to opinion. After eliminating every bit of this factual information you’re left with the user’s own thought on the matter, which you then have to allocate into different categories based on meaning. For example, if a comment reads something along the lines of “hateflux sux” you would place it in the sheet and note it as negative. If it were to say “Miss Nana is so astro!!” you’d note it positive. Everything in between, remarks with the words “lesbian”, “old”, “Davidian“, etc. had to be lumped into a third category because, whether it’s actually true or not, its still called a fact, even if most are being used in a derogatory sense anyway.

Two hours tucked away, the third just begun, and already I’d had enough of the human race. At least the scummy, immature inhabitants of the internets that frequent uScreen channels. The kind of stuff said there really shakes your faith in humanity, if it doesn’t just make you feel sick. It’s like everyone became retarded suddenly, checking their common sense at the login screen. They’re just one of the frustrating aspects of this work.

Another thing that bugs me is the fact certain words are unsearchable because they’ve been co-opted by the masses to mean something simpler. I couldn’t get any results on fashion queries for the word ‘chic’ because everyone started using it instead of ‘chick’. “Man, that chic is out of this world!” I was wishing I had something stronger than coffee.

About this time I notice a new bubble appeared in the top corner of the interface. I don’t think I saw it when it first popped up.

{Wyseman, I. is Watching}

My boss! Watching?! A cold shiver runs up my spine, somewhat typically. I may not have a working imager, or literally have a close circuit feed going to his sphere, but he’s still reviewing my work, can still see all the progress I made and replay the way I did it. It’s still like he stuck his head in to my work space, very much like having a real boss looming over your shoulder and peering into your life. It really didn’t bother me the more I thought about it, it wasn’t like I was doing anything inaccurate. But I still knew everything I did would be monitored. The bubble began blinking.

{New Message from: Wyseman, I.}

‘I like what you’re doing. Keep up the good work!’ it expanded to read.

I was partially relieved, of course, but I was still a bit creeped out by the whole thing. Afterwards, I carried on as usual for the rest of the day, but nervous that another bubble would emerge suddenly to say I did something wrong. It never came.

After I finished up my last hour of work, I saw I had about a quarter until I had to pick up Allan. When I saved and closed I immediately brought up new windows with my social networks and my other inboxes. I saw I had a new message in my main email, and indeed it was from my boss.

“Hey, the big guys and I just wanted to let you know how impressed we were with the variety of results you’re bringing in, and that from now on if you want to, you can work more than the daily cap of four hours and still get paid for it. Keep it up, man!

-Wyseman, I.”

Great! I do five hours, my reward is I get to do more work! I didn’t even know I had a cap at four hours, or that it had to be lifted in someway. Oh well, it’s a neat opportunity I guess. Maybe that means I should try to slip a couple more in after I bring Allan back home. Or do already I hate people enough?

«Jobhunt»

01-19-2310

I spend most of my time sitting in front of a computer. After countless months of hiding out in the net to stave off the daily needs of a more active, or remotely physical existence, I feel its well past due that I made sure I wouldn’t be spending the rest of my life as a cyber refugee. Hunger, boredom and unfulfillment just can’t be ignored any longer. Free moments I once had to play a video game or check my inboxes again are now spent trolling employment classifieds and job finders.

Peakslist is an extremely acclaimed tool for such needs; one of the more popular, if not the most widely used, classified services for this generation. It offers localized listings for all the major metropolitan areas across the united territories and has recently extended its services to cities and communities all over the solar system. At peakslist you can locate a place to live, sell your crawler, find a job, find love, or just find someone to sleep with. The latter has been the most infamous utilization of the site as of late, but none of those otherwise discussion-worthy whores are the focus of today’s rant.

If they were then I wouldn’t be complaining about striking out, and this would probably read more like a ‘buyer beware’ story. Instead, I bemoan my lack of success with peakslist in the face of so many who swear by it or claim they owe their life to it. So far, in endless weeks of ineffective job hunting, I’ve found a buyer for a PDA I ended up having second thoughts about needing, a haircut from a trainee stylist in a fancy salon that I didn’t have to pay for, and an old sofa, free of charge to the first person who could bring a large enough vehicle to pick it up. Nothing near what I was even looking for.

At first I only applied to things I wanted, hoping what I considered to be my multiple qualifications would win me the position, though I’ve recently realized I have few many employers would consider tangible. But any of those involving coding in languages I fully understand or graphic design jobs that don’t call for the requisite degree, not currently in my possession, are things of fantasy. It was painful to let go of hopes of working at home from this porti, but only those with practical knowledge of the fields gained from schooling, or years of self-training, are deserving of those dream jobs. Lowering my standards, I began responding to every post I was remotely qualified for, even if I couldn’t see myself ever liking the job.

I’ve submitted my resume in hopes of becoming a radio program host, a theatre set designer, a DJ for parties and weddings, a receptionist for a tattoo shop, and a speech and language tutor. I’ve applied to be someone’s personal assistant, net publicist, secretary and intern. I sent in applications to work for a publishing company, as a page in a library and as a legal clerk. I even tried to contact employers about positions in delivery, pool service, data entry, and many other laborious tasks. All to no apparent avail.

No, the only occupation I can still claim to have is that of assistant for Magnate Bros. Photography, and even that’s just an unpaid internship. Though I have a bit of a foray into the art every time I want to share an image from my life with my words, I’ve never truly been interested in photography, not enough to study the subject or pursue a career of any type in it. But when Ploki and I wanted jobs at Mastodon Mt this winter, I realized the easiest way to work at the station I wanted, I would have to beef up my resume with something about taking pictures.

More important than the tasks of holding a reflector or other lighting instrument and spinning a fan, adding effects to the photos that the Magnate brothers take, is the weekly courier mission I make for them to south Olympus County. Previously delegated to Allan, the UMC undergrad found it too hard to fit it into his schedule anymore, and bequeathed the duty to me, though I still share with him the petty cash afforded to me for gas and food, the closest thing to an income I maintain. My hebdomadal visit to deliver discs and proofs to the children’s talent agency is a lengthy assignment, but far from an arduous one.

So I continue to scour the list for something a little more lucrative. With my standards set as low as they are now, I should be able to find some simple and demeaning occupation in no time, right? Soon enough I’ll be able to put away three, maybe even four figures each month, but until then I have to keep searching. It’s the most productive thing I could be doing with all this time spent online. It better start to pay off soon, though.

«Are You Patched In?»

01-06-2310

Classical music filled Shayne Lynoir’s room. The app left open on her desktop that it was playing from dimmed in its intensity slowly as a strange polyphonic tone began to pulse steadily.

!!₪₪  INCOMMING CALL : RIP GOZO  ₪₪!!

An alert popped up displaying this along with his avatar; a nail-sized still image of his Ionian face, undoubtedly snapped recently when he set up his brand new porti. The window vibrated with each tone pulse, once every other second. It almost matched the tempo of the classical song still playing at low volume.

I stared at it bouncing for just a moment before shouting “You’ve got an incoming on screen, Shayne!” towards the kitchen, where she was making herself a dinner of near-instant rice.

“Answer it!” She yelled back over the noise of the microwave.

I got up from my beat-up, old computer and clicked the option to accept the call as I sat down at her desk. The window expanded to fill Shayne’s main screen, and in a second the blank default was replaced by a young earthling with a mess of long, dark curls drapped over his head.

“Helllooo!!” he said looming in to the screen and back, waiting a second for a response to come in before saying anything again.

“Hey, what’s up!” I said, waving directly into the camera lens. “How are you doing?”

“Uhh..I’m well..But who’s there with you?…Can you guys see me?” He asked as he peered deeply into the screen, as if he was trying to make my face out of the black.

