«Quinto de Mayo»

05-05-2309

I have to go out tonight. I have to celebrate. I have to do something.

I’ve wasted all the other holidays so far. New years day was a rather dry occasion if I recall, as was the Titanian new year for that matter. I wasn’t too worried about participating in Lent, so Fat Tuesday slipped right by without me noticing. I tasted no green beer on St. Patty’s day, or the following day which happened to be my 22nd birthday–you know, that’s the one you’re supposed to spend trashed at the slots of Copernicus for half a week. And though the 20th of April is more of a smoking holiday, I still didn’t even do much of that. It’s been a kind of boring year as of yet.

You know, I’m not a huge partier or anything, but I always enjoy having a good excuse to get wasted. I don’t know why I like the novelty of holidays so much though, something about community I guess. Like a a church service, but one held once a month so you don’t start getting sick of the people you see every time. I like seasonal celebrations too, since there’s supposedly four of those, though you wouldn’t notice here. They say there’s an excuse to drink for every day of the year though.

Today is the annual Martian reason to have a raucous BBQ. Almost exactly like Earth’s Fourth of July celebrations of independence from Ganymede, Mars salutes their ancestor’s throwing off the reins of Io on this day. Identical in all regards now that I think about it, I’m sure they even shoot off fireworks or light something tonight.

Like most foreign holidays, it’s just been incorporated into the canon of Earthling excuses to booze. I can remember back home even, kids in school always came back from the weekend with stories about an event I was only vaguely aware of. It’s a little different here though, where it actually happened–everyone celebrates it, even the Marslings.

Maybe it’s to honor our forefathers. Perhaps we need reasons outside of our approval to drink. Either way, there’s a special at the bar you’d be crazy not to take advantage of.

«Resolutions»

01-05-2309

     Standing in a stagnant security check point line I begin to come up with my list of resolutions. It’s the appropriate Earth tradition this part of the year, but I just start doing it to kill time.

     The first is to be more assertive. This is only at the top of the list since I’m currently struggling to strike up a conversation with the redhead standing before me in the queue. There’s a painless dialogue with this attractive stranger that could be had right now, easing both of our nerves before a long space flight to Mars, or whatever destination she was going to that I was too shy to inquire about. Instead we play that game of continuous nervous glances, keeping each other in our respective fields of vision while seeming to pass cynical, possibly just exhausted, messages back and forth. Punctuating each of our sentences with inviting smiles that , perhaps, read as just coy smirks. As she steps up to hand her passport over she peeks over her shoulder as if to say ‘Nice talking with you’.

     The second resolution comes to me while sitting in a car of the subway system connecting the concourses from beneath the tarmac. The next time I walk into a room, acting and dressed ostentatiously, I have to be prepared with enough confidence to actually speak to someone. It’s a little like the first resolution, but anything that needs to be reiterated is certainly something I need to work on. If I’m going to share my talents and success, or try to rub off some undeserved sense of self-importance on others, I have to be able to feel comfortable enough with my assets to actually deem them valuable. The first key to making someone interested in what you have to say is being captivated enough with your own words that they can’t help but be too. I slump back in the nylon seat and hide behind my thick, dark green shades.

     The third resolution is a freebee, I came up with it before the others–don’t be so much of a pushover. Playing ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ can only be so helpful, and doesn’t seem to be paying off in all the years I’ve put it into practice. From now on, if there’s something I need or just want I’m going to speak up and take it. It’s really simple: what life does not give me I will get for myself. I push up my shades and cut into the line to when they call to board my row. It’s kind of a wide line though, and I end up letting the elderly Saturnian couple I would have cut go ahead of me anyway.

     As I’m walking up the aerobridge to where it meets the wide door of the red Perseus-Class that will take me back to my excuse for a life on mars, I realize that all three of my resolutions are all kind of the same one. As I ponder now how to kill three birds with one stone I come to my lot. My heart suddenly jumps into my throat, as to say hello to the girl from the security checkpoint, who is seated next to my empty chair. How I plan to carry out my resolutions throughout the year is no longer a matter at this moment–I take off the sunglasses and prepare to tackle all three at once.

«Eviction Party»

12-22-2308

     The news was inevitable. There was no way that Tohm had come up with the money, and Eon had moved out three days prior, knowing as well as I did what was about to happen. It was a rather expected notice, and well prepared for, but the news was still shocking.

     ‘Notice of Eviction for Tenants of Apartment Γ-1. Effective as of 12/18/2308. Sincerely, OC Properties Management.’

     I sighed and crumpled the paper up, making sure to pick off the last threads of celluloid tape that affixed it to our front door. I had been putting off the first cigarette of the day so I wouldn’t have to be the one announcing it to Tohm; not that we didn’t see it coming anyway. I didn’t even want to light the my factory-rolled tobacco stick, but I suddenly needed it.

     Tohm had lost his job, serving at that family restaurant in Newport Beach, about five weeks ago. His irresponsibility and propensity to sleep until the early evening eventually overcame any good standing he had with his bosses or the clientele. Being a corporate chain, they took the two warnings for similar slip-ups into strong account when they terminated him, and the effects were immediate.

     We had already turned in my portion of the rent, and used it to finagle ourselves a 15 day Promise-To-Pay extension on the rent, but with eight days in and not a dollar from Tohm for what he owed, it didn’t look like there were any options out. The day he lost his job, all my hopes of starting my life anew in Costa Mensa were quickly siphoned off. That was until it flooded in the day before our last scheduled eviction.

     A surge of hope named Eon flowed in that day. She had come to hang with us just as she had last week. And, expecting consequences as disastrous as her first visit, came prepared with a weeks worth of clothes and her beauty supplies. Lou had only intended on chilling out for a couple of days while she was suspended from her retail job in NA, but when our plight dawned on her in the early afternoon, it seemed her plans had changed.

     She was the only reason we were able to keep the new place. She sacrificed every dollar she had saved up working all summer long, money she had wanted to use to get herself a crawler out here, or maybe just spend on girly things that would make her happy. Instead it disappeared faster than a cockroach in the light.

     Keeping my home wasn’t, of course, the only pro to the situation. I had been infatuated, if not enamored, with Eon since we went to school together back on Earth. The fates had never allowed us to become close in the past, but I felt like her first moving to Mars, then falling upon my doorstep, and having enough money to keep us afloat another month were all the orchestrations of invisible hands I’d never paid much attention to.

     Granted, at times I wanted those invisible hands to wring her soft little neck, but that’s just a con of living platonically with someone you have such a strong attraction to. She was never farther than arms length at any time during her occupancy, we even shared the same bed. You’d think I’d have gotten sick of what was apparently unrequited love, but instead the feelings grew in my gut like a tumor. So much to the point that I didn’t even feel upset about losing my home as much as I was distraught about not living with her.

     I also don’t have any qualms with outing Tohm. He had, and continues to have, a major drug problem. I drink alcohol and smoke cannabis almost every day, but these are the days I can afford it. He was addicted to Venusian Coca; a habit that cost him 60 dollars a day even when he didn’t have the money for it. On top of that he also consumed everything else that wasn’t nailed down in the house with such fervor it made me wonder if the devil worked as hard for what he wanted.

     I blamed him for losing my home. I blamed myself for not realizing this would happen the day we moved in and he started chatting away on his touchi in Martian with his dealer when I told him I had a little cash to get booze. I blamed Allan for setting me up with his co-worker in the first place, knowing him and his problems far better than I did. Mostly though, I just blamed Tohm for being too hopeless to ever recover.

     I spent the last day in my brand new home carrying all of my possessions out of it. Luckily our neighbors had agreed to let us keep our stuff in their garage until we could find new places to live, so it was a short trip down the flight of stairs–but like everything, I had to do it on my own. It’s only fitting though, that the captain go down with his ship. I surveyed the damage one last time, the rooms barren and fresh as the day we moved in 2  months ago. I stepped back, tipping my hat to emptiness and locked up, closing the door on this chapter of my life.

     At least I was going home for the holiday, and it worked out that my flight back to Earth would occur the same day I had to vacate the residence. As I started my crawler for the first and last time in two weeks, I thought of my dear Eon and hoped to feel the warmth of her embrace soon. I lit a cigarette and watched my old place disappear in the rear view mirror.