Is There Life on Mars?

12-22-2308

The news was inevitable. There was no way that Tohm had come up with the credits, 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 G-1. Effective as of 12/18/2308.
Sincerely, OC Properties Management.’

I sighed and crumpled up the paper, making sure to pick off the last threads of celluloid tape that affixed it to our hatch. I had been putting off the first cigi 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 Nuport 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 credit 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 credit she had saved up working all summer long; money she had wanted to use to get herself a rover, 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 entirely 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 hatchway, and having enough credits to keep us afloat another month were all the orchestrations of invisible hands I’d never paid much attention to before. She might have been my starmate.

But what someone once told me about starmates might hold true; you don’t have only one. There are many kindred spirits to yours among the different worlds of Sol, some planets with plenty. But starmate doesn’t exclusively mean your one true love; it means anyone who was born from the same star as you or made up of compatible celestial material. They might end up being your relatives, close friends or even adversaries. Whatever potential to have a romantic relationship with Eon may have been thwarted by my foolishness, or maybe we were only meant to be there for each other. Either way, it hurt me to be torn away from someone who could be very important in my life.

On the otherhand, the other other roommate…I feel like its important to my life to distance myself from his kind. And I 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 credits a day even when he didn’t have the moneys for it. On top of that he also consumed everything else that wasn’t nailed down in the unit 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 Gerund 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 I thought of my dear Eon and hoped to feel the warmth of her embrace soon. I lit a cigi and watched my old place disappear in the rear view mirror.

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