«Conversational Change»

04-11-2309

“And so if from every conversation one learns something, and every time one learns something it changes them, it’s simple to see why people don’t want to communicate most of the time,” summarized Allan, edging towards a conclusion, though incomprehensibly distant.

“Yeah, they’re just afraid of change,” I responded , excited to think the conversation that had been continuing for days was finally coming to an end. I hammered in what ironically was not the last nail in the coffin, adding “A well recognized pattern of wanting to stick to one’s own habits.” A spark suddenly shone in his eyes, a spark that I’d come to hate. It meant that he had found a word in the last sentence that would be just enough, if not exactly what he needed, to make a counter statement.

“Ah but doesn’t he say we need to develop habituation in order to achieve and maintain happiness?” the Martian said, motioning to the book on the floor, a rather heavy throwback he carried around in his satchel. This text, for one of his philosophy classes, was renowned enough to be available on eBook–certainly not an obscure relic in any means–but he preferred being able to hold the real dead wood in his fingers as he read. He could just upload it to his texti. He had never complained that reading it off a screen hurt his eyes or anything, he’s always messaging with the phone constantly. I guess he liked feeling the weight of the pages in his hands or something, I imagine he thinks it gives the work a real body with mass and makes the words impact with more force. Or, he could just like books.

“I guess, yeah,” I took a drag of my cig and sighed out a cloud of smoke. I was reminded momentarily of hating teachers I had in the past who decided it was fun to lead their students down one path of reasoning until they just got to the door, only to pull the mat out from underneath when they got there. You know, make you agree with something then tell you it’s wrong–though easy to believe–just to drive a point. I looked around and didn’t see the rest of the class sitting in the crawler to watch the example demonstrated, and turned back to Allan. “But I don’t remember when we were even talking about that,” I stated suddenly acting aspirated, as if that would actually stop him from going there.

“Well, one of the things I’m learning in all my classes is that a philosophy is no good if it can’t be applied to anything at anytime,” a triumphant return to the floor must have been echoed with a cheering crowd in his mind.  I thought of a way to silence them quickly.

“Didn’t you say that any and all theories break down at some point?” I tried to hide the smirk creeping across my lips as I, again, thought I had struck a vital blow with one of his own weapons. All of his theories break down when I’m around, anyway.

“Yes, but existentialism teaches us that we should examine where they crumble and why, so as to better understand the nature of theories, ourselves and the world around us,” he said, artfully dodging my strike with what seemed too well rehearsed a defense.

“Even if we have to be the ones with the hammer, just to see the results more closely,” I said with a quiet sigh of admission. If you can’t beat em, join em. Especially if it’s that tiny bit or resistance that was the only reason you were stuck on that topic. I’ll often find myself agreeing to things just so a conversation moves on more smoothly, which just becomes silly when you remember half of the things that I say I disagree with are actually things I do agree with. It just makes a boring argument if everyone starts on the same side.

Since there was a momentary confusion brought on by agreement, I had bought myself one chance to slip in a seemingly careless observation that could send this whole thing spinning into a different direction. “I guess anything can be examined existentially about a topic to be reapplied existentially to any other topic,” I was a cheap cliché, but I wondered where this one would go as I unleashed it.

“Well, yes,” I watched him agree, then pause to think about it, then return to agreeing. He then looked as if he couldn’t think of anything good to say in addition to my statement, and was about to take up a contrary position just to have something to say before his texti began to buzz. He found it in one of his pockets and,  seeing Nymh’s name and photo displayed, answered it immediately. “Hi baby, what’s up?” he spoke as directly as he could toward the tiny mic hidden somewhere on the phone though he knew not where exactly it was.

As much as I try not to listen to anything he says, at least during phone calls I don’t have to participate or respond so it’s a little easier to. In the periphery of my senses I could tell he was heated up and speaking to her with just as much fervor, but I couldn’t hear it over the wind and smoke billowing out of my cigarette. I sighed and smiled up at a sunbeam before Allan’s shouting finally broke my concentration.

“What?! What do you mean you can’t? How dare they? How are you in any way not deserving?” He was upset, red in the face upset. I can’t hear anything on her end but I’m pretty sure it’s about the trip to see Cydonia this summer. After a serious of unintelligible agreements and motivations, Allan wheeled into the end of his conversation. “Alright honey, you talk to him about watching her that week and then we’ll see how they feel about it then. I love you.” he ended the call and looked about ready to throw the texti at a nearby stucco wall.

“Plenty of good news to share, I suppose,” my sarcasm may have been unnecessary but it’s certainly more sincere than the concern I show for most things. Besides, humor helps any situation…almost.

“Stupid, backwards Tethean parents and their fucking rules,” he used as much venom as he could muster in the articulation of each word. “They won’t let her go because they say that vacations are deserved by people who didn’t fuck up their lives. Then they called Rei a disgrace to the family and mostly a disgrace to her,” he said spitefully, himself not agreeing with a  single word of it.

“Ahh…” I could have expected this coming, Nymh’s parents are just like any other Saturnian parents: stubborn, steeped in their ancient traditions, and sure that they wield absolute power. It’s rude to generalize, but in every family men have all the honor and respect before women, and beyond that more with age. Being the youngest female in her family, she dwindles far down at the bottom of the pecking order. On top of that, about three years ago she became pregnant with a Martian boy named Arturius, which they think brings shame to her and to them all, and still don’t let her live down to this day, though Rei is the brightest and most loving little girl I have ever known.

They refuse to see the merits in her and her 2½ year old daughter because tradition says they are deviants, so Nymh and Rei continue to exist as disgraces to them. Even her sisters gang up on her and berate her when her parents aren’t around to do so. They say she doesn’t contribute enough to the family and is useless to them. They don’t figure that it’s expensive and time consuming to raise a toddler as a working single-mother with no help at home to take care of the child–or if they do they just write it off as her problem since she got herself in that mess in the first place. A Saturnian family runs more like a team or a crew, it’s more about what each member can achieve towards the goals of the whole than what that whole can afford to spare it’s individual.

All I can really do is shake my head in disapproval. There’s nothing in these thoughts that Allan and I haven’t already discussed at great lengths, and a nod from him confirms we are just thinking the same thing. I reach for the cigarettes and light another, hanging my arm out of the window of his crawler in the red afternoon.

