6I reworked the story into a single chapter and chopped off the fat. This was originally meant to be a short story, and I decided to take it back in that direction.
Dedicated to Dema
There is nothing more surreal or more terrifying than a sky with two moons.
Peter had gotten used to the basalt surface without oceans, the faded, tawny atmosphere and the monstrous red mountains that littered the horizon. It was said that one could even find solace in the uniqueness of the dry, dead world. For despite early hopefulness, there was no water on Mars, save the great ice caps that assured some chance of survival. There were no trees, no animals, no shopping malls. No trace of previous life or culture. Just dust and the faint smell of sanitizer within the settlements walls. Yet, despite all these Martian oddities, it was the moons he still found most alarming.
Phobos and Deimos, the sons of Ares—or Mars, from the Roman text. They were the carriers of fear and dread that accompanied their father into battle. Perhaps it was their control over so many lost souls that allowed their father to cover the planet in blood.
A siren rang, and Peter instinctually drew himself away from the diamond walls. One of the officers shouted from on high "Clear out!" followed by the sound of so many bodies scattering to obey. Peter paused to watch as the heavy blinds enveloped the watch room like iron hands covering a marble.
There were no windows at the station, only these enormous, diamond rooms. The argument held that windows were dangerous. Sand storms rolled through frequently. Martian winds were powerful, violent, and could coat the entire planet. Apart from the basic necessities of food, water and breathable air, these storms presented the greatest threat against human survival. Several times a day the diamond rooms would be closed off to allow the planet a chance to express its unceasing rage.
Peter kept his hand on the glass even as the blinds shut them into darkness. Who gives man the power to lock the sun away from his fellows, and why do we obey him? What are we afraid of—death? He bit his lip and lingered at the wall until he felt a hand tug hard on his shoulder.
"Didn't you hear me? I said, clear out." The man gripping his shirt was large with thinning hair and a porn star mustache. He had the manipulated, disposