The Control Room

My blood shook with a magnetic pull and pulse. The movement felt like a rollercoaster without any safety harness. I was sliding with a large magnetic pull in my spine. My back was sliding on the metal of the underside of a bridge. Suspended, I was being pulled along on an invisible track. I felt like a puppet without any actual strings attached. The city cars, below me, altogether, unaware of my hanging limbs, drooping down. My appendages had the appearance of security cameras in a way.

Meanwhile, she was in the control room. Her hand on the switchboard, directing my sliding back along the metal structures. It felt like a maze leading to nowhere in particular. But, I knew better though, and I was completely at her mercy now. The constant motion made my stomach jittery. I felt like a shaky Chihuahua who’d just finished three espresso shots. My face appeared as a stone though, void of any outward emotion.

I wanted to smile, as if I was enjoying the intense magnetism in the outlandish moment. Smiling would not be beneficial though because emoting lessened the magnetic pull in my body. If the magnetic pull became too weak, then I’d plummet to my death onto asphalt with dozens of vehicles, hungry to crush my bones.

So, let me back up a bit here…

In college, I met her in physics class and then we met again in chemistry class. Things just were not adding up right because I met her again for a third time in calculus class. Had she just copied by schedule? Maybe, we had the same academic advisor and she just gave all the students the same schedule? What were the chances to have three of the same classes with someone else? She and I somehow ended up getting too physical one day after a disturbing incident in a physics lecture that left the whole class on edge. Ironically, our chemistry professor joked about us having some chemistry or some kind of mysterious magnetic energy. If only he knew? I tried to laugh it off but then one day in a calculus lecture she slipped me a note and I realized that she had been far more calculated than I could have ever imagined, even in my wildest dreams. My dreams did tend to be pretty wild too, out of this world-kind-of-wild… Anyway, the note said,

“I know where you’re actually from and I’ve got plans to use you for something great!”

This note made me shudder and thinking about it now, still makes me shiver in my clammy skin. She had clearly been watching me far closer than I had expected.

She was brilliant. Sure enough, she had figured out that I was from Mars.

Okay, let me back up a bit further…

What is Mars like, you might ask? The inside of Mars is like a beehive of compartments. No one lives on the surface of Mars, only on the inside of Mars in the allotted pod compartments. We all have strong magnetism in our bodies, all throughout our veins actually. However, the magnetism becomes weaker if I emote. Which is why, as I was hanging here on the metal building, I tried to keep a calm, stoic face.

Every year, the Watchers nominated to send one Martian to earth. Why did they only chose one of us per year to send to earth? I’m not sure actually. When I was ten years old, the watchers told me I had won the nomination and was to be transferred to earth, the North Pole specifically. When I’d realized I’d “won,” I was excited, nervous, angry, and sad, all at the same time. My pod mates were jealous of my opportunity. Every year, another Martian was sent to earth, there was never any form of communication that had been received back from the “sent ones” though. Why didn’t they send anything back to let us know how things were going? Would I be the first one to send a message back to the other Martians? Or, was life on earth going to be so grand that I would forget about all the subdued, clammy Martian people? These were just a couple of questions that fluttered through my brain.

There was a moment where I wished I could give away my nomination ticket to someone else, but of course, I couldn’t pass this opportunity up. It must have been my destiny to experience something else other than the pods of the middle of Mars, right?

In my space capsule, I made it to the North Pole location on earth. The temperature was not uncomfortable in the least, as I was used to extreme cold temperature. Time travel from Mars to Earth aged my body though, at least ten years or so. By the time I landed on earth, my body appeared to be around twenty years of age. My intuition told me to just start walking, even though I felt an amazing balance in my body at the North Pole location.

I took my time, traveling 4275.4 miles, and I ended up, in what I now know to be, the state of Maine. One of the first places I went to was the Fogler library. It was spectacular! I picked up a book on the subject of general physics and the process of informational osmosis occurred. Meaning, all the information from the book instantly downloaded into my mind. There are not any written books on Mars so the idea of written material was such a wonderful concept to me!

Alright, that’s enough backing up, with the explanation. Back to the present moment…

The woman in the control room had on black gloves. Her eyes looked through a telescope, her gloved hand still on the controller. It was all as a video game to her. She smiled with pleasure and nodded because everything was going according to her wonderful plans.

“Up that skyscraper now! He’s like a sponge, soaking up all the stock market information!”

I started to feel extremely dizzy with the amount of information from mental osmosis. Was she trying to turn me into some kind of informational robot for her disposal and good pleasure?

“Even though I’m a martian who was sent to earth…”

I blurted out the words:

“I haves rights too!”

She could hear him and she whispered under her breath.

“Oh no, you don’t, you’re an illegal alien…”