“Yeah, you’re coming in 5-by-5 on my end..” I paused when I realized that isn’t something you’d use to describe a laggy feed from a couple hundred-thousand miles away. “Well..not perfect, but you know what I mean.”

“I can’t see you, though. Did you forget to turn your imager on?” He asked, waving his finger at his.

I looked around for telltales or a switch of some sort. “Oh…I don’t think…uh..hold on for a nano,” I turned away from the screen. “Hey, Shayne? Is there a button to turn this thing on?”

“There should be a toggle for it somewhere over here,” Rip suggested from his end, pointing to the left side of his screen.

“I’ll get it.” Another awkward moment of waiting for the conversation to start was shared, though maybe more-so by him, knowing he was being watched but couldn’t see by whom. I found what I was looking for without a whole lot of unnecessary clicking. An smaller image of myself expanded from  the lower corner of his screen to let me know the feed was going through, and I watched myself sigh in relief “There we go.”

“Oh, it’s you! Well that took you long enough. Nub,” Rip said with a sarcastic head bob.

“Hey, I’ve never used Patch on an AM before, gimmie a break, everything’s backwards from how you have it,” I protested with a shrug.

“Wow, this is so strange talking to you–You!” he realized, leaning closer into the screen.

“Heh…I think I know what you mean,” I nervously scratched the back of my head. We caught up about the past few months and about our holidays while the scientist finished her culinary experiment in the kitchen. I’m glad she took her time, because it took a while for the embarassment to evaporate.

Maybe I don’t get a chance to use video chatting often enough, but I always find the first few minutes are a bit weird for me, adjusting to looking at the lens when you’re sending, and back at the screen while receiving. I can’t really say I used this capability too often, even when I had the ability to at any time.

Inevitably, it would seem, face-to-face, visual communication became too awkward for many people. What if you were with a friend your caller didn’t approve of? What if you didn’t put your makeup on this morning? What if you don’t want your mom to see you smoking a cigarette. The act of dialing up and communicating with voice only became more commonplace because of it’s convenience. A very weak gesture in comparison to the option for a more life-like interaction no farther than a thumbs reach for anybody, and almost surely a little insulting to the other party involved.

Especially if everyone knows there are better ways to convey everything you mean than through a series of words.
Perhaps the loss of identity and personality I can’t help but notice everywhere I look is due to this general acceptance of living with the lack of the full spectrum available to us. We’ve been seeking refuge in a world of voice and text and in the anonymity this simulacrum of healthy interaction provides us with. Maybe I’m thinking too deeply into justifications for this, or ways I could not be a terrible person for doing the same. It’s true though, as I am unquestionably guilty of thinking that my words would convey my message when my expression could say volumes more.

Shayne returned, joining us with a bowl of her newest creation in hand. “Hey, Rip!” she shouted excitedly.

“What’s up, girl?” he replied with a funky hand gesture.

“Oh not much,” she shrugged. “Same old, you know. Lane here just killed the navi for my crawler.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yep, it’s true. I’m a murderer.” I hadn’t meant to, but I guess I put too much weight on the console when I climbed into the back of her vehicle a half hour ago. I was trying to quickly make room for the classmate she was picking up from the spaceport, and the poor touch screen gizmo never saw it coming.

“Aww, that’s some serious sad sauce there. I’m sorry that happened,” he said with sympathy.

“So am I,” I leaned in to say.

“So am I.” She added with no particular bitterness “Now he needs to replace it by being my GPS.

“…Until I actually afford to replace it,” I finished for her, turning away from the screens to seek a signal of approval on her face.

She chuckled. “Yeah, maybe. But what if I like you telling me where to go better than that robotic, Uranian bitch.”

I straightened my arms like a robot and did my best to imitate the broken cadence of robo-talk. “Booop–Turn left. Then, shut your mouth.”

“You guys are funny,” Rip said while giggling. “You should have seen where I was spending some time earlier. It was this channel where anyone could come in and join the conversation, just to watch and text in.”

“Oh yeah? That sounds kinda neat,” I said, scratching my chin ponderously suddenly began entertaining the idea of adding video to my tlog, and thinking it may be nice practicing proper video etiquette.

“It is, but people aren’t easy.” He tugged at his long curls as he continued, “I had a bunch of people petitioned to watch, but most of them immediately wrote ‘Haircut.’ and then closed off their feed.”

“Well that‘s kinda lame,” I rested my hands on my hips. “I guess you should get one if you want more viewers.”

“Hey,” Shayne spoke up in his defense, “I like it.”

“I do too, but its a little bit like…oooh! I know! You should just put it into dreads,” I offered excitedly. Shayne seemed to like the idea, as she began to bring up search results for dreadlocks on the adjacent screen.

“Heh, I was actually thinking about doing it…that, or just shaving it all off,” it didn’t seem he’d made a decision yet from his tone.

“Oh yeah,” I crossed my arms, “Pull a Zech, sure, it worked for him. Worked for me, come to think of it–look at my hair.” I leaned in once again for his appraisal.

“Yeah, it looks good, I can see your face,” he said only partially interested. “Hey, Ms. Lynoir! Look over here, I want to show you something,” he  dipped out of sight for a second, presumably to retrieve something.

“What’s that?” he had her attention quickly.

A large piece of dense herb occluded him from view. “TA-DA!!” he exclaimed, hidden behind it.

“Oooh, that’s nice,” the chemist said almost by rote.

Mimicking a voice from a cartoon we used to watch, I asked, “Is it…kush?”

“Pfft! Is it kush?” he repeated dismissively while his attention was turned to breaking it up, then paused to actually consider the question. “..Well, I don’t know…anyway, Shayne, take a hit with me!”

“Uhh.…” she paused to consider how high she already was, but shrugged it off. “Well ok…but out of what?”

“I’m hitting my new steamroller, Atlas,” he announced with authority as he displayed the large, metallic cylinder. “What is your newest gadget?”

She glanced around a second. “Well, it would probably be…this GB I made! Conveniently right here,” she lifted the makeshift contraption into range of the imager. “Wait for me to get ready, we’ll take it together!”

It certainly made it exciting to be getting high with someone over a hundred-million miles away. I’m unsure if it was actually done simultaneously, due to the noticeable lag one gets from sending information from planet to planet, but whatevs. Even with all the difference in time and space, I’m sure everyone was buzzing together.

It could always get better though. We still haven’t perfected a means of far distance communication. I could be wrong though, there may not be anything just so immaculate available to the general public as of yet, but I’m sure with enough money or military connections, one could get a direct satellite to satellite wideband.  It would feel more instantaneous, with out so much jerkiness and latency. It would be even more like having the person you want to see in the room with you.

“I wish you could be here for the party I’m having in a week, Rip!” The blonde grad student said with palpable sadness.

“It’s gonna be awesome!”

“Oh, it would be astro if you could come to,” I added, stooping far enough that the top of my head wasn’t cut off.

“I know!” he squealed, crestfallen. “Too bad I’ll never have enough time away from school and work…or enough for spacefare in any foreseeable future.”

“But you need to be here on Mars, Rip. You belong here,” she continued to plea. “You could live on my couch, like Lane is right now!”

“Yeah, we just brought a forsaken dumpster couch up and threw a shower curtain on it,” I informed him as he cringed a little. “But I’d let you take the other one. Less disease.”

He still didn’t seem too enthusiastic about sofa surfing. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ve got stuff going on here still. I can’t leave yet,” he knew one day he’d have to come, it was just a matter of time.

“Well it still stands. You’re welcome here and you’ll always have a place to crash on Mars,” she said with a smile.

“You’re too sweet. But that reminds me, I’m tired as hell,” he yawned.  “I’m going to bed, it’s past four o’clock on Earth. You Martians have a good one. It was good seeing you, Klay,” he waved bye.

“Bye, Rip!!” Shayne yelled.

