Mars is shit

I stare vacantly at myself reflected in a calm pool of water - the only thing with me in this ten-foot-square shed.

Wish I could still dance. Wish I could stop my mind from catching fire all the time… Whoops.

“You. Are. An actual fucking idiot. Why the - fuck - did you ever leave?” I whisper-hiss into the (now) disgruntled pool of water (my only friend here, it seems), taking a few seconds on every word as I remember all over again.

The water seemed to be taken aback by my venom - it ripples and distorts my features in retaliation.

Don’t get your molecules in a bunch - I was directing zee anger at me-self, darling.

The water twists and turns, making me look like one of the first settlers on this hellish planet. The unlucky ones with those early, faulty atmospheric converters. Their faces all twisted… I shudder at the thought. I think the woman in the red tent was one of the one’s who survived - don’t think about her, don’t think about her, don’t think about her.

Shit.

The water stills and is suddenly a perfect mirror again. My reflection returns - I am such a fucking idiot.

Idiot? Not the word. Turd? Closer… Ass? Yup - that’s it.

Thought every ounce of my humanity had been mined up for profit years ago. Apparently my heart still occasionally beats - I wish it would stop. The sanctimoni-us!, righteousn-us!, cult scum that twisted my body to make theirs fat and happy have left me hard on the outside, but I’m still soft. Doesn’t help me in my current predicament: locked up in a shed in Ismenius, freezing my nipples off, with nothing but a sliver in a thick concrete wall to peak out of.

Every cycle I watch the distant sun creep over the escarpment - a gathering of prison sheds and one red tent. The sun is a pale sickly version of itself here, we don’t call it sun. One of the early ones started calling it the Pearl, which stuck, but it is hardly elegant or gleaming, like a pearl on Earth. It is ghostly, blue-tinted by the man-made atmosphere, haunting those of us who were stupid enough to cut their ties with their home for back breaking labour camps and a dead promise of a new and prosperous life - thanks Musk.

“Here’s to my 246th cycle out here”, I laughed without humour. I really have lost my head. No point in counting, they’ll be no end date - unless I drink. I pretend to cheers the pool of water - my best buddy - but my fist is empty. I’d never been given a single possession in this place.

The pool of water stares at me, beckons me over, reminds me I’m thirsty - like witchcraft - the kind that exists in everyone. The kind that takes you over when you don’t see a face that isn’t your own for months, when you haven’t eaten in weeks, when you’re dying of thirst. Sometimes I’m so dry I could down the whole of the Jezero, but the pool of water taunts me. It knows I can’t drink it. It knows it’s mostly anti-freeze - good thing too, or it’d be frozen over like my nipples. “Don’t drink the water”, the cult scum tell you when they put you in here, with a smile no less.

They don’t like to kill you themselves, but they love to make you do it yourself. They think if you kill yourself, and they’ve given you the gun, but not pulled the trigger, they’re not guilty in the eyes of Lord. (Bullshit.)

So they give us some fresh water every few days, just enough water to keep us living, but most end up drinking from the pool. I see them take the bodies out.

Seems a high price to pay for a fleeting moment. A split second in time. A flash of light on a silvery surface.

Don’t…

Shit.

It was seconds. We were running. I saw her eyes, they saw me. Dark hair falling around cheekbones, a glint of light on her silver locket, the shape of a heart, it was open, shining. An eternity as her face broke into a smile - scars healed - we would be free. A moment’s hesitation, then… I don’t know.

We were so close.

I suppose I could have died in that moment - this certainly could be hell, this place.

I don’t know what happened to her - that’s another kind of hell - maybe they killed her. I could just drink the pool then maybe I’d find her. You’ve gone over this before. If she’s still here, your life cycles will de-sync and you won’t find each other for millennia.

My mind was on fire again. The Pearl was going down now, or I presume it was. I couldn’t see out the south side of the shed. I curled up, the air was well below freezing and I’d lost the feeling in my feet and hands again. One eye at a time, I could see through the tiny crack, the faint light of the Pearl charging across the plain and hitting the side of the red tent. I wanted to hit the red tent, with all my force. I sneered at it - where is she?

Something distracted me from my daydream of revenge. The light of the late-year was reaching further than I’d seen it since arriving, past the red tent, and was now glowing on the shed nearest it. What poor idiot is in there? What life did you leave behind, darling? I’m so sorry. Lord, I hope you haven’t started to talking to the pool like me…

At first I thought I was hallucinating from the cold, or maybe the hunger. There was something unusual though. The light was hitting the shed in such a way that I could now just locate the shed’s sliver. A fragment of light echoed out through the tiny crack. A glint from a silver…

My heart skipped a beat. She’s been there - right there - this whole fucking time.