“I’ve gotta talk to my mom real quick and then make a few calls,” he said, not sounding too existentially excited or even pleased with his day anymore.  “I’ll be inside,” and the door closed behind him. I sat a moment longer and sighed, perplexed by the strange new road block.

I don’t think it will be that hard to get around it though, Nymh’s a grown-up and I think she can take off for a week if she wants, so I’m not too worried about her not being able to make it to Cydonia. But that would suck if she couldn’t. Well, at least maybe Allan and I might actually have enough time to finish a conversation.

No, wait. He didn’t even make it inside, he’s coming back. Worse, it really looks like he’s got something to say.

«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.

«The New Year»

01-01-2309

     The late night sky on Earth is windy and clear. A thousand points of light, static and shifting alike, paint the scene on a pitch black backdrop; the dry fingers of trees and hard edges of houses creating a border. The garage door closes obediently behind me as I step out into an icy gale. I suddenly regret taking my mother’s crawler out this evening as I thumb the key in one hand and search for a cig in my other pocket. I begin the ignition, light up and close the door, standing outside and exposed to the weather. A familiarity in this winter sky is the only thing keeping me comforted.

     Shivering in a fashionably functionless coat, I inhale as deeply as I can in order to expedite this process. My mother’s vehicle remains eerily inert as the engine groans aloud, not quite drowned out by the crinkle and sway of dying branches in he wind. As it slowly warms up, I continue to smoke a cigarette that I want less and less, mindlessly admiring the car’s sleek design. It’s a lot like mine back on Mars; a squat, 4-wheel hatchback with an aggressive front-end and a larger engine then is necessary for the average commuter. A Saturnian made machine that looks more like a beetle than my Jovian rodent, and hers is as dark as midnight. If it were at all capable of flight, the craft would surly blend into this scene.

     Tightening the scarf and hugging myself with my free hand, I reckon this the most eventful moment of the New Year’s Eve. I should have been in New Tros City celebrating with my roommate Tohm, but that plan was made a month ago before he burned me and cost me my new apartment. Instead the evening was spent seated in Rip’s room, huddled around a card game and an intense philosophical and existential debate. It’s been a fun night, and I’ve certainly drank and smoked enough, but it’s been no different from any other night since I’ve been back on Earth.

     I need excitement, and loud music; a party and lots of booze. I need conversations with strangers and rehashing with old friends I wouldn’t want to speak to unless I were already tipsy. I mostly need a girl to kiss on a night like this, though, and blamed my funky state on a lack of such luck. I also need to be done with this damn cig.

     I stamp it out and quickly slip into the ebony insect, the whole frame vibrating in idle as the vents finally produce a warm climate. I shiver involuntarily as my body adjusts to the sudden heat and sink down into the seat, sighing when I’m finally comfortable. I put the crawler in drive and begin the quiet journey back to my home. I silently hope the new year is more favorable than the last one as I leave the yellow-lamp circle and proceed to the highway.

«Everyone Comes Here»

11-25-2308

     I wished goodbye to my three Earthling neighbors as they left my apartment. Then, after shaking my head in amusement, I turned to sit and light a Martian Spirit, almost choking as I took that first drag. I pulled up my scarf, leaned back and closed my eyes to the night’s brisk coastal wind as I pondered.

     In the two years I’ve lived here, I don’t believe I’ve ever been drawn to any group of people as much as those not from this place. Whether my friends were Venusian, Saturnian or Jovian, it never mattered as long as they were not a native born Martian. Within the past few months, though, I’ve noticed a startling empathy for the people of my world, Earth.

     They say birds of a feather flock together, and I could never have denied my attraction to like-minded individuals, especially ones who’ve felt just as lonely and alien on this planet as I. Somehow we could tell, there was just a raw magnetism between our kind, and I found it more than coincidence that every time I’d end up vibing off someone I had a conversation with, they turned out to be from home or Luna almost every time.

     My roommate, Tohm, was a lanky Earthling from New Tros who came out to Mars, ironically, to sober up 2 years ago. Our neighbor, Charae, was a stacked Lunarian that wanted to be a wealthy star but ended up a weekend dancer instead. Duke, a friend I still had from my last job, was born in Earth’s cold north and never complained about the weather here, though his family was from one of Saturn’s more tropical moons. Allan may have been the only Martian on the planet I didn’t want to bludgeon yet.

     What I found absolutely tickling, though, were the amount of people I’d run into not just from earth, but from the suburbs of DT where I grew up. A week after I moved to Costa Mensa I helped a group of girls carry furniture into our apartment complex. Justene was born in Chesapeake and lived in Dominia until she was three, and Manna was born and raised just down the street from me in McLean, leaving the Earth about the same time I did. Eon, of course, was a high school friend that came to Mars 6 months ago who now, by some sort of luck, came to be my second roommate two weeks ago. Manna even knew little Lou, having been a friend of her poor brother. 

     A half dozen other friends already came and went, either back to Earth or on through the rest of the solar system. And I asked everyone I knew the same question, why did you want to come to Mars? Startled, I found out each person had a very similar reason to mine.

     Everyone came here to follow a dream, whether it was success or fame, wealth or power, or just taking control of the life that was rightfully theirs. Each person felt like they’d never have accomplished their goals where they were, and some light drew them in to this place like a co-dependant moth. Everyone held this magical esteem of Mars, be it projected upon us by movies or teli, handed off from the prosperous antenna-clad travelers who came to Earth, or if it was just a figment of our collective imagination.

     I never gave up the hope that I would achieve what I set out to do here, but I’ve conceded that I may need to start on the other side of the planet. I snuffed the cig out and went back inside to discuss travel with Tohm and Eon.

     I wished goodbye to my three Earthling neighbors as they left my apartment. Then, after shaking my head in amusement, I turned to sit and light a Martian Spirit, almost choking as I took that first drag. I pulled up my scarf, leaned back and closed my eyes to the night’s brisk coastal wind as I pondered.

     In the two years I’ve lived here, I don’t believe I’ve ever been drawn to any group of people as much as those not from this place. Whether my friends were Venusian, Saturnian or Jovian, it never mattered as long as they were not a native born Martian. Within the past few months, though, I’ve noticed a startling empathy for the people of my world, Earth.

     They say birds of a feather flock together, and I could never have denied my attraction to like-minded individuals, especially ones who’ve felt just as lonely and alien on this planet as I. Somehow we could tell, there was just a raw magnetism between our kind, and I found it more than coincidence that every time I’d end up vibing off someone I had a conversation with, they turned out to be from home or Luna almost every time.