“You too, man. Nice seeing your face,” I waved back as he blinked out.  The chat window shrunk in size and disappeared. It was eerily quiet for a moment afterward, but the music soon swelled to it’s original volume.

«Tall Ships for Christmas»

12-25-2309

As the vehicle rode along the sweeping entrance ramp granting us access to this northbound rung of superway, I squinted in the bright light of the mid-afternoon sun on Christmas. On Mars, holidays have a tendency of feeling a bit off, at least any holiday that isn’t normally accompanied by intensely sunny, clear skies. What I mean to say is this day didn’t really feel like Christmas.

I should know, I’ve been paying particularly close attention to  any annual traditions from my past back home on Earth. I’ve had all the chances to fully experience each of the near-monthly events that people around the solar system celebrate, but each one I tried to participate in upon this red soil didn’t quite feel the same to me. So I think it’s something to do with the weather, or lack of it here.

That’s the best I have to go on, seeing as I never had my autumnal or wintery preludes to this particular event. There was no cavalcade of cadaverous falling foliage. There were no parades of advancingly atrocious atmospheric conditions. There was hardly even the hint of seasons shifting along, like they seem to do more noticeably everywhere else. At least on planets I’ve been to, anyway. There was little but a slight chill to the breeze and a few small patches of rain last week while half the other worlds were pelted by blizzards.

As I looked out my window, shrouding my eyes from the harsh, red sun with my hand, there was very little around to suggest it wasn’t just any other day of the year. The palm trees would never know what it’s like to freeze over with a snap of frost. The paved roads would never know how it feels being slicked over with slush in these parts. And the skies would hardly open up with rain, spare any cooler precipitate. No, even if it hardly snowed regularly where I lived on Earth, there was still enough climate change to give clues, like as to what month it was.

Enough about the weather. I hate it when people can’t find anything more interesting to say than drone on about what’s happening outside.

I disregarded my concern for how difficult it is adjusting to such a routine ritual duplicated in a foreign place for just a few minutes to pay attention to more internal things. What mattered more than my difficulty coping were my friends and what we were doing.

Allan drove his carbon colored crawler, watching the road with yellowish eyes hidden behind a pair of scratched sunglasses. His dark-haired Saturnian girlfriend, Nymh, and her half-Martian daughter, Rei were seated in the back. The three-year-old girl, fastened securely in her saftey seat, struggled dearly to stave off the urge to fall asleep. Though she tried her hardest, the fair princess just couldn’t resist the lulls of a tight harness and a bumpy drive. Especially when she was practically trained to rest so every time she was faced with these conditions.

Things had felt a little strange, not being anywhere near the home or loved ones I’d spent this day with nearly every year in the past, though it had been a good holiday so far. I wasn’t in need of much that the Magnate family wasn’t already providing me, so I guess I got everything I wanted for Christmas…well, everything but my own rocket. A little far fetched of a thing to ask for, I know, cause out of two decades of wishing for one, I still haven’t seen any real results.

The ever popular Jovian aeronautics company, Spacebus, just launched the A800 Oasis line of luxury starcruisers, comparable to a 5-star hotel with ion thrusters. Affectionately dubbed the first super-jumbo rocket, it boasts nearly twice as much passenger space as the next largest competing commercial spaceframe, the Silpheed-Böing’s most infamous interstellar, the 979. The Oasis also surpasses the only other existing named starcruisers, including the Ganymedean-built Queen Mary 2 and her sister ship, permanently ported in Porro Beach, becoming one of the finest places of lodging on Mars.

The Oasis series also feature all the choice amenities one would expect to find in a celebrity day spa or royal Ionian chateau. Full relaxation and recreation facilities, with bars at the fore and aft of the vessel. At every seat you’re allotted your own personal 17” screen and entertainment system, complete with hard points to sync or recharge any of your portable devices, as well its own wireless touch-remote to adjust your seat position, call up feeds from the external imagers, communicate with other passengers and even order items off the menu or call an attendant for any of your other needs.

The new A800 is hardly near the largest rocket built by man, not by a long shot. So you’d assume, given our morbid fascination with destruction and machines intended to destroy, that the largest ship to soar the heavens was constructed for military purposes. An eight-reactor’d super-carrier or regular old, nuclear-powered spacecraft carrier would hold the crown. Perhaps one of the new line of capital ships designated to replace Earth’s still utilizable fleet of unsurpassed mega-weapons. Maybe the recently completed tactical landing-ship, UTS New Tros, with vengeful components leant from salvaged wreckage of the terrorist attacks on Earth soil that happened over eight years ago, you‘d guess that would be the biggest. But you‘d be wrong.

In fact, the greatest crafts in the solar system are, as one might expect, the cargo vessels. Supertankers and gargantuan container ships, able to carry payloads more massive than many small asteroids or moonlet colonies. Near impossible to land but at the largest of planetside spaceports, and even then only with the aid of a local pilot or harbormaster to navigate the behemoth from orbit. Without them, our individual worlds wouldn’t prosper together, there’d be nothing to usher all the raw materials collected at the far ends of Sol into an equilibrium spread evenly amongst industry and the economy.

The already decommissioned, soon to be dismantled, Nock Knevis, was the world’s longest tanker in service, but since being targeted and crippled in a spaceraid near Fortuna in the last Belt War, it has become little more than an orbiting storage platform. After that gigantic Europan machine, were the four Ionian super-tankers of the Batillus class, now extinct, but were technically larger by gross tonnage. The greats of the past all scrapped now, the largest ships still existing today are the Emma Euxine and her seven sister ships, which make up the head of Adrastea’s Euxine Line shipping company. The titanic blue vessel is a bigger cousin of the Euxine Carolina; a ship so alluring, Neptunian pirates have tried to hijack it twice in the past couple of years.

But lets cool our jets here for a second and be reasonable. I don’t need anything extravagant like a starcruiser or a jumbo rocket to coast through the heavens with style. I’d never find a way to utilize all the devastating capabilities of an all-big-gun dreadnaught or a space dragon. I’d never even need anything as fancy as a private kingjet, those little business twin-engines that still require a dedicated service crew of three. Gork, I’d settle with a tiny, two-seater Cestron if I had the means. There would still be need for me to get a pilot’s license, or a little experience behind the stick, but I’d do whatever it takes to drift the skies freely under my own power.

My dad gets to have one, after all. He’s had, and still has, a number of fine luxury craft under his name. When he goes to work he jets along in an eye-turning, golden skipper. Any time he likes he could cut through the atmosphere on his 38-foot solar sail boat. He could get his own space yacht if he were so inclined, though he’d rather man the lines instead of pressing a few buttons and letting the autopilot on those go-fast ships work it’s magic. He’s the sort of person that would be able to afford an upper-classed cabin on an Oasis cruise.

I doubt I’ll ever wake up to find a rocket waiting for me under the tree, so I won’t really hold that against my holiday if I don’t find one next year, either. One can still dream, though.

«When You’re Twenty-Two»

12-15-2309

I think I’ve reached a somewhat depressing point in my life. I’m at that age where I believe I should be much further along than I am. It’s one of those shocking, eye-opening things and I don’t know if I want them pried open to see the truth. But I realize that I am falling behind faster than I thought I was.

When you’re twenty-two, it can be a very motivating or discouraging time. You watch all your classmates from high school graduate their respective colleges and universities and move on to the next step of education or into a career. You never notice the time move but through those passing by, leaving you far behind to stare on, only realizing you’re wasting yours away when you see them disappear. And it’s not just me. I’ve found it a bewildering time of life for everyone I talked to about it.

Ploki Magnate, mostly Martian but a little bit machine, just turned 22 this year, his birthday exactly 6 months after mine. Already he’d found it a most dynamic episode. He had been living on Eris this past year, striving to get away from home in much the same fashion of my own escape. He’d been much smarter than me about it though, and when he felt his welcome was up he fled from the beaches, volcanoes and roaches, back home to Mars before it was too late. Since returning he’d developed quite a taste for the Fire of Jove, and in effort to do everything better than anyone else, already acquired a legal prescription to use it as medicine. As far as I was concerned, he was living the dream.

Three years ago his older brother, Allan, the yellow-eyed Martian, was just getting over the break-up of a relationship which had occupied the previous four years of his life. He was still trying to come to terms with the bits of his identity left behind in the aftermath, taking up smoking and other vices he had neglected as integral parts of his personality. He spent most of his time at the Gypsy Den or at the local bars, living off the money he’d saved from his last job, which he also recently found himself pleasantly liberated from.

Shayne Lynoir recently graduated from a respectable university on Earth with a degree in chemical biology, two fellowships to pay for her continued education, and an acceptance letter to graduate school at  the University of Mars: Caspian. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed, spandex-clad Earthling then spent an entire summer drinking from the golden cup on Amalthea. By the time my old high school friend had arrived on Mars she had an entirely new outlook and zeal for life, as well as a new favorite pastime. She felt like moving here was one of the best decisions she’d ever made, and in the short while she’d been at UMC, Shayne had already made a ton of new friends, found a band, and requisitioned her sexuality a few times.

When Nymh Amp was this age, she had just given birth to her half-Saturnian, half-Martian daughter, Rei, and motherhood was foreign and strange. As she yearned to find ways of expressing herself as an individual she realized that she was in a topsy-turvy relationship and may be suffering from post partum depression. She resisted doing things that would indelibly identify her as a mother in an attempt to return her life to how it was before. She resumed partying at night and drinking, even during breast-feeding. She wanted to get out of it all, or at least into a more honest life with a more honest companion, at whatever cost.

My own mother, Linn, was my age in the year 2277 and at that point she had been living in Chesapeake all her life. When herbest friend moved to Earth’s southern hemisphere and left her with an empty apartment and a series of dead end jobs, mom realized she wasn‘t really connected to anything in the north. She wanted a change more than anything, and since everyone seemed to need to live somewhere new, she figured Why not? She packed up that summer and moved down to Tekesida to live with her missing roommate.

Sunshine City was a breezy coastal refuge from the Tekesidan humidity, but even then it offered very little harbor from the moisture of the south. There were mosquitoes even worse than those spawned in the swamps near DT, as well as giant, flying cockroaches and many other creepy critters that sent her scrambling for safety on chairs and tabletops. One time she was scared so bad, Jan’s lovi, a local policeman, had to shoot a snake dead before my mother would descend from her perch on the kitchen counter.

Ironically, the only thing they didn’t fear were the giant alligators populating the canals that passed behind their house and wove through the neighborhoods, like so many winding aquatic roads. She and the roommates would feed them marshmallows from a dock suspended just a few inches from their partial-exposed heads, and watched them basking on the earthen banks on the other side, never acknowledging the scaly beasts were capable of climbing the same shore of their backyard.

The year after he would have finished high school, Keret Lane began working for the fire department. My father had walked into city hall with the intention of working on an ambulance initially, but it was required to be experienced as a firefighter first, and as he was just looking to be civil servant to avoid deployment, any job would do. By ‘77 he had completed the required schooling to work as a paramedic, as well as taken a side job as a plumber.

When dad was my age in 2278 he had finally been assigned to his own ambulance and just moved into a new, less squalid unit on the west end of Alexandria. He hardly spent any time in it though, posted full watches at the fire station most of the week and working at the gym 6 or 5 days of the week. When he’d joined the department he’d had a weak physique, not too dissimilar from mine now, and he needed to bulk up so the job couldn’t severely beat him up anymore. If dad had any time off he used it to surf off the outer banks of Carolina.

He said as far as municipal jobs go, it wasn’t too bad. Not quite the thing for people who have issues with authority figures or getting out of bed, but otherwise it was an exciting, and all together satisfying job. It felt good to help, and it gave him plenty of opportunities to do so. It also gave him perspective on life and taught him about what was really important to survival. These experiences made it difficult for my father not to laugh in his customers’ faces while they complained that not being able to swim in their pool was a situation of life and death.

If you were me, you wouldn’t have a satisfying job or be fulfilling the necessary education requirements to get one. You wouldn’t be scurrying to hide from little creatures or trying in earnest to raise one. You wouldn’t be anywhere near reaching what you think of as the Martian Dream or close to achieving any of the other simple dreams you’ve set for yourself. You wouldn’t be very excited about the world changing all about you. You’d be sitting at home wondering what went wrong with your life. You’d be going to shows and feeling ten years older than everyone else around you. You’d be desperately scrapping through social networks to keep old contacts instead of reaching out to find new friends. And you’d be trying to start anew on Mars for the third or fourth time, hoping the fates would treat you a little better this time. You’d be wishing you were hitting a bowl, or cleaning swimming pools, or hitchhiking across the solar system right now. You’d be wishing that you wouldn’t have to wake up to the same violently vulgar bullshit every morning.

It doesn’t matter what planet you‘re from, I think you’d be wishing you were anyone but you, if you were twenty-two.

«Unthankful»

11-25-2309

There are a lot of things for which I’m not grateful in my life. On day’s like this its  easy to forget to depreciate all those little things that make it a veritable hell.

I’m not thankful for my government, the United Territories of Earth. I’m not thankful for the economy or the nonchalant onslaught  of a new commercial holiday in the face of our monetary crisis. I’m not thankful for the SHO and the disease control centers or the pharmaceutical forces fighting them, and how I can’t get a clear answer who to side with on the subject of vaccination.

I’m not thankful for technology, and the competitive way it’s created. I’m not thankful for private enterprises racing head to head instead of working together to solve a common problem. I’m not thankful for inventors who stop making products for the consumer’s convenience, but because it makes a lot more money flow out of their pockets.

Furthermore, I’m not feeling very thankful for my father right now. He’s done plenty for me in the past and I’m probably just expecting too much of him, but I don’t feel like he’s been too helpful lately. I’m not happy for the bills and creditors that make it hard for me to get through to him.

Of course, I can always feel thankful for a important few things though, but I don’t need to wait for a random Thursday in autumn to express it; there are things I’m thankful for every day.

I’m thankful for the roof above my head and the bed under my back. I’m thankful for the food and water I’m given to survive each day. I’m thankful for the feeling of companionship and family I’ve felt for the entire time I’ve lived with the Magnate family. I’m thankful to have them here on Mars, my quite remotely disassociated home.

«Tumultuous Apathy»

11-20-2309

From a distance the cosmos stands still. Days and weeks pass at a time while little or nothing appears to change. But the Solar system rages on, and underneath a seemingly static surface, it thrashes and spasms violently. Economic turmoil and inconvenient plagues. Wildfire and meteor showers. Death and regeneration.

When I woke up, I immediately flipped open my antiquated  workstation from where I lay in bed. It sprang to life with renewed vigor, a needlessly complex reformatting was still treating the Z-140x as well as one would expect within the first week. All that mattered was that I could access a network again, and within seconds I was connecting to the Magnate family’s portal. Though Allan and Rikka’s terminals were silent, and Ploki was still asleep, his porti was downloading a large file, so there was a little latency in the sphere.

After sliding through the various social webs I keep a profile in, checking my multiple inboxes and even the dashboard control panel for this tlog, finding no new messages in each, I hovered purposelessly in the internet for a few moments, idly rapping my fingertips on the case of the computer. I’d hoped by then I would have at least received word back from Olympus Coast College about my application or student financial aid. Not knowing what else to do, I brought up a window from an interplanetary newsource, probably based on Earth. The stark headlines it launched at me in grim menacing boldface startled me at first.

– [FLU DEATH TOLLS IN THE UNITED TERRITORIES ESTIMATED AT 3,900] –

– [NEPTUNIAN PIRATES FAIL TO CAPTURE IONIAN CARGOSHIP SECOND TIME] –

– [TIPS TO SURVIVE BLACK FRIDAY AND SHOPPING BATTLEGROUNDS THIS HOLIDAY SEASON] –

Suddenly concerned for my health, and worried that all those months of not worrying weren’t going to pay off, I thumbed over the article. I truly detest the tricks these fear mongering, ad-savvy newsources use to optimize search results to generate some more hits each day. The report is contrary to the one just a couple of days ago which calculated deaths to be closer to 130, so I just figured they wanted to claim that all of the regular annual flu deaths had been attributed to the H1N1 virus. I closed the window before I could see how many of those confirmed deaths were on Mars, lest I become a victim of the pharmaceutical industry’s scare tactics.

The next window informed me pirates had been thwarted in their attempt to gain control of a ship leaving the orbit of Galatea. Either by coincidence or the attractiveness of the damn thing, it was the same ship hijacked last spring near those same waters. These marauders from the sixth moon of Neptune have reportedly captured over 50 vessels, and seemed to have a pretty good reputation until the Euxine Carolina was rescued by UT marines earlier this year. This time, the enhanced security placed onboard the hundred-ton spacefreighter was able to resolve any issue before it even developed into one.

I didn’t care about holiday bloodbaths or a house with a bunch of dead people in it. I couldn’t be compelled to look too deep into the stories reported by the Ganymedean newsource or an associated feed I’d brought up in the background while I digested these either. I really didn’t care about Earth’s prison camp or the election being gorked up on Ceres, or any of the other news they don‘t often openly address in Earth media. I’m usually enthralled with that sort of stuff.

I brought SpaceBook, my main social network, back into focus and updated my status to something disparaging to human nature for letting the media get so commercial, and closed my clunky old porti.

As if stirred by a ripple in a pond, Ploki Magnate rolled over in his bed. As he rested, he’d probably been able to sense so many similar, relatively tiny waves just and slept right through it. But a rock being thrown into the pond from so close may have felt like a surge against the barriers of his constant digital stream. He sat up, rubbing the side of is head.

“Oh, good morning, Ploki,” I said, realizing I hadn’t actually spoken a word to anyone when my voice cracked. The name already sounded a little strange to the tongue since it was a throwback to old hacker slang from days when a keyboard similar mine would still have been used. It was the handle that he chose to go by in all of his social avenues, virtual or not.

“Morning,” he said, not looking up from the glow of the button already alight in his hands. It illuminated his sharp face and the accentuated Ganymedean features. If he had antennae or pointy ears I would have seen them in the wash of blue light, but his head was framed only by a short haircut and a little scruff of beard.  “What’s this about the news?” he asked me, responding to the notification that woke him.

“Huh? Oh, well ther-” I began before he cut me off, he’d obviously brought up the headlines.

“Pirates…prison camp…experiment demonstrates possibility of life in Centauri?” he read aloud, a questioning tone as he wondered if he’d already heard that somewhere.

I was rising off my futon bed and walking as I replied. “I think that whole thing’s a ruse to get more scientific funding for exploration,” I grumbled as I stepped into the kitchen to scrounge up something.

“So it’s better we don’t find life outside the Solar system? You’re so cynical, Klay.” He was beginning to wake and warm up, getting out of bed only to settle into his computer chair.

I spoke to him over the kitchen counter, his workstation setup just on the other side. Anyone who used this kitchen couldn’t help but feel watched if he was seated there, though his eyes hardly rose from his screen. “No, I just think it’s going to be a huge bust if it turns out we went all the way there again and didn’t find anything … again,” there was little I came across in the fridge that screamed edible to me.

“Well it won’t be any bigger of a waste than if that money went to the defense budget,” his sleek porti connected to the portal the second he touched it, and in moments he was tangled in his various webs. “They got something like 700 bil for the military, just for a single year. That calculates to almost 2 billion a day.”

“Gork,” I exclaimed, slamming an unyielding cupboard. “Nothing’s looking appealing to me in here, wanna start the vaporizer?”

He glanced at the time and yelled “Fire it up!”

«←→»

Hunger was of the few things that could involuntarily force someone out into the big, scary world; and even then there are the options of fast food, take-out and delivery services to minimize a given human’s exposure to the outside as much as possible.

Ploki and I trod along the broad walkways of Newport’s Style Isle. Fashioned by The Caspian Company after a cookie-cutter Ionian Mission, it was a way to disguise their corporate headquarters as an outdoor shopping mall and gain a little extra revenue. It’s not actually an island, just a small mesa overlooking the Amazonian Ocean, and was used by natives in the past for their jamborees. Glancing back over my shoulder, I could see it twinkling like a thousand diamonds in the midday light, beyond the rows of fancy crawlers, oily parking spaces and pristine, artificial palm trees.

I used to work here. Tucked away in the digital media section of Style Isle’s outdated bookstore, I toiled the first year I lived on Mars. The commute to Newport from Fender was treacherous at the least, a whole 30 minutes. It was enough to make the job feel not worth it to me, spending the entirety of my only raise on the fuel it took just to get to work late every day.

We wove amongst the flow of shoppers, consisting mostly of wealthy women who didn’t need to be making any more money. It always felt a little strange, walking amongst the same people I used to serve, calmly passing them decked out in their most splendid weekday attire. From the hottest trends off the runways in Mihr Patera to soft velour sweat suits encrusted in rhinestones. Large embellished sunglasses, gaudy jewelry and any number of insanely eye-catching accessories glinted and dangled in the red sun.

Anything they could afford to distract or cover up the seams between cosmetic surgery and plastic treatments. Neck-tucks and antenna-removal scars can still be tricky to hide, and that’s where expensive bronze and ivory make-up assisted. They perfectly mimicked the exemplary mannequins, stiff in the windows beside them but so posh. I cringed to think what these reptiles would look like without any mods.

Just a few minutes there and I’d already seen  too many aged women showing off their new breasts and arms, many of which still needed some tightening and laser treatments to erase the damage of decades of sun exposure. Gray roots hid under platinum blonde, deep crows feet under cakes of eye shadow, and I’m sure I would have noticed the stench of death if it weren’t for the aroma of nail polish and hair products. I just wanted to find the cheapest place to grab a bite, then get the hell out of this commercial trap.

“I’m so excited for my appointment next week!” Ploki said, grinning ear to ear. “I’m going to get my license, and then my new toy will be completely legitimate,” there was so much glee behind his eyes as he said this.

“I just hopes it work’s out for you, it would suck if you were denied cause you didn’t qualify,” I pointed out, though that would be just as upsetting to all of us.

“Seriously,” he replied and winced with his blue eyes, tryinag not to imagine that possibility.

I turned to my Martian friend as we rounded a corner near the geyser fountain. “Hey, Ploki, can you look something up for me real quick?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, slid his button out of his pocket and unlocked the palm-held device. The flat, blue screen lit up in broad daylight, appearing a few inches above his hand.  It rested on a faint laser cone, projected from the solitary LED eye; simplicity was the only identifying feature of an AM-3Gi button. He called up a search application, and looked at me, asking “What do you need?”

“Gork, that was fast. Don’t you still have to connect to a network with that thing?”

“No, I canceled that basic service that came with it.” He pointed to his temple with his free hand, saying “I’ve been auged.”

“Ahh, now it makes sense, you are your own sphere,” I looked at him again as if I’d be able to see it’s sheen around him now. “That’s astro, I’d love to get a chip one day,” I said quietly.

The cyborg’s eyes locked on me in disbelief. “What? You haven’t been auged?” the question rang loud here, even outside. Any sort of alterations, whether internal or external, are regarded highly by those of status, and I’m sure any of the women who could afford a boost in confidence could pay an extra few thousand to have a little silicon implanted in their heads, too.

I looked around at no scowling faces or judging eyes, surprisingly. “No, what makes you think I have?”

“I totally thought you were. You don’t have extra memory in there?” he asked, genuinely amazed I hadn’t undergone any sort of capacity upgrade.

“No, not at all,” I said with as little pride as I could show these technophilic Newpsies.

“Huh, I could have sworn. Hmm…well I guess you just have a good memory then,” he said, adjusting to the idea of my head being emptier than his.

“Thanks, I’ll take that as a compliment…especially coming from a machine,” I said facetiously.

He protested “Hey, I’m still mostly human!”

“Whatevs, Robot. Find me the cheapest food around,” I commanded.

He grumbled, and returned his gaze to the screen, manipulating the flattened beam that the browser was illustrated upon with the swish of his fingertips. He looked up, over to the other side of the food court we had just meandered into. “There. The pizza place has the lowest cost here,” he said at once.

“Wow, you found it that quick?” I said, astounded by his technology again.

“No, I just remembered,” he said with a grin, adding “Gorker.”

After we finished our two-dollar slices of pizza pie, and made our way back through the mess of grotesque human facsimiles, we found ourselves at his little, cerulean crawler. The two-door hatchback always reminded me of my elusive vehicle, though his wasn’t built on Ganymede.

His Saturnian-made Polaris was probably of a finer construction than my rodent. The interior had been optimized for comfort and visibility, so much so that even the HUD cowling had been displaced to the center of the dashboard, creating more storage areas.

At the press of the ignition switch, the engine whined and instruments illuminated with bright blue light, similar to the glow of the Ploki’s button, which now rested in a crèche on the center console. It supplied music from it’s harddrive to the entertainment system, and the driver or passenger could easily control media with the interface on either end.

We hurried home, where Allan waited for our return. He’d sequestered himself into his room, determined to make full use of his burgeoning class-load by doing everything he could to pass them all. Little had been seen of him, except when he needed transit to and from campus, or when there was a bi-weekly jam, or if Nymh had come over to lure him out, though she just as often did nothing to make him want to leave the room.

Similar could be said of the youngest of the Magnate siblings. Rikka was often out of the house since she was usually working one of her two jobs, and only appeared in sharp, semi-formal outfits when she was home from either, or on her way to an interview for a third. Attention seeking and a hypochondriac, she was currently fighting a bout with the deadly flu upstairs in her quarters, and no one could tell if she were actually sick or not.

I’d become good friends with Ploki over the previous weeks, finding similar interests was easy for us; or something like that. It could have been something to do with being the same age as me, or that he was easier to tolerate for an entire day than his often boisterous older brother. Perhaps it was because we had planned to move to that ski resort in Cyane this winter and had begun pre-roommate rituals of bonding. But it’s probably just because we both share the ground level of the house, he and I sleeping in the living room and family room, respectively.

We arrived back at his house in the mid-afternoon and immediately return to our positions in front of our workstations. Using some sort of control on his terminal, he remotely activated his brand new vaporizer, allowing it to warm up the 600 seconds so it will work properly. He then sent a message through the sphere to let Allan know he’d have about ten minutes to find a stopping point.

By force of habit, I brought up the newsources again with my renewed net connection, feeling warm with this novelty: the privilege of fresh information afforded only to those who have the technological means. By the look of the new banners, it seems healthcare reforms were stagnated by both sides of UT government, Earth’s new president visited Titan, and strife continued between warring factions on little Davidia.

A terrorist plot on another Earth skyscraper was foiled, a fusion plant in New Ganymede almost meltdown again and AM would probably release a new model of the button over the holidays. Students protested an increase in tuition rates at University of Mars campuses, a ferry crash in The Rings left 26 dead and the sequel to that stupid teenage-heartthrob-vampire movie broke box office records this weekend.

I closed all the windows at once and brought up one of my bookmarked links: a streaming, real-time image of the star Sol. I zoomed in partway, only until I spotted the well recognizable shapes of the gas giants, the thin haze of asteroid belts and the glint off the terrestrial worlds orbiting close the yellow main-sequence star. If it weren’t for a ticker running the time at the bottom you would have sworn it was just a still image, captured by a traveler from some rocket’s window.

I attempted to imagine for a moment that I was peering out of that porthole at the static but majestic view. I tried to picture myself away from any apprehensions of holidays, pirates, finances or vaccinations. It wasn’t working.

I collapsed the screen of the outdated porti. “Hey Ploki,” I called as I stood up, “I’m getting Allan whether that machine of yours is ready or not.”

«The New Martian Dream»

09-15-2309

The night’s air was crisp, the breeze warm and dry, breathing through my clothes instead of humidly pasting them to my skin. I struck the lighter I’d slipped past security and lit a cigarette. I puffed it happily into the crystal clear evening as I stood on the arrival curb of the spaceport with my possessions.

I had just been anxiously awaiting them at the baggage claim, worried they’d never make it to the luggage carousel intact. I was afraid of losing the few belongings I could be sure I still owned, and even more nervous about checking the guitar, whether it was in a spaceworthy titanium case or not. Fortunately my luggage arrived without a scratch, the only marks were the one’s I’d made to personalize them; matching the symbol tattooed to my left wrist. Satisfied, I turned to wait for my ride.

Shayne Lynoir pulled up a few minutes later in the silver 2-door she’d just driven to Mars in last week. In the few day’s she’d been here, I could tell that she’d began to adapt well, but still wasn’t used to all the little differences yet. She cautiously pulled out onto the closest freeway and headed us towards Olympus county, following directions from the navi fixed to her windshield.

“How are you liking living here so far?” I asked as I stared up at a sky filled with so much light, purely endemic to the Martian atmosphere.

“Oh it’s great. I’ve been smoking the best since I was in Omstel, way better than anything we found on Earth,” which I knew she’d say. “I’ve had a date with that girl I was looking forward to seeing. Uhm…I went to a strip club last night, Klay!”

“Wow, one week and Mars is already treating you right. You’re perfectly aware it’s all a trap, right?” I wouldn’t want her thinking the place was always this awesome.

“Yeah, I know. It does seem too good to be true, so I won’t be surprised when the bottom falls out. But I’m not worried, I’ve got two fellowships to pay for school. And in half a year I’ll have my Martian residence…and you know what that means,” she said with a devilish grin.

“Of course, Shayne, it’s the reason that at least half the people that come here still haven’t left yet. It’s why I came back. This is the land of opportunity, the gorkin’ Martian Dream was made real again. Now it’s the New Martian Dream: come to Mars, become a resident, and get a license to possess and grow,” being back had obviously inspired me already.

“Uhm. Kinda sounds like the old one…just without the whole movie business and stardom thing,” she pointed out, facetiously.

“Ok, fine. And this one’s a lot more like the first dream..you know, that whole gold rush thing,” I admitted.

“I thought you once said the first dream was that the planet was inhabited by Amazons,” she would remember me mentioning a thing like Amazons.

“Haha, it was the Ionians who thought that before they ever made landfall. I don’t think the Martian Dream existed until after Earthlings settled here, it’s sort of an evolution on their dream…or bastardization if you would,” I was starting to spill my rhetoric on the subject. “Their dream—our dream; whatever. We’re still Earthlings, after all.”

“And we can never really be Martians, anyway,” she reminded. “But I am looking forward to being called a Marsling,” she said with a wide grin, her imagination reeling on all the possibilities the future held for her. She snapped back into attention when the navi spout out the next direction in that robotic female voice.

We pulled into Allan’s complex, a cookie cutter community created by the Caspian Company. The large, bold letters and stylized directory maps at each of the entrances usually give it away, but if you were as familiar as I am to the area, you’d know to just assume they built it unless it wasn’t identical to everything else in a 20 mile radius.

Inside his mass produced housing unit, Allan sat downstairs with Nymh and Rei, watching a movie on his brother’s wide screen workstation.

“Ahoy, hoy!”

“Klayed!” the half-Martian, half-Saturnian toddler shouted as I slipped in the front door, leaving my suitcase, guitarcase and carry-on in the entrance way to give hugs.

“Hey, Rei. How have you been?” I asked, addressing her more as a peer than a 3-year-old. She turned away shyly, dumbstruck and speechless though she’d asked for me every single day of summer.

“Aww, Rei. Your boyfriend’s back,” Nymh joked, which made her daughter even more bashful, burying her face in my shoulder.

“What’s up, guys?” I asked as I set her back down and received hugs from my long lost friends.

“Not much, brutha! How are you doin?” Allan inquired, excited to see his buddy again.

“Oh, it feel so good to be back,” I said patting his shoulder. “Well, actually…there’s one thing…” I said, turning my eyes to the front door as if to initiate a crawler party.

“Back porch,” Allan said, understanding my request, though his answer confused me.

“Really?” I couldn’t believe they’d ever think a spot was more comfortable than the cabin of Allan’s vehicle.

“Yeah, go ahead, Lane, it’s already outside. I’ll be there to S-M-O-K-E with you in a second,” Nymh spelled out so her daughter wouldn’t be able to understand.

“You sure you don’t want me to watch her for a little while,” Allan asked his lovi in a saccharin voice.

“No, no. Go on, baby,” the Tethean said, giving him a kiss before he joined me on the back porch.

“So what’s your plan?” he asked, wasting no time to get to business as I packed the glass full of fire.

“I have no idea yet, actually. It was such a struggle for me just to get back here…I really didn’t think any further ahead than this part,” I admitted, indicating to the pipe in my hand. He nodded, seeming to expect as much but shrugging cause he knew he’d have done no better. “Would it be alright if I crashed here for a little while?”

“Well it’s a little packed now. My sister never moved out, and my brother, Ploki, came back from Eris and doesn’t even have a room anymore. Also, with Nymh and Rei spending the nights here often, and Rikka’s lovi sleeping over all the time, it’s a full house,” he explained.

“I understand, well that’s ok. Shanye did say I could stay with her a little while if I wanted,” I didn’t want to mention it wasn’t too big of a deal because I’d probably be moving back to Earth before spring anyway.

“I’ll see what I can do though. If I find some room I’m sure my parent’s won’t mind you being here a few days, they did miss you too,” he said, lighting a cigarette impatiently while I took my time to finish packing the bowl.

“Thanks, bro, I appreciate it,” I was genuinely relieved someone on this planet had a heart. Though it wasn’t even my weed, I offered him greens out of gratitude. He shook his head to turn it down.

“Go ahead,” he waved, though I was reluctant to take it. “Welcome back to Mars, Mr. Lane,” he announced, handing me a lighter.

I nodded in appreciation and struck the lighter, focusing it’s flame on the leafy green and purple material packed into the chamber as I inhaled it’s milky goodness deep into my lungs. I felt a tingle emerge instantly, fluttering through my chest and head and easing everything it touched before I exhaled a plume of smoke into the open Martian night, the divine flavor I’d longed for most of the summer lingering on my tongue and lips. I smiled and closed my eyes, relishing the moment.

This is it: The New Martian Dream. How sweet it tastes.

«Summer Fling»

09-13-2309

I woke in a large soft bed, snuggled up beside a rare beauty. Koi stirred softly in my arms as I got up, yawning and blinking slowly, her big, doey eyes locking on mine.

“Mmmm. What are you thinking?” she asked with a smile, closing her eyes again.

I’ve always hated that question, but I smiled and chuckled, not really able to give an appropriate answer. I kissed her on the nose and said “Nothing, really,” as I tightened my embrace and nestled back into sleep.

A couple of weeks ago, the only thing I knew about her was that she was from Mars, since we’d had a lengthy discussion about it that first night when I’d met her. I figured she was a Marsling, though she looked as if she may have a little Martian blood in her. She was remarkable though, a look the likes of which I’d never seen. That small, angular frame, impeccably encased in the softest, bronze skin; those perfectly pursed lips, slightly pointed ears and the adorable button for a nose; her high cheekbones speckled with cute little freckles, making her large brown eyes even bigger and warmer.

After a week with no response, I figured I’d probably never see the gorgeous Koi Kidder again. Eager to take something positive from the experience, I thought fondly of her as a I prepared to write her off as an unresolved chapter in my life. Perhaps it was for the best, I thought. Maybe this way her character would remain pure, unwarped by the forces that pull at my life. Or at the very least, this way she would leave the story on a positive note, without me trying to dissect or criticize her.

The half-Titanian, half-Ganymedean finally got back to me when she sent out a mass message, apologizing to anyone who had been trying to get a hold of her, and claiming that her texti had been lost somewhere up north for the past week. I was too excited to hear from her to play it cool or aloof, but it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t going to try to turn this into conquest or victory, or worry about losing ground or influence over her; this was about two people who wanted to be together, not just trying to get something out of the other.

I attempted to make some interesting arrangements for the weekend, thinking I’d just take her sailing and maybe hang out somewhere in Chesapeake for the evening. Even though she was down for adventure, her schedule wasn’t, so I tried to find something nearby that would be worth while, I was so afraid of boring the classy girl. Somehow we ended up at the campus theatre in Nova City, slightly underdressed amongst the freaks and cultists lined up for the weekly Horror Show. I picked up a bottle of red and we went home for some sanguine delight.

Over the next week, I spent my time split evenly between catching up on my chronicling, hanging out with Rip and sleeping with Koi. I felt my time was being used productively though, whether I was adding a few dozen more pages to the file, playing a summers worth of video games with one of my bestis, or walking alongside a slender vixen on old paved streets and walkways. We always ended up somewhere rich with history it seemed, one night in Olde Town, the next across the river on the waterfront of Menesopolis. Out west, near where she and Rip each lived, we spent an evening on a Civil War battlefield, coincidentally visiting on the 147th anniversary of site. There were no spooks or spirits to be seen though, but what do you expect.

The next morning, I woke up with a new message from Koi waiting on my texti, saying she thought that I was postponing my return to Mars because of her, and that she didn’t want to keep me from my life. She suggested we not see each other until after I scheduled my flight, which seemed fair enough to me. I logged on to Zech’s terminal and found the cheapest spacefare before I thought about replying.

The earliest ship I could book passage on in my price range was embarking in almost a week. I confirmed the purchase and the balance was automatically deducted from my account. I sighed and sat back with a undeserved sense of accomplishment, creaking in what used to be my chair.

I ran my hands across the arm rests, feeling where he’d picked away the inner half of the plastic coating while bored, or impatiently waiting for one of his games to start. The yellow sponge-like foam that was revealed felt cold and moist to the touch,  leaving an unpleasant feeling on my fingertips. I got up to begin packing my bag, leaving my phone behind in my old room while I collected the rest of my possessions.

With all but one of the items I planned to take back with me to the bright, red world properly smooshed into my luggage, and resolving to dress out of the suitcase for the next 5 days, I went on a hunt for something to fit the other thing in. It’s not easy to throw a delicate, wooden guitar into a duffle-bag, so I racked my brains for any idea I could.

I had owned a guitar case at one point in time, but I had no idea if it would fit this, or any instrument. Back then I’d used the case the transport a four-footer given to me by an old co-worker; a purple acrylic monstrosity which took at least two people to operate. A consistently intense device, I recall blacking out one of the first times I used it, coming to on the floor in a puddle of drool and bong water and my friends cheering. The novelty size smoking utensil had been tucked away in storage closet, somewhere deep in Rip Gozo’s basement for the past 3 years. I hoped it was still there as I looked up his mom in my phonebook, knowing if I called her I’d have to visit her, whether she had what I needed or not.

It was still where I’d left it, luckily. The black case was ready for me on the landing, along with its molded plastic contents, covered in years of neglect. I caught up with Rip’s mom, updating her on my current situation and plans for the immediate future while Koi and I played with her new puppy.

“What about my son, is he ever going to get his driver’s license and become a productive member of society?” she asked in her most worried, demanding tone.

“He’ll be driving before you know it,” I said, half uncertain of my own words and realizing I’d probably spoke those same ones before. I smirked and felt more confident in adding “I don’t know if he’ll ever be a a productive member of society, though.”

“Well I can only ask for so much. He will at least be independent one day, right?” a thick New Tros accent still cut through all the years she hadn’t lived there.

“Of course he will, Din. Your son’s got talent and tenacity, I think he just has too much free time on his hands,” I took a second to scratch behind the dogs ears, her leg flapping on Koi’s lap. “He just needs to have a writing project that pays off, or work on his music career until he has a product,” the words seemed almost too familiar for some reason. “You know, I really shouldn’t be speaking for him…heavens know I’m more useless than he is. At least Rip’s kept the same job since I left 3 years ago.”

“Hey Klay, I don’t mean to cut you short, but we should really be going,” Koi insisted, furrowing her eyebrows as if to say ‘let’s smoke’. I took the hint without any hesitation and stood up.

“I’m sorry Din, but Koi’s right. I’ve got plenty to do still and I don’t have much time left on Earth,” I said as I inched myself towards the door.

“Alright, well be good. And tell my son, Ripton, to practice driving once in a while and be more productive,” she requested as if I were his handler, and gave Koi and I each a good hug.

“Even with him not living here with you anymore, I’m pretty sure you communicate more frequently with him than I do,” I admitted, stepping out of the front doorway with a hard case in my hand.

“Well, whatever,” she said, trying to sound cool. She shouted her superstitious blessing “Don’t talk to the pilot!” as she waved goodbye to us, Koi glancing at me with confusion.

“It’s just something their family says…kinda like ‘break a leg’, you know?” I tried to explain as I stowed the case in her cargo hold.

“Oh I see..” she seemed to understand, but her ever unsure voice always made me wonder if she really did.

We had two more stops to make before the night was through. First was just a quick one to my friend Gear’s house. Gearadot Haze, good friend since grade school, was currently on Mars, staying up north with a couple of friends from high school who also graduated college with him earlier this summer. I was actually supposed to cross paths with him somewhere on Luna, while he was hitching in the opposite direction, but I missed him when he caught a long ride through, right past the little town of Saline where we stayed that first near-fatal night. His parents wanted to send with me a few things he’d be needing, like a couple charge cards with the access keys and some other envelope I never bothered to peek in. As I left, the Hazes wished me a safe trip and, for the second time that night, I was asked to look after someone’s son.

Only one more thing to scratch off the list now: to visit my little brother’s ex-lovi, Nuggy, and her narcoleptic, lesbian, ex-stripper roommate. If there was anyone I knew who could appreciate and take care of a purple four-footer, it was that pair. When Mink went back to school, the girls’ living room became the new chill spot for my brother and I, and we’d spent many of the last days of summer vegging out in front of their screen. There was no marathon staring tonight though, just quick bowls and quick goodbyes, lest I be enlisted to be someone else’s guardian. With all my needs satisfied, we headed back out west to Koi’s house.

“What should we do now?” I asked, hoping the answer would involve sex, smoke or stargazing.

“I’m so tired,” she said without having to force a yawn. “I just wanna take a nap real quick, then we can do whatever you want.”

“That sounds good, I think we need to wait a couple hours, anyway,” I was searching the sky. “I don’t even think the moon’s out yet.”

“Well then, we should definitely nap until it is,” she smiled.

For our final escapade, I’d wanted to show her something special: her own world. I’d brought a simple telescope with me, a gift from Linda’s father a few years ago when he felt I might be homesick for Earth, so I’d never feel too far from my home. I’d intended to use it during the road trip, on the moon’s clear night skies, but the first night we were too excited just being alive still to bother setting it up, and there was too much atmospheric interference each of the other nights. From Earth, Luna and Mars were to be sharing the same sky that night, whenever they got around to rising. I thought it would be interesting to show her where she was born, and see the path I’d soon be taking myself–but it never happened. Instead, after tiring ourselves out even more, we passed out until it was almost morning.

As the sun’s golden light began to pierce the blinds, I woke up in Koi’s bed, our naked bodies pressed against each other.  We peeled apart like two pieces of the same fruit and she rolled over, her dreamlike eyes dazily fluttering open as she smiled, silently wishing me a good morning before closing, snuggling up to me again. I gazed at her affectionately, my insides welling up with the want to tell her I loved her. Who knows if I actually did, but I always seemed like I should tell it to her anytime I felt that warm happiness I got from looking at her. I always caught myself though, reasoning that it was all chemical, and I’d be excited to have any attractive girl to stare at. I also had to remind myself, if I were to say it, it would ruin any future friendship or relationship we could have–or worse: become a long distance relationship. I had no desire to ruin the good run we’d enjoyed, or treat myself to a sub-par sequel, so I bit my lip kept my feelings to myself.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, knowing I was staring at her again without even opening her eyes.

“Nothing,” it pained me to say. “Nothing at all, go back to sleep,” I whispered, kissing her forehead and relaxing back into my pillow.

I still wonder what it would it would have been like if I’d said ‘I Love You’.

«Still Stuck on Earth»

08-16-2309

Why am I here?

Still just waiting to go back to Mars at this point, it seems. It’s almost the end of August and I’m still exactly where I was a month ago. At the very latest, I was supposed to go back at the beginning of this month, that way if I couldn’t get the money to Witt for rent, I could at least get my stuff out of that apartment before she had a new tenant move in.

That didn’t work out, and now I’m trapped here it seems. I get to say goodbye to all my friends that have kept me happy here on Earth in my plight. Everyone getting on with their responsibilities, taking no longer than a month or two to get the jitters out and back to school or off to work again. All the guys I got to hang out with and all the girls I was hooking up with all summer have retreated back to their lives.

It’s been getting awfully lonely without anyone to play with. There was one girl I had hopes of working things out with, but she disappeared as suddenly as I met her. She’d come to one of my brother’s friend’s parties, knowing fewer people there than I did, and stood out immediately. The beauty from Mars struck me dead in my tracks, her petite frame wrapped in a tight, leggy dress–all the way up to her big, doey eyes.

She complained about feeling like the oldest person at the party, a notion I was well familiar with. I realized quickly that we were actually the oldest people present, or at least I was. She and Shayne were both tied for 21, and together we formed the elders of this shindig, and made our own little clique away from the racket. Actually, I would have never hit it off with the vixen if Shayne hadn’t been trying to hit on her.

Though Shayne thought she had this one wrapped up in the bag, I still managed to get her number, and prove that she was straight. I had hoped that if I was going to be stuck on Earth, I might be able to spend that time with an attractive girl I could vibe with. Unfortunately, it looked like no such look for me, as she never responded to any messages or calls. With Shayne taking off to move to Mars in the next week or two, it looked like I was going to be on Earth without any friends.

Also, it definitely looks like I’ve lost the what I have to return to there. My roommate seems to have gotten my replacement lined up, as Allan’s had to do me the favor of getting my possessions from my old place in the small increments she’s let him take without seeing any money from me yet. I don’t really know what I’ll be going back to when I free myself from my Earthly bonds.

I need to go back to Mars, but I’m getting more nervous about it each day that I’m away. The anxiety is near palpable, but I can’t help but wonder if I’m not better off here. I guess the only way to find out is to go back, but who knows when that will ever happen.