07-06-2309
I’m home, I’m home!
After two long weeks, I’m finally home. Well, I’ve been home for a little while now, but there was plenty of recovery necessary. It’s actually been over a month now since I left my quiet home on Mars. I’ll just sum up the past few weeks quickly for you, none of the verbose detail of the past entries.
The rest of the ride was uneventful, spare a wet fiasco with part of the large aft hatch that wouldn’t stay closed during some rain we drove through, nothing that important, though. Ok, so the interior lights won’t turn of now, big deal, at least it doesn’t drain the beast’s battery every time we turn her on.
I spent the first week in Mink’s basement getting high, or out at the bar drinking with him; anything we could do to stave off sobriety another moment. Any form of altered state would suffice, this was our homeostasis for now. We asked ourselves why we couldn’t just go back to that paradise, or at least bring it’s irregular traditions back to the real world. There were no wake and bakes or early evening doses here.
I got a chance to go sailing that weekend, just my brother and I with my dad, out riding in the solar wind on his 38-footer. I had to reveal my tattoo to my father rather quickly, lest he notice it then I took the gloves off in between course adjustments. He didn’t seem too surprised by it, which is just as well since I assumed he’d seen it online beforehand. He just gave me the “You’re a free, white, Earthling over 21–you can do whatever you want,” speech, which was a relief when learned I smoked cigarettes sometime after that.
It was nice to be in my old house again, even though my brother acquired my room a long time ago, and the cats had acquired his. He had had to drop off all three at a shelter not too long ago, being unable to find a single person who could take care of any one of them. It was certainly upsetting, and something I still haven’t gotten used to; I still hear small thuds and mews when the house is empty, and any dark object on the ground–from a backpack to a watering can or a pair of boots–takes on feline qualities in the corners of my eyes.
Before they departed, my orange cat had left a present for my brother one day, rendering his mattress unusable if he couldn’t adapt to the smell of ammonia and saline. So he took my old bed in my absence, leaving me to rest on an unheavenly uncomfortable, inflatable mattress. More of a slip-and-slide, or plain old death trap if you ask me. The second weekend when Leona came to visit me, it proved near fatal.
She had driven down from New Tros with a co-worker named Ann to stay with me the weekend. We’d been keeping a strong correspondence since we had left the festival, and on such good terms, I had been looking forward to seeing my Earthling buddy this summer.
Sparks certainly flew when we saw each other, the friction of two like minds coming together with a similar goal. And every single tiny movement was amplified with the warping and squeaking of the terrible latex bedding, especially dangerous with Ann, sleeping on the floor of the same room. It was going to be an unfortunate evening for someone.
The next day we took the metro hoverrail into the capitol, apparently to join in the protest of a clean energy bill that wasn’t good enough for our needs. It was fun getting to carry around signs and wear green hardhats, but we weren’t entirely dedicated to the peaceful protest, or all the rules placed against it by the multitude of police and security surrounding the legislative buildings. We broke off when it was most convenient for us and wandered to the mall and the museums.
We visited two of the major ones, particularly both of my favorites. First, the Air and Space museum, where all manner of rocket and ship were on display, from the beginning of astronautics to modern day prototypes. I guided them through my most nostalgic spots, interesting to see how much smaller it all seemed to me now that I wasn’t holding onto my father’s hand.
The Natural History museum was our next stop, the giant mammoth that greets you in the main atrium definitely not appearing so gargantuan anymore. We explored a few areas of this museum I’d never remembered wandering before, particularly the mammals and the ancient sea exhibits, comparing the evolution of different types of similar animals on different worlds of our solar system.
We also spent a long time wandering through the gem and mineral showcase, until which I’d never placed much credence in crystal power. I never remember feeling that exhausted before, as if each cluster of amethyst and calcite, or the rainbow array of quartz each tapped a bit of energy as we passed them by. We called it a night soon afterwords, heading back to my little suburb and bidding farewell to Ann, who left to stay with a friend we’d met in the city rather than come home with us.
The next day we took a bit of a walking tour through my hometown, Vine, where I learned more about it than I’d ever previously known. On top of being founded on one of the most important routes to and from Menesopolis, it also acted as an important point for supplying the military effort in Earth’s civil war and both the solar wars. Also, it apparently used to be named Ayrhill, which would explain why every street in the old part of town are named after it.
One of the few landmarks Vine holds dear is the old red booster. A relic from the spaceport that used to pump life into the heart of this town, which is now a square of concrete and tarmac with rusted equipment and metal towers crumbling under the creepers that have weighed them down for decades. The industrial district contains no other remains besides this discarded first-stage booster, dolled up a little bit with a new shiny paint job. They still let you take a climb through it, the ancient wrought iron construction still reeking of oil and fuel.
That next week, after Leona had returned to New Tros, someone else randomly came into town. Shayne Lynoir, the lesbian chemical biologist, was one of the nicer friends I had in high school. We’d begun to rehash things when she came out to visit Mars earlier this spring, seeing if she wanted to go to school at University Mars: Caspian. She had been on Adrastea for the summer, working some well paying chemistry job while she got to enjoy the sights of the canalous capital of Omstel.
