Is There Life on Mars?

11-13-2308

It started when I woke up in a hot sweat. My room seemed a sauna to my waking senses, heated and gaspy, but too dry. All of the other rooms too shared the same broiled air, so I flipped the fans on and opened up my bedroom window. I realized what was happening when a scorching gust blew into my room.

It may be the middle of November when we Earthlings would already be bundled up in scarves and hiding indoors from the rain but on Mars that just means it’s wildfire season. The Winds of Hades rip north-west from the Tharsis Montes through the Daedalia Planum to plague the Olympus region. The desert’s heat mixed with a world mostly devoid of moisture combine to make perfect conditions for fast spreading fires that wipe out the already scarce dry brush. It’s on days like these, without a cloud in the sky but the brown stain of ash, when I miss home the most.

If I had been back on Earth, I’d have been ready to celebrate my father’s 52nd Birthday with my family. Our traditions included going out to a fine restaurant and retiring to his unit to watch old horror or cheesy comedy on his big screen. Instead I walked along the red sands of the late afternoon beach, starred down like an anti-christ.

The Martians already chastised anyone with a cigi clutched in their fingers. But when its fire season the orange ember smoldered like a gun in your blood red hands. Even at the beach, where nothing would even catch on fire if you marinated it in gasoline, they leered and jeered until they’ve watched you douse the cigi in a wet gutter and threw it in a trash can. After feeling guilted by every pair of eyes I passed to stop smoking before I started another blaze, I strolled down the pier. Like everyone in west Olympus County, where the sky wasn’t as choked by sepia hands, I partook in another beautiful Martian sunset.

An oil pallet mixed of crimson, violet and indigo painted a deep sky while the scarlet sun slowly made its retreat. Curling in from the right, a funnel of smoke billowed out to sea from north up the coast. The thick, low-laying clouds stained the bottom of the sky like a sickly brown tub ring.

What I was amazed by more than the view was the crowd of people gathered to watch. Never had I seen Nuport Beach so packed, and everyone was just out to take pictures. Families posed in front of the aftermath of cruel nature and created fond, pretty memories at the expense of millions in property and emotional damage–just 25 miles away. A gorgeous sight that touched me so much I had to leave before I became nauseated.

A few minutes later I approached the front airlock of my home with inexplicable caution, pulling the KEY from my pocket as I ascended the stair. My hand slipped off the knob as I tried to open the entrance, fingers covered with red grit. I brushed the fallout on my pants as I stepped in. The acrid stench of burning leaves and old iron pervaded the air inside as much as it did outside, which struck me as slightly peculiar.

Entering my quarters I  painfully realized why, the windows had been left wide. My life as I had come to know it—rather, the small number of possessions I had manifested in my lack of a proper social life—were coated in a film of scarlet rust. I had only been out a few hours, but by then wind-whipped trails and dunes already spread across the broad dresser along the window. I lifted my once white journal to reveal a perfect black silhouette remaining on the desk. I breathed life into a cloud of dust, which stretched its wings into the dim room and dispersed among its resting kin. Another step and I reached for the open window, but hesitated from shutting out the harsh world to stare at it a moment.

Mars appeared as it had in the old days, in the vintage colonial photos that still hang in bars and hotel lobbies. The sky was cinnabar with an eerie pink eye staring through the wind-swept palm trees and swaying power lines. The ashes danced in the air as spirits released at last from their bondage to our material world, and inevitably returned to nature.

PREV: CH. 24 «On the Third Day»

NEXT: CH. 26 «Everyone Comes Here»

11-04-2308

Tohm woke up two hours later and followed my dance step by step. I heard frantic flicking of a light switch from a dark, hollow bathroom. Furious stomping room to room and the dead click and snap of every button and switch in between. I took delight in the routine, playing possum from my front row seat on the couch, but before he could touch the computer I put an end to his performance.

“They pulled our plug. Everything’s dead. I need you’re help to fix it,” I said as I roused myself a second time.

“You’re kidding, right?” He stared at me knowing half of it was true and tried to determine how much more he wanted to believe.

“I’m not. Put on your shoes and a sweatshirt,” I commanded as I stood up.

“Not so fast, I haven’t even had my coffee yet,” He said coaxing me back down. “I’ll do my part and you do yours,” handing me a charged touchi, “just have the vaporizer ready for me when I get back,” he muttered in a half-awake state. “We still have some left right?” the Earthling asked, suddenly concerned as he stopped in mid step. I hesitantly motioned towards the ash on the table. He simply shook his head as he slipped on sandals and slumped out the front airlock.

PREV: CH. 23 «Costa Mensa»

NEXT: CH. 25 «Just like Old Mars»

10-30-2308

I finish walking the block back from the convenience store to return to my apartment. I put out my brand new cigi and use my free hand to search for my KEY. Accessing the garage, I take a short cut by walking under the rest of the complex. The main courtyard and two stories of units skirting it are held aloft by great pillars, protecting residents from coastal flooding while creating an ample parking situation.

My unit is in the back though, separate from the proper structure. Past a row of locking garages and up the only set of stairs, the new apartment rests on top of two other 2 bedroom homes. To one side a small group of Martian students and directly below a single Europan family. I keep them in mind as I walk softly up the steps to our place, glancing at the empty parking lot next door.

I use the sliding hatch, since its open to the nice ocean wind blowing up in the early day, and slip off my shoes inside. My roommate, Tohm, is lounging on my big comfy couch with the tube of a vaporizer to his lips. While he holds his breath I set down our breakfast and cigis and then hand him his coffee while he exhales. Before I get a ‘thank you’ or an ‘I appreciate you getting breakfast’ or even ‘good morning’ Tohm takes a sip and nearly spits it out on the new carpet.

“You messed up my drink again,” he exclaims wiping his lip, “it’s too blasted sweet. I can’t drink this!”

“You’re overreacting, you can still drink it,” I half-heartedly try to calm him. “And I got the order right today, they screwed it up,” I blurt before shoving a bite of breakfast sandwich in my face.

“No, I have to go back and fix it now,” he shouts standing up and grabbing his KEYRING and the Martian Spirits. He takes out a cigi and drops it on the table, taking the pack with him as he storms out the sliding hatch. I chuckle to myself as I finish my breakfast, washing it down with the simple black coffee they couldn’t mess up.

Snatching up the smoke he left me, I grab my shades and step back out on the balcony. It’s a warm weekday afternoon and the pink sun radiates nonchalantly overhead.  I sit down in the satellite chair and light up, slumping back into the soft pad and closing my eyes. The wind and a sporadic lizardcall tug at my peace. The intermittent drag and puff of smoke the only unnatural interruption. It’s a relaxing day.

Or at least, it is until they arrive. Out of nowhere three clamoring broadsides descend upon the empty landing pad my balcony overlooks. I grumble as the oversized economy transports land and their hideously whiney reactors begin to unwind.

My roommate and I suspect it to be a sober-living unit next door to us. Moving to Mars to recover seems somewhat ironic to me, but I’ve learned there’s a lot of addiction management taking place in this foggy coastal city. Tohm felt authoritative on the matter, having come here under these very parameters. He’d been through the process and done his steps life times ago, and was certain of his deduction due to the tell tale signs.

Within their entire complex not one of our 30-some-odd neighbors is allowed to drive themselves. Hence the incessant sound of broadside engines whirling off the tarmac. Someone’s gotta ferry around these reprobates to keep them constantly entertained with activities and work lest their hands become idle. Everyone else is standing outside smoking constantly, and usually chatting away on their comms in very outside voices. Especially the staff members. You can hear them complaining up the balcony all day-round. Carrying on about pick-ups, drop-offs, rebounds and fall-offs. The shouting and the depression pours like an Amazonian sprinkler system. It rains shouts and yelling on the dead planters of my new balcony.

As I wonder when exactly it was that sober people became this loud, I hear a familiar stomping up my stair. My lanky Earthling roommate returns somewhat satisfied with his new drink. Taking a seat on the stool next to me he tosses another cigi.

“I ‘ought to punch you in the nose,” he says half serious in his New Tros accent.

“You ‘ought to just be the one who goes out for coffee the first time,” I snicker lighting my cigi. He simply shakes his head, glaring at me as he lights his own.

PREV: CH. 22 «Everything I’ll Miss»

NEXT: CH. 24 «On the Third Day»

10-01-2308

I’m finally moving to Costa Mensa!

For two years now I’ve lived in a certain satisfying squalor, fitting of a starving artist. What’s more bohemian than voluntary impoverishment? A weeks passing will change all that though, I’m leaving this desert town behind for good, albeit six months later than I‘d have liked.

Walking to the front door in the red hot afternoon I take a moment to appreciate it all. The dry, static air giving not so much as a tease of a breeze. The ambient roar of the adjacent expressway layered with crescendos of construction equipment. Without searching for something else to loathe, I quickly use the KEY and step into my unit.

Inside I take a look around at everything I’ll miss. The broken stop recessed into the wall, the uneven floor and the stub by the door. The cracks in the wall and in the ancient coke bottle cabinets—older than a few wars. The glacier slowly encroaching upon my refrigerator, dripping onto the disgustingly outdated linoleum floor. The antique stench released by every cabinet and drawer. The sea of discarded cigarettes surging against a cement shore. The strange scavengers living in the spaces between the units and underneath the patio.

The soothing swish outside my window of wind and traffic waves breaking. The nauseous electric blue paint on my bedroom walls I love so much I could just puke. The army of thick black hair shed by the Jovian, lurking in every corner of the bathroom. The smashing new tile job, with grout that disintegrated the moment water splashed on it. The shower with reversed hookups, contradicting the conventional label, thus leading to painfully confusing situations. Actually, let’s stop with the bathroom here, I could fill another page with complaints about the bathroom alone. The bathroom is dead to me.

There’s actually nothing too fantastic about the place other than the cost of rent, which is increasing anyway. The location is inconvenient, the management is unhelpful, conditions intolerable, and always too blasted hot everywhere in this town but the hill. I’ll be glad when I don’t have a bedroom that offers such a brilliant, picturesque view of the sunrise each day without fail. I don’t really know my roommate or my neighbors, only that they make loud noises in their native tongues late at night; Pasha chatting with girls back home on Europa while it‘s daytime there–my Martian neighbors just singing along with already deafening music that comes with the night. There’s really not much.

In hindsight I’ll spot something worth missing of this place that I can’t bring with me. In the meantime though, I’ll just grab my coat and head down to the back porch to shed what may be my last tear for the nicotine coastline.

PREV: CH. 21 «Caravans to Cuffed Hands»

NEXT: CH. 23 «Costa Mensa»

09-19-2308

When I regain consciousness I’m handcuffed to a chair in a foreign concrete corridor. I can’t see the plastic binders wound around my wrists but I can feel them cutting in to my soft skin. I smell like liquor and bile. I don’t know where I am or how I got here, but I’m speaking. 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 nano. You should thank your friends for bringing you back in so you could go to jail,” he finishes with palpable scorn before looking back to his tablet. 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 red 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 the 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.

I came down from OC the day before with my friends Gerund and Dune to attend a small music festival. We’d been celebrating all of the last week Gerund had before the semester started by seeing a bunch of concerts in a row. The night before we drove to Sanctus DiVinci we’d gone to see a great show downtown. Gerund had left his tab open when we departed for the after party, so his ID and KEYring were stuck at the bar. We didn’t realize what problems this would cause for us.

The approaching Martian rush hour left no time to retrieve Gerund’s belongings from The Labrys before hitting the road to SD. It was hax having put the hotel in my name and paying for his meals, but worse for Gerund; he couldn’t buy drinks at the show. It was alright for the first evening, a friend we met in town smoked us out and there was a fridge stocked with single-use-disposable liquor.

For the second day of the music festival, with nothing left to smoke and no beer in his hand, Gerund had us buy him a handle at the corner store. The plan was to make routine trips back to the parked crawler, take a few swigs, then return to the enjoy the show. It seemed to be working for Gerund, he was enjoying himself.

Dune and I were responsible adults, though, and we’d remembered to bring our IDs. In between trips to the crawler, the two of us would purchase punch cards and take a quick tour of the beer gardens. I’d never been in a beer garden before, so I didn’t realize that alcohol was limited only to its confines…or how small the portions would be. We decided to select a stronger beer, drink as quickly as we could, and return to the company of our friends.

This was the part I had difficulty describing on my own. The officer who had been unamusedly listening to me tell my tale was finally happy to provide details for me. He filled in the blanks for most of the timeline after I’d blacked out, sometime during my second visit to the beer gardens.

As a member of the security team hired to monitor overly-intoxicated concert goers, he’d had his eye on anyone exiting and returning more inebriated. He’d noted anyone stumbling, acting rowdy or fooling around inside and outside the event sphere. Knowing how I get when I drink too much, I’m sure I caught his attention early on. Seeing me propped up by one of my friends or flailing about like a loose booster rocket, he’d personally asked me to leave and not return. I couldn’t remember this part, but he specifically warned me that if I walked back in, I’d be leaving in cuffs.

My friends had no idea what had happened when they found me waiting outside of the spherewall. They also had no idea we were still being watched by security. How could any of us had known they witnessed my friends force me to regurgitate and swapped my clothing. My friends (bless their hearts) were unwittingly walking me back into a trap. Literally; I was too drunk to walk without their assistance.

I’d almost made it through, too. But not before the long, black-clad arm of the law snatched me up. I was fit into the plastic binders that had been anxious to receive me and was told to thank my friends for sending me to jail. I’m grateful to be spared the memory of such humiliation…its just weak to have to be told about this way.

That brings me back to my presently restrained self. I’ve got complete control of my body and thoughts now, though I’m limited to a bobble-head doll range-of-motion at the moment. I’d love to be anywhere else, especially somewhere I could lay this aching head, but instead I’m giving the officer my comm number and former addresses so he can check my background. This isn’t how my weekend was supposed to go.

This’ll be the last time that I come to this city.

PREV: CH. 20 «No Bugs»

NEXT: CH. 22 «Everything I’ll Miss»

09-12-2308

Whenever I’m devouring a meal on my back patio or smoking a cigi in an outdoor cafe, I enjoy not double checking my drink for bugs. Seemed like clockwork back on Earth; if you bring a beverage outdoors you’re gonna have to fish an insectoid swimmer out before it’s finished. It’s just nice to not have to worry about a fly doing the backstroke in my margarita.

I don’t even consider looking down before taking a sip anymore. I know there won’t be anything there, not large as a flutterby nor small as a gnat. You see, there’s a general lack of insect life on Mars–or all fauna for that matter, but that’s an issue for another day. Who knows if it’s because this world is mostly devoid of moisture, or because of pest genocide operations performed by terraformers against indigenous wildlife, or if they just have more sense than make a home in this forsaken place. All I know is its one of the few things I surely prefer about Mars.

Never have I found myself smacking a random body part and returning my hand with the bloody pulp of a mosquito around here. I can’t ever remember seeing praying mantises or dragonflies scouring for their next meal. I haven’t yet caught a Callitian caterpillar or watched a Venus water strider shoot across the pool. I hardly even see any bees or ants…just wasps and termites, come to think of it. I scarcely even hear a cricket chirp at night or have to wipe a chitinous smear off my windshield while plowing down the freeway.

I do see cockroaches though, many more than I ever spotted back home, and then it was only around the major metro areas that you could find those pests. I guess a similar standard applies here, since they do need the moisture and the refuse of a culture to survive on, but I notice a lot more as a result of populated areas being more dense and interconnected. I have to admit, I must have committed overkill on the first dozen or so I squashed, thoroughly compressing them into a small grease spot on the carpet before I was satisfied it was dead. But it was because I’d always heard tales of their tenacity and practical immortality, after all, they’ve survived several mass extinction events on Earth without batting a compound eye. I guess it’s fitting they should flourish in such an inhospitable environment.

Of course, there are also the notorious spiders of Mars. Probably the most proliferate and feared creature that stalks our homes and workplaces; the smaller the deadlier. Everyone complains about them here, especially toward the end of summer when you can find them all hatching, building chains and bridges with their bodies and tossing a sail the wind to float off into some unsuspecting structure.

Come to think of it…maybe that’s why theres no bugs left here.

PREV: CH. 19 «Martian Couples»

NEXT: CH. 21 «Caravans to Cuffed Hands»