Caitlin White-Parsons

After Mars

There was a disparity between the warm air that buffeted Lily’s face and the cool air that she pulled into her mouth via the oxygen purifier. The deepening red sky was streaked with yellow clouds like little dead bugs a windscreen wiper couldn’t quite expel. She wondered how many more years she had left. At the ripe old age of 31 she was faced with the very real reality that the planet she lived on was dying. Mars, now increasingly uninhabitable, even for the rich and especially for people like her - low means, was in the final countdown.