She’d come home to Earth for a week to attend a funeral, so she was much relieved she could hang out with someone with whom she could share her new passion for the Fire of Jove. She went into detail about all the hi-grade cultivars she’d been privilege to, some of which I’d known from my new home, others of which I’d never even heard of. She had decided she would definitely choose UMC and a life on Mars over the peace corps or a Jovian school, excited to take advantage of the legality of the green medicine and become a rockstar chemist.
The third weekend I was back was the weekend of independence day. Leona came down from New Tros again, and this time Brick also came up from Carolina the day before, when we had a few drinks to celebrate his 21st birthday that I‘d missed since I last saw him. It was great seeing how my companions from the road trip were faring, and it would be fun to celebrate our world’s independence from Ganymede with friends from both my worlds.
I took them sailing the morning of the 4th. Along with my brother and a slew of his friends, we set out from a small port up in Chesapeake where my dad keeps his black-trimmed ship harbored. My brother and I manned the sails mostly while our friends got to enjoy the ride, taking a short tour out and around.
We had been maintaining a good clip for a short while when Zech got a mischievous idea. He had already felt the rush of invincibility when we hoisted him 40 feet upwards to repair one of the headsail lines that busted on our last jaunt. He got started putting a light suit on and finding a strong enough line, making for the aft.
“I’m gonna tie off and dive in,” he said with more confidence than I felt it was safe to have in space.
“Wait, what? I don’t think you…well…ok, I’ll get the camera,” I said, agreeing to the idea, but not sure if it was because I trusted him or if I liked the idea of something going wrong.
“To take pictures? That’s a good idea,” he said, securing his gauntlet like gloves to his sleeves.
“No, I’m gonna take a video, post you on the nets,” I snickered, turning on Leona’s clicki. “If this doesn’t get me a few hits on uScreen, I don’t know what will.”
“As long as you’re sure you’ll be fine,” our father said, making sure there was nothing ahead for a few thousand feet before locking the heading with the autopilot. “Just make sure you’ve got a life preserver ready on a line to give him, Klay,” he requested.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it,” I said patting blindly at it as I looked through the viewfinder. “Brick, Lazze, I want you guys on aft, ready to pull his rope in if he needs out.”
“Aye, aye,” Brick said, tightening a pair of gloves for grip.
I began filming. Zech secured the last lock on his helm and ran his thumb over a wristat built into the left gauntlet. He looked up, waved at the camera, and turned to wave at the rest of the people on board, I followed with my lens to get a shot of the audience before returning to my brother, leaning over to make sure his line was secure to a hard point on the ship, then snug it around his waist and looked to my dad for approval, who must have signaled him off camera. He dived off the back platform immediately.
At first he looked perfectly euphoric, simply tumbling weightless for a moment of bliss, I could see the glint of his smile through the visor. It disappeared suddenly as the rope pulled taught, jerking him violently towards us. He awkwardly struggled, flailing his arms as he tried to grab hold and swim back in.
“Get him out of there, now, start pulling, guys! Now!” my father barked. The other men began heaving him in while Zech crawled hand over hand up his end. I caught it all on camera, until he was back on board, threw his helmet off and was in my face.
“Why didn’t you throw the life preserver? I could have stayed out there if you did,” he was livid, and reasonably, I would be if I was just dangled off the back of a ship in outer space.
“Well somebody had to film it,” I said facetiously, still holding the clicki to my eye. When I saw he wasn’t amused, I switched it off and handed it off. “Dad wanted you back onboard and you already had a line secured to you. You think it would have been any easier to do it holding on to two ropes?”
“It might have made it easier to fight against the ship’s wake, I almost choked to death out there with the pressure,” he was still ready to hurt me.
“Or it might have made it harder to get you back in with even more resistance,” I tried to placate him, but he was upset. He calmed down eventually, but I could tell he was ready to push me off as soon as I wasn’t looking.
When we’d made it back to port we all split our separate ways. My brother had cooled down now, but he wouldn’t let me forget this for a while. Brick, Leona and I headed to their friends house nearby in Chesapeake, a part of the territory we referred to only as Fredneck.
We hadn’t arrived soon enough to get a good spot, or even find the park where everyone was set up to watch the large firework display, so we ended up watching it from the parking lot a nearby shopping center. The ecstatic incendiary devices tickled our senses for an extensive ceremony, filled with many new varieties I’d never seen blown up before.
The party afterwords was a lot of fun. I usually worry a bit about kickbacks I’m not familiar with more than a couple of people at, but I had a really good time with Brick’s friends from his Earth school. We drank, played pong and I played my music late into the night.
I bid farewell to each of them the next day, so glad we could get together again, and satisfied to finally have a sort of epilogue to the summer’s journey. I’ll glance back at this as the closing chapter of the road trip, and look forward to my next great adventure.
