Is There Life on Mars?

02-10-2309

I can’t tell you how much it thrills me to be able to sleep in a comfortable bed tonight. For the past 7 weeks I’ve been making nests of various piles of blankets and sleeping bags, ever since I got kicked out of my last apartment. In almost two months I’ve jumped at every chance I’ve gotten just to lay down on someone’s bed and prayed I could get a couch wherever I crashed. Even when I went home to Earth, I had to sleep on the floor of my old room cause my brother commandeered my bed after my cat pissed on his. I was too amused by the situation to care at the time.

All that tossing on unsporting floorboards and thin carpet just reminded me of when I first moved to Mars and had no where to stay but Leucosia’s unit. Blast, even after I moved into my first apartment with Pashan, where I just had that broken futon, I still spent almost every night sleeping on the ground in my lovi’s bedroom. Even this past summer I spent a lot of time on Gerund‘s floor because I still lived half an hour away from my life. But now that’s all over.

Yes, I am coming to you from my new apartment on the other side of Costa Mensa. I may have mentioned a complex I looked up, last year while I was first trying to move, called Villa Venusia. If not, it’s a beautifully spacious domed community with an artificial lake that runs through the entire colony. Even in between the rows of buildings where walkways and driveways would belong, deceptively shallow streams and tributaries meander about, trickling over boulders or spewing with fountains. The fortunate residents that live within the inner units even have balconies that rest on the water where one could sit on the edge and dangle your toes if you so chose.

I may not be that fortunate, but I’m still lucky I got the place I did. It’s a small 2-Bedroom on the second story of one of the units in the back, but far from a shabby residence. I found the room online through one of those sketchy classified services, so I was expecting the worst when it came to the roommate I picked. It turned out for the best, thankfully.

Witt is a nice Ganymedean woman and we share a few things in common, including a birth sign and roots in Keret, where she grew up and where my father‘s family is from. Although though deep and insightful there is definitely a generation gap pervading our conversations, what with her being my own mother’s age. She does like to drag me into these long talks as I’m trying to get back to my room or out the airlock, but I don’t mind cause sometimes I do actually want to respond, and other times her busy schedule keeps her out of the unit.

That’s part of what makes me so excited right now, I’ve got the unit to myself. No one’s around to make any noise or smell any whiffs of smoke through my doorseal. I can relax and rest all day long, which is just what I need. My back is murdering me and I feel like I’m starting to get sick, so I’m gonna answer the call of a fluffy, inviting mattress.

CH. 31 «Observations on The Earth»

NEXT: CH. 33 «Idiot-Proof»