     My roommate, Tohm, was a lanky Earthling from New Tros who came out to Mars, ironically, to sober up 2 years ago. Our neighbor, Charae, was a stacked Lunarian that wanted to be a wealthy star but ended up a weekend dancer instead. Duke, a friend I still had from my last job, was born in Earth’s cold north and never complained about the weather here, though his family was from one of Saturn’s more tropical moons. Allan may have been the only Martian on the planet I didn’t want to bludgeon yet.

     What I found absolutely tickling, though, were the amount of people I’d run into not just from earth, but from the suburbs of DT where I grew up. A week after I moved to Costa Mensa I helped a group of girls carry furniture into our apartment complex. Justene was born in Chesapeake and lived in Dominia until she was three, and Manna was born and raised just down the street from me in McLean, leaving the Earth about the same time I did. Eon, of course, was a high school friend that came to Mars 6 months ago who now, by some sort of luck, came to be my second roommate two weeks ago. Manna even knew little Lou, having been a friend of her poor brother. 

     A half dozen other friends already came and went, either back to Earth or on through the rest of the solar system. And I asked everyone I knew the same question, why did you want to come to Mars? Startled, I found out each person had a very similar reason to mine.

     Everyone came here to follow a dream, whether it was success or fame, wealth or power, or just taking control of the life that was rightfully theirs. Each person felt like they’d never have accomplished their goals where they were, and some light drew them in to this place like a co-dependant moth. Everyone held this magical esteem of Mars, be it projected upon us by movies or teli, handed off from the prosperous antenna-clad travelers who came to Earth, or if it was just a figment of our collective imagination.

     I never gave up the hope that I would achieve what I set out to do here, but I’ve conceded that I may need to start on the other side of the planet. I snuffed the cig out and went back inside to discuss travel with Tohm and Eon.

«Caravans to Cuffed Hands»

09-19-2308

     It was supposed to be our last hurrah. It was supposed to be the last great adventure before the summer came crashing to an end. It was supposed to be a memorable experience for all.

«←→»

     When I regain consciousness I’m handcuffed to a chair in a foreign concrete corridor. I’m halfway through reciting my address to a grizzled uniform disinterestedly taking my words down on his requisite paperwork.

     “It was pretty sly of you trying to sneak by me wearing a different top,” the hardened old officer snarls sarcastically, “but you didn’t fool me for a second. You should thank your friends for bringing you back in so you could go to jail,” he finished with palpable scorn before looking back to his clipboard. At the mention of this I realize I wasn’t wearing half of my clothes anymore. Suddenly I’m wearing a collared shirt under a read Europan sweater. I begin to feel the gravity of the situation, my hands bound behind my back by a plastic band, seated in an unfamiliar place with the contents of my pockets strewn across a folding table. It’s only now that I start to wonder what happened to the past few hours, so I try to piece it together as I casually dispense personal information to the badge with a slur.

     We were going down to Sanctus Da Vinci for a two day festival-style concert so we could celebrate the end of summer. Next week my best Martian friend, Allan, would begin school at his new university. He somehow convinced our Saturnian friend and fellow bandmate, Dune, and myself to spend what little money we had left on tickets. At the time, we thought that was an awful price to pay.

     The night before we would set out, Matt and I made ourselves a part of a different adventure in the name of rock and roll. After visiting a bar, named after an Earth city renowned for its music scene, we tagged along with the friends whom we came to see, and the other two bands they just played with, to an after party. The caravan left Costa Mensa heading for the City of Olympus. A bustling suburb between NA and Fender that unwitingly awaited the trail of crawlers we joined.

     Led by our friends’ tour van, the party arrived at 2 AM and didn’t die until 4. It wasn’t your typical party; the loud music and alcohol is requisite. But this crowd seemed to be more concerned with having a good conversation than see how many beers they could chug. At some point, after the Uranian comedy duo was done playing on the wall-mounted  teli, Ganymedean techno began blasting and everyone began to dance. Whatever dismay I had suffered earlier in the eve had dissolved completely from my memory, maybe taken by the sweat now soaking my hair and clothes. Through some irony, the cops would put an end to the fun this evening, prompting our departure back to my home to catch what little rest we could before the real trip began.

     As to be expected, we woke up late. With no time to shower and properly prepare ourselves for the coming day, we rushed down 4 freeways to meet Dune where he was waiting at Allan’s house by himself. The Saturnian obviously had enough forethought the night before to know this was going to be a grueling journey, otherwise he would have answered our calls when we begged him come to the show.  Originally wanting to be parking in Sanctus Da Vinci at 2 PM, our show didn’t get on the road until 4. I kept reassuring them we’d be there in time for the first band, that it only took two hours to get there. I was wrong, but of course I was, I’d never been to Da Vinci before. Once I’d been to Oceanside with my only other Martian friend, Brick, the halfway point from OC to SDV, and was foolishly miscalculating our ETA by thinking it was much closer.

     An hour into the first set we were only checking into the hotel. It was at this exact moment that Allan realized he left his ID and his charge cards at the bar the night before. I slapped my forehead, Dune sighed and swiped his card, warning knee-breakings if he has to pay for damages to the room. After quickly dropping off our bags in a dinky hotel room, which looks like every dinky hotel room, we began running to find a bus.

     The first night of the show we didn’t even worry about chemical enhancement, we were just stoked to finally be there and listening to so much great music. The second day gave us some time to prepare before the music began to play. Since Allan didn’t have his ID he couldn’t gain access to the beer gardens to drink during the concert, we had to come up with a creative way to get fucked up. We never did come up with a better way, and didn’t want to risk entering the premises with substances illegal to carry, so we just drank in the car instead. A six pack and half a bottle of rum passed before we felt ready to let the event commence. The day’s motto was ‘We gotta get drunk, right?’, after all.

     The plan worked flawlessly at first, as most do. And as most plans involving alcohol do, it would slowly begin to unravel. Things really began to fall apart when Dune found a twenty dollar bill on the ground. This twenty would have to be spent, on booze and quickly, god damn it! The forgetful Martian waited outside impatiently as the two people who didn’t leave their ID’s at home got to enter the magical land of beer. It actually wasn’t that enchanted on the inside, discarded plastic cups in pools of strange colored liquids carpeted the way to the ticket stand. For 10 bucks you get seven 2oz samples and make you finish each before you can receive another, making it impossible to sneak any back out. This wasn’t arguable though, it just meant more beer for the two of us. More beer we’d have to finish quicker since we couldn’t it enjoy it slowly while watching the next band play, so we chugged and left the gardens a little more difficultly than we’d entered.

     At an indiscernible period of time before I left the beer garden a second time, I blacked out. Not to be confused with passing out, no I was still active as ever, the lights were definitely on but no one was home. My body continued to stumble aimlessly long enough to leave me with plenty of bruises when I woke up, but that the only part of the story I could decipher when ownership was returned to me. Everything else had to be supplied by the first hand accounts of my friends.

     I was told that on the way out to the car, the last time we needed to refuel, I was into my badass habits of jumping off or almost breaking everything between me and my destination–a typical sight when I’m not behind my own wheel. At least my body knew it was too drunk, it didn’t even take a sip of that last round of rum as it went around the back seat. The runaway train even knew well enough to insist it stay in the car, it couldn’t manage to chew what I had already bit off. But the powers of coercion work well when I’m not quite up to bat, and it would be dragged back in through the gates.

     Or at least they tried to. Some moments later Dune and Allan would realize they were a person short, walk out and find my body laying on my back somewhere down the street from the entrance. If I had been there I would have told them I had been given a warning and wasn’t allowed back in at all. If I had been there I wouldn’t have let them make me throw up and change my clothes. If I hadn’t checked out early I would’ve helped my body beg them to let both of us (me and my body, that is) stay behind.

     The next time Allan would lose sight of me, he wouldn’t find me until my hands were already bound in rings of some sort of silver-plated steel. I wouldn’t actually meet the officer until later in the evening, but in the meantime he was busy trying to get my body out of the concert and away from my friends in the most efficient manner possible.

     “Just tell us where you’re taking him,” the Martian pleaded in desperation, failing to reach any human emotion in the cop.

     “Don’t worry about him, go watch your band,” he would reply with a scorn I’d later learn is just his natural tone.

     Which brings me back to my present restrained self. I’m in complete control of my body now, though limited to the range of motion of a bobble-head doll at the moment. I’m sure if I tried to form a sentence the words would be there before the body could catch up, but instead I’m giving the officer my telephone number and former addresses so he can check my background, requiring more accuracy than I can muster.

     Last time that I come to Sanctus Da Vinci.

«Interplanetary Cuisine» Δ «Here on Mars»

     A dead calm came over the early afternoon. The wind dropped suddenly and the mixed feelings over our second day of fishing had just been stirred a little more. The sun was hot and Earth’s humidity made it so much worse, all 9 of us on this little charter boat huddled under the canopy in the middle of The Taurus. My father, brother and self along with 6 strangers, including the cross-eyed captain, his part-time first-mate, my dad’s friend Edd and 3 other Earthmen. I got dragged along on this little weekend excursion my first day back on Earth. And trust me, yesterday had been much better; chasing Chesapeake Spadefish and Saturnian Sea bass and catching them by the handful, little bastards putting up a fun fight. No such haul now though, today had only seen skates, rays and an occasional shark; one a little bay Hammerhead my dad reeled up, but she bit through the line when she caught a glimpse of the boat and eager, net-handed faces.

     With our quarry of Kobia successfully eluding us and distaste for the turn the weather took, we needed something to lift our spirits. My father turned to Edd, the large grey-rooted Ionian, seated on the cooler closest to him. The two had been friends and business partners for ages, and after meeting him for the first time on this trip, I realized why they stayed such good friends. Edd is an jolly old fellow who never runs out of stories and is always an absolute riot, the perfect kinda guy to have stuck with you on a dull day at sea. All morning he had resorted to jokes and riddles to keep us awake while nothing took our bait, and now my father knew of a perfect weapon to unsheathe for this moment.

     “Hey Edd,” he said with anxious grin, “Why don’t you tell everyone the Tortuga story?” This lit Edd’s face up like a Christmas tree, and he slapped his hands together licking his lips.

     “What a splendid idea, my good man!” Edd turned to his already captive crowd. “I’d like to treat you gentlemen to an enchanted tale about Venusian dining, but first I’m afraid you must hear of the horrors of Saturnian Cuisine,” he said, meanwhile motioning for my father to supply him with a beer, at no time taking his attention off his audience.

     “If ya don’t know of my past,” he begun, “I was an immigrant truck driver in New Tros, delivering pies all over Nuwerk. Oh it was the pits. One day I found a matchbook with a number for computer school on the back and I thought to myself ‘I’d do anything to get out of this hell’ for the second time in my life. By the next year I was working for HAL, designing reservation systems for interplanetary and eventually inter stellar travel companies, engineering credit mainframes and installing interplanetary intranets across the Solar system. It paid well, and they put me up in some of the nicest places in the system while I was on the job, sometimes staying for a month at a time. Well, lets just say I got a taste of culture.

     “This one time I stayed on Mimas for a week, I asked my host to take me out to enjoy a traditional meal of his people. I didn’t want to see a single familiar word on the menu, just point to something and be pleasantly surprised. He knew just the place and, after he watered his plants for the evening, took me there with haste.

     “Now you gotta understand my mood going into this: I sat down at a round table elbow to elbow with a dozen smelly Mimasians, all grabbing at the food in communal bowls with their bare hands. I didn’t see a single utensil or napkin, so instead I looked for a dish that everyone wasn’t knuckle deep and double dipping into. I spotted it, right next to me was a small plate piled with white objects about the size of golf balls that looked like they were covered in something like coconut. I grabbed it, noticed it was crunchy, but once I bit through the crispy exterior I was treated to the most amazing explosion of flavor. I smiled and grabbed two more, and had the third to my lips when my host came up and patted me on the shoulder. “Edd! You like the deep-fried pigeon heads!!” And sure enough, there was a little crispy beak and two little squinty eyes. Well what was I supposed to do, I popped it in my mouth, finished chewing and smiled.

     “A couple of years later the company let me bring a friend to Rhea, while I was there to help program the computer at the then new Gaia spaceport. So I took Jon, who as Keret knows,” Edd said motioning to my smirking and nodding father, “is a most timid little man from Amalthea. He’s come fishing a few times–I’ll bring him next year, we’ll all have a real laugher. Anyway, Jon and I are sitting in a the most popular restaurant in this fledgling port’s boom-town. The first half of the evening he hardly moved a muscle, staring at his plate in contempt, trying to occupy his lips with a glass of beer for as much of the evening as he could.

     “‘Psst! Edd,’ Jon whispered, leaning in to me, ‘We’re eating bait!’ I told him its not bait, it was Pingafish caught fresh that morning in this very port, and was renowned enough to bring us halfway around the moon in the middle of my vacation. ‘There’s no dish without fish!’ Jon said to me moments later after having his terrible epiphany. It was true, it was all seafood in front of us, but until this moment I had thought he was a real fisherman. I pointed to a plate next to him “You like fried calamari, right?” I said indicating a tray of sautéed squid-like things beside him. He shrugged and picked up one of the whole squid-things with a pair of chopsticks and stuck it in his mouth headfirst. Upon biting into it, its tendrils began to move and wriggle, and in shock and disgust John spit out the living creature. He then received similar looks of shock and disgust from around the table, but at the taste he left in everyone’s mouths. ‘I-I’ve got bad teeth,’ he came up with quickly, but no one bought it.

     “Afterwards, I took John aside and scolded him about rejecting their food. Told him no matter how vile or disgusting of a spread he had to treat it like it was the most tender delicacy he had ever put to his pallet. ‘We gotta prove to these guys that Earthlings aren’t tasteless, uncultured insects,’ I recall saying.

     “Well, I also I recall making the mistake of inviting Jon to come with me to Venus. We were heading near Ishtar just to visit a friend of mine who owned a brewery. We arrived at the gates of the Sol Beer Brewery and were greeted with cigars and given the grand tour by the short Europan owner. After meeting the factory floor girls, and finishing our cigars in his glass office overlooking the assembly line at full steam, he brought up the topic of nourishment. ‘I don’t know how you guys are feeling, you must be hungry after your flight, I know I’m famished just looking at you. Let us get ourselves some food and drinks, yes?’ he offered. I was eager and glanced at John who looked a little uneasy and asked ‘What about the factory, can you just leave it unsupervised?’ I could have shot him an icy glance, knowing he was doing, but the Europan responded ‘Oh, not a worry at all’ he said , thumbing for a button on the handle of his chair, and suddenly the break whistle blew on the floor, “The girls will come with us,” he said with a grin.

     “At the most popular restaurant in town we sat a dozen deep at the nicest table they could offer, with a giant bay window over looking the harbor and a saffron, early afternoon sea. By no coincidence, this establishment was sponsored by Sol Beer, and it was free as long as we kept refilling our glasses and posing for photos. After two hours of that punishment the food arrived, carried upon three giant wooden platters and set before us the table by shirtless waiters, and all the Venusian girls cheered. A smaller fourth plate was brought and placed on our end of the table before of Jon and I. The small white golf ball shaped objects it contained made my heart jump up my throat, but I swallowed it back down. ‘What’s that?’ I dared to ask the Europan. ‘Oh, Edd! That is Tortuga, of course!’ he said with a smirking slur. A moment later a realized he meant sea turtle, sea turtle eggs, a species extinct on Earth and endangered on Venus. ‘You mean like ENDANGERED Tortuga?’ I spat out in dismay. ‘Yeah, they’re great, you gotta try them, here!’ He said picking one up.

     “He squeezed it in his finger tips and it warped like a water balloon. ‘It’s leathery like any other reptile egg, no? So you take a knife,’ he said lifting a small bladed scalpel with a carved wooden handle and demonstrating how to make a proper slice. Then, taking one of a half dozen multicolored sauces in front of him, he poured a bit into the slit. ‘Once you choose a sauce you just put it to your lips, and,’ he said before following his instructions, then squeezing the contents of it into his mouth and swallowing it down. He smiled and said ‘That’s all there is. Go ahead, Edd!’

     “I picked one up and held it in my fingertips, squeezing it a little to test its elasticity. I took the knife, cut my slit then inspected the sauces, picking my poison as it were. I picked a dark red sauce, figuring it would be spicy, I’d just burn out the flavor if it was gonna be as bad as I was expecting. I poured some in and held the prepared egg to my lips. When I squeezed that lump into my mouth I swear I almost lost my stomach, it had the taste and texture of a ripe ball of snot. And I don’t mean the pleasant, drippy snot, I’m talking about your lumpy, black-spotted-smoker’s phlegm. I smiled and looked down at Jon. It was his turn and his face was as red as his hair, he was shitting bricks and sweating bullets when I nudged him, almost jarring him from a trance. ‘It’s not bad,’ I lied to his face, ‘go ahead, Jon.’

     “With a shaking hand he picked up the closest squishy egg, made a carefully though jittery incision, and without hesitation picked up the red sauce, having the same idea that I had: to scorch his taste buds off. With a final nervous gesture he put the egg to his lips and squeezed. The expression on his face that followed was one of sheer terror. His eyes wide and searching for something to help him, he finally sighed and pulled the egg away from his mouth. Clenched between his teeth was poor half-developed turtle–little legs, little head, with a little see-through shell. Just when I was just fearing the worst, John sighed again remembering Rhea, and popped the little thing into his mouth. With a couple awkward crunches, he swallowed it down and smiled.

     “Our little Europan host had been flirting with a new employee this whole time, only tuning in halfway through, and also choosing a poor time to finish his glass. When he at last sipped it all and set it down, he exclaimed down the table ‘Oh no, Jon! You got a bad egg!’”

07-20-2308

     A dead calm came over the early afternoon. The wind dropped suddenly and the mixed feelings over our second day of fishing had just been stirred a little more. The sun was hot and Earth’s humidity made it so much worse, all 9 of us on this little charter boat huddled under the canopy in the middle of The Taurus. My father, brother and self along with 6 strangers, including the cross-eyed captain, his part-time first-mate, my dad’s friend Edd and 3 other Earthmen. I got dragged along on this little weekend excursion my first day back on Earth. And trust me, yesterday had been much better; chasing Chesapeake Spadefish and Saturnian Sea bass and catching them by the handful, little bastards putting up a fun fight. No such haul now though, today had only seen skates, rays and an occasional shark; one a little bay Hammerhead my dad reeled up, but she bit through the line when she caught a glimpse of the boat and eager, net-handed faces.

     With our quarry of Kobia successfully eluding us and distaste for the turn the weather took, we needed something to lift our spirits. My father turned to Edd, the large grey-rooted Ionian, seated on the cooler closest to him. The two had been friends and business partners for ages, and after meeting him for the first time on this trip, I realized why they stayed such good friends. Edd is an jolly old fellow who never runs out of stories and is always an absolute riot, the perfect kinda guy to have stuck with you on a dull day at sea. All morning he had resorted to jokes and riddles to keep us awake while nothing took our bait, and now my father knew of a perfect weapon to unsheathe for this moment.

     “Hey Edd,” he said with anxious grin, “Why don’t you tell everyone the Tortuga story?” This lit Edd’s face up like a Christmas tree, and he slapped his hands together licking his lips.

     “What a splendid idea, my good man!” Edd turned to his already captive crowd. “I’d like to treat you gentlemen to an enchanted tale about Venusian dining, but first I’m afraid you must hear of the horrors of Saturnian Cuisine,” he said, meanwhile motioning for my father to supply him with a beer, at no time taking his attention off his audience.

     “If ya don’t know of my past,” he begun, “I was an immigrant truck driver in New Tros, delivering pies all over Nuwerk. Oh it was the pits. One day I found a matchbook with a number for computer school on the back and I thought to myself ‘I’d do anything to get out of this hell’ for the second time in my life. By the next year I was working for HAL, designing reservation systems for interplanetary and eventually inter stellar travel companies, engineering credit mainframes and installing interplanetary intranets across the Solar system. It paid well, and they put me up in some of the nicest places in the system while I was on the job, sometimes staying for a month at a time. Well, lets just say I got a taste of culture.

     “This one time I stayed on Mimas for a week, I asked my host to take me out to enjoy a traditional meal of his people. I didn’t want to see a single familiar word on the menu, just point to something and be pleasantly surprised. He knew just the place and, after he watered his plants for the evening, took me there with haste.

     “Now you gotta understand my mood going into this: I sat down at a round table elbow to elbow with a dozen smelly Mimasians, all grabbing at the food in communal bowls with their bare hands. I didn’t see a single utensil or napkin, so instead I looked for a dish that everyone wasn’t knuckle deep and double dipping into. I spotted it, right next to me was a small plate piled with white objects about the size of golf balls that looked like they were covered in something like coconut. I grabbed it, noticed it was crunchy, but once I bit through the crispy exterior I was treated to the most amazing explosion of flavor. I smiled and grabbed two more, and had the third to my lips when my host came up and patted me on the shoulder. “Edd! You like the deep-fried pigeon heads!!” And sure enough, there was a little crispy beak and two little squinty eyes. Well what was I supposed to do, I popped it in my mouth, finished chewing and smiled.

     “A couple of years later the company let me bring a friend to Rhea, while I was there to help program the computer at the then new Gaia spaceport. So I took Jon, who as Keret knows,” Edd said motioning to my smirking and nodding father, “is a most timid little man from Amalthea. He’s come fishing a few times–I’ll bring him next year, we’ll all have a real laugher. Anyway, Jon and I are sitting in a the most popular restaurant in this fledgling port’s boom-town. The first half of the evening he hardly moved a muscle, staring at his plate in contempt, trying to occupy his lips with a glass of beer for as much of the evening as he could.

     “‘Psst! Edd,’ Jon whispered, leaning in to me, ‘We’re eating bait!’ I told him its not bait, it was Pingafish caught fresh that morning in this very port, and was renowned enough to bring us halfway around the moon in the middle of my vacation. ‘There’s no dish without fish!’ Jon said to me moments later after having his terrible epiphany. It was true, it was all seafood in front of us, but until this moment I had thought he was a real fisherman. I pointed to a plate next to him “You like fried calamari, right?” I said indicating a tray of sautéed squid-like things beside him. He shrugged and picked up one of the whole squid-things with a pair of chopsticks and stuck it in his mouth headfirst. Upon biting into it, its tendrils began to move and wriggle, and in shock and disgust John spit out the living creature. He then received similar looks of shock and disgust from around the table, but at the taste he left in everyone’s mouths. ‘I-I’ve got bad teeth,’ he came up with quickly, but no one bought it.

     “Afterwards, I took John aside and scolded him about rejecting their food. Told him no matter how vile or disgusting of a spread he had to treat it like it was the most tender delicacy he had ever put to his pallet. ‘We gotta prove to these guys that Earthlings aren’t tasteless, uncultured insects,’ I recall saying.

     “Well, I also I recall making the mistake of inviting Jon to come with me to Venus. We were heading near Ishtar just to visit a friend of mine who owned a brewery. We arrived at the gates of the Sol Beer Brewery and were greeted with cigars and given the grand tour by the short Europan owner. After meeting the factory floor girls, and finishing our cigars in his glass office overlooking the assembly line at full steam, he brought up the topic of nourishment. ‘I don’t know how you guys are feeling, you must be hungry after your flight, I know I’m famished just looking at you. Let us get ourselves some food and drinks, yes?’ he offered. I was eager and glanced at John who looked a little uneasy and asked ‘What about the factory, can you just leave it unsupervised?’ I could have shot him an icy glance, knowing he was doing, but the Europan responded ‘Oh, not a worry at all’ he said , thumbing for a button on the handle of his chair, and suddenly the break whistle blew on the floor, “The girls will come with us,” he said with a grin.

     “At the most popular restaurant in town we sat a dozen deep at the nicest table they could offer, with a giant bay window over looking the harbor and a saffron, early afternoon sea. By no coincidence, this establishment was sponsored by Sol Beer, and it was free as long as we kept refilling our glasses and posing for photos. After two hours of that punishment the food arrived, carried upon three giant wooden platters and set before us the table by shirtless waiters, and all the Venusian girls cheered. A smaller fourth plate was brought and placed on our end of the table before of Jon and I. The small white golf ball shaped objects it contained made my heart jump up my throat, but I swallowed it back down. ‘What’s that?’ I dared to ask the Europan. ‘Oh, Edd! That is Tortuga, of course!’ he said with a smirking slur. A moment later a realized he meant sea turtle, sea turtle eggs, a species extinct on Earth and endangered on Venus. ‘You mean like ENDANGERED Tortuga?’ I spat out in dismay. ‘Yeah, they’re great, you gotta try them, here!’ He said picking one up.

     “He squeezed it in his finger tips and it warped like a water balloon. ‘It’s leathery like any other reptile egg, no? So you take a knife,’ he said lifting a small bladed scalpel with a carved wooden handle and demonstrating how to make a proper slice. Then, taking one of a half dozen multicolored sauces in front of him, he poured a bit into the slit. ‘Once you choose a sauce you just put it to your lips, and,’ he said before following his instructions, then squeezing the contents of it into his mouth and swallowing it down. He smiled and said ‘That’s all there is. Go ahead, Edd!’

     “I picked one up and held it in my fingertips, squeezing it a little to test its elasticity. I took the knife, cut my slit then inspected the sauces, picking my poison as it were. I picked a dark red sauce, figuring it would be spicy, I’d just burn out the flavor if it was gonna be as bad as I was expecting. I poured some in and held the prepared egg to my lips. When I squeezed that lump into my mouth I swear I almost lost my stomach, it had the taste and texture of a ripe ball of snot. And I don’t mean the pleasant, drippy snot, I’m talking about your lumpy, black-spotted-smoker’s phlegm. I smiled and looked down at Jon. It was his turn and his face was as red as his hair, he was shitting bricks and sweating bullets when I nudged him, almost jarring him from a trance. ‘It’s not bad,’ I lied to his face, ‘go ahead, Jon.’

     “With a shaking hand he picked up the closest squishy egg, made a carefully though jittery incision, and without hesitation picked up the red sauce, having the same idea that I had: to scorch his taste buds off. With a final nervous gesture he put the egg to his lips and squeezed. The expression on his face that followed was one of sheer terror. His eyes wide and searching for something to help him, he finally sighed and pulled the egg away from his mouth. Clenched between his teeth was poor half-developed turtle–little legs, little head, with a little see-through shell. Just when I was just fearing the worst, John sighed again remembering Rhea, and popped the little thing into his mouth. With a couple awkward crunches, he swallowed it down and smiled.

     “Our little Europan host had been flirting with a new employee this whole time, only tuning in halfway through, and also choosing a poor time to finish his glass. When he at last sipped it all and set it down, he exclaimed down the table ‘Oh no, Jon! You got a bad egg!’”

«←→»

07-27-2308

     Here on Mars, I sat on top of Fender’s tallest hill, looking down at my home below over a questionable fast food hamburger. I had to sigh before taking another bite, but it wasn’t even the greasy meat patty that had made me lose my appetite. I was looking down all at the activity to and from Fender Municipal Spaceport and longing to be on the move again. I only got home two weeks ago but already I’m sick of life again. I want to stay fluid.

     The same thing happened about 2 weeks into my stay on Earth. It had been great and exciting to be home up until then, but the last seven days there had been dull and spent longing of my life back here on Mars. Now that I’ve got that in my grasp again, I remember how unhappy I was with it a month ago. Is there something tangible compelling me to feel this way or am I just insatiable?

     They’re small ships, the largest an interplanetary at the best, though. I’m pretty sure thats an Helen-class down there, that probably means some dignitary came down last night. I passively ponder high-jacking a rocket and seeing how far I can get. I’m sure if I could get to Callisto I’d find a way out of the Sol System all together, the trick would just be getting myself through the asteroid belt. Or even just out of Mars orbit for that matter, I’ve never piloted anything larger than a surface skimmer or a work-skiff, and never flawlessly. If I’m sure of anything though, they give me a leg up on maneuvering a bulky rocket, but theres still too many things I’d have to know how to do, things I should bother to learn about before taking off. Like landing.

     I could always snag myself a shuttle and just hop over to ISP Olympus, stow myself away on a freighter or transport heading to Saturn, find away to the old routes and hitchhike my way off Pluto. Always? Thats hardly plausible at all. I sighed and threw my half eaten burger into my bag, took a dissatisfied swig of soda from a straw and started my crawler. I lit a Martian Spirit and put the Fender Municipal behind me.

«It Feels Good to be Back on Mars»

07-20-2308

     I felt the sting of gas price as soon as I got back on Mars. The cabbie surely committed highway robbery, but I guess that’s what I get for choosing such a remote spaceport. I retrieved my defunct bag from the boot of the bright yellow Hammerhead, thanked the Saturnian and walked up the path to my door. I cursed myself as I walked away because I was right when I expected it would be expensive.

     First I noticed the new plants in the beds in front of my house, typical desert fern and ficus, but they definitely improved the overall backwater look of the dump. Second I noticed the yellowed notice to pay rent or quit. This helped to return the former glory of this once run down establishment. I half expected that too.

     Third I noticed my home was a dark mess inside. I should have expected this but I had forgotten. I had kind of thrown a large party at my unit before I left for Earth 3 weeks ago. And by kind of, I mean there was still empty beer cans and score old drinks awaiting me. Pillows and blankets abound, chairs and tables misplaced, instruments laying in the wrong positions entirely. Thank the stars there was a blanket tacked up above the window to block intruding eyes and daylight. I didn’t even notice it until halfway through cleaning, but figured that’s why it seemed particularly gloomy.

     When my dwelling didn’t seem too embarrassing to even open the door to anymore, I took out the trash and got the mail. The mail, by the way, took two hands to carry in it was so littered with junk, especially notices on my crawler. I mean, ridiculous amounts of notices that I really feel bad for throwing in the trash. I wonder if any of my accruing late fee goes towards the paper printed off by them in attempts to coerce everything out of my empty pockets.

     Well now here’s something I was expecting a long time ago. The second part of my tax refund came, a stimulus as they call it. Each year they choose to do these bonuses where some people get 300 extra dollars just for filing, other people get more for having dependents, joint filing, and so on. The Interstellar Revenue Service decided to give me 600 for some reason–still unknown to me but not dared to be contested. I’m actually glad it came after I left for Earth, it would have gone to waste there and I really need the money to straighten out the rent and my comm and cable bills now that I’m home.

     I’ll try uploading the entries I wrote on Earth which I wasn’t able to patch through to the nets within the next week, in appropriate order of course. Right now though I need to relax and do something I haven’t done it what feels like 2 months–sit on my comfy couch and fill a pipe with fire.

«Never Terraformed»

03-29-2308

     After loss of the Ionian-Terran War, the Jovian world was forced to give up its colonies, including those on Venus and Mars. The former had a clean atmosphere and a bustling population, a widespread civilization with no room for expansion. The latter on the other hand had poor air and was too windy and sun beaten, the small civilization of Ionian descendants that lived there rarely tread planet side. Instead they had intermingled with, and taken over, most of the ancient Martian civilization and their complex tunnel systems.

     Mars was seen as a financial opportunity for Earth, who’s population was brimming and sought expansion, so steps were taken to terraform him into a living planet again. The Ionian Crater Missions were only successful because they used the subterranean features of the indigenous architecture, but for a healthy civilization to prosper, large portions of the surface would have to be made more tolerable.

     In the mid twenty-second century, sorties of mechanisms unmanned began to launch from Earth regularly, headed for new promising territory on Mars, only to land 720 days later in a windy red desert, all but barren if not for one more robot. They laid the infrastructures that allowed a new, slowly growing culture of Earthling immigrants to thrive. After a comically tame war with the new Martian government, Earth rightfully acquired the more hospitable portion of the planet, as well as the remainder of land on Luna still possessed by Mars. From there it was only a matter of time before a mass migration, initiated by the gold rush, would make sure life flourished on it’s surface.

     Sorry, you probably know all of this already, I don’t know why I didn’t before but I just looked it up on the nets. I don’t remember them ever teaching us any of this Martian history in school, but maybe I wasn’t paying attention that day. Incase that’s not so and it just wasn’t part of the curriculum back on Earth, you’ll appreciate the lesson soon enough.

    For the record, I never believed Mars ever completed terraforming before it was opened to the Outward Expansion; I still maintain this desolate rock is as dead as our Earth will soon be. No matter how much we tried to make this planet into her, Mars never fully gave into his mother. And for good reason I think, Mars should not support life, let alone set a par for Solatarian society. The green patches that Martians call lawns wouldn’t last without a constantly irrigating sprinkler and/or chemical enhancement. All the palm trees, coastal scrub and xeriscaping just make up the meager façade this place puts on in visage of fertility. In some of the better watered neighborhoods, where every house on the row runs on a timer, I will attest a mild array of flora, still mostly succulent and desert flowers, but lush and surprisingly colorful.

     I’ve lived a year and a half here on a street just across from the abandoned sector, a windswept borough encroached upon by rusty desert a foot deep. The fact that there is even an abandoned sector or that we’re remotely near the desert in the first place should be a sign. There are also, of course, creatures that appear in the night, or rather make their presence known invisibly. The Martians tell horror stories about the Squamata and blame for terrible things they find done when they wake up, which actually does happen more frequently then you’d like to imagine. The Martians also blamed the Old Martians for not showing any concern in their mere existence of the reptilian pest, or not teaching us how to defeat them. Instead the natives worship them in part of their rituals, incorporating the terrible sandy scratching they make in the background of their dance.

     I think it goes with out saying that the uninhibited rays of the sun, the dust devils or outright dust storms, the unsettlingly frequent tectonic and meteoric activity, and abundantly apparent scarcity of any real natural resource or nutrient rich soil in which one could find foothold upon only support my case. Mars is upset we’re squeezing the remaining soul from his skin like a pimple and won’t give into our will without a fight, in all of his stubborn divinity.

     After loss of the Ionian-Terran War, the Jovian world was forced to give up its colonies, including those on Venus and Mars. The former had a clean atmosphere and a bustling population, a widespread civilization with no room for expansion. The latter on the other hand had poor air and was too windy and sun beaten, the small civilization of Ionian descendants that lived there rarely tread planet side. Instead they had intermingled with, and taken over, most of the ancient Martian civilization and their complex tunnel systems.

     Mars was seen as a financial opportunity for Earth, who’s population was brimming and sought expansion, so steps were taken to terraform him into a living planet again. The Ionian Crater Missions were only successful because they used the subterranean features of the indigenous architecture, but for a healthy civilization to prosper, large portions of the surface would have to be made more tolerable.

     In the mid twenty-second century, sorties of mechanisms unmanned began to launch from Earth regularly, headed for new promising territory on Mars, only to land 720 days later in a windy red desert, all but barren if not for one more robot. They laid the infrastructures that allowed a new, slowly growing culture of Earthling immigrants to thrive. After a comically tame war with the new Martian government, Earth rightfully acquired the more hospitable portion of the planet, as well as the remainder of land on Luna still possessed by Mars. From there it was only a matter of time before a mass migration, initiated by the gold rush, would make sure life flourished on it’s surface.

     Sorry, you probably know all of this already, I don’t know why I didn’t before but I just looked it up on the nets. I don’t remember them ever teaching us any of this Martian history in school, but maybe I wasn’t paying attention that day. Incase that’s not so and it just wasn’t part of the curriculum back on Earth, you’ll appreciate the lesson soon enough.

    For the record, I never believed Mars ever completed terraforming before it was opened to the Outward Expansion; I still maintain this desolate rock is as dead as our Earth will soon be. No matter how much we tried to make this planet into her, Mars never fully gave into his mother. And for good reason I think, Mars should not support life, let alone set a par for Solatarian society. The green patches that Martians call lawns wouldn’t last without a constantly irrigating sprinkler and/or chemical enhancement. All the palm trees, coastal scrub and xeriscaping just make up the meager façade this place puts on in visage of fertility. In some of the better watered neighborhoods, where every house on the row runs on a timer, I will attest a mild array of flora, still mostly succulent and desert flowers, but lush and surprisingly colorful.

     I’ve lived a year and a half here on a street just across from the abandoned sector, a windswept borough encroached upon by rusty desert a foot deep. The fact that there is even an abandoned sector or that we’re remotely near the desert in the first place should be a sign. There are also, of course, creatures that appear in the night, or rather make their presence known invisibly. The Martians tell horror stories about the Squamata and blame for terrible things they find done when they wake up, which actually does happen more frequently then you’d like to imagine. The Martians also blamed the Old Martians for not showing any concern in their mere existence of the reptilian pest, or not teaching us how to defeat them. Instead the natives worship them in part of their rituals, incorporating the terrible sandy scratching they make in the background of their dance.

     I think it goes with out saying that the uninhibited rays of the sun, the dust devils or outright dust storms, the unsettlingly frequent tectonic and meteoric activity, and abundantly apparent scarcity of any real natural resource or nutrient rich soil in which one could find foothold upon only support my case. Mars is upset we’re squeezing the remaining soul from his skin like a pimple and won’t give into our will without a fight, in all of his stubborn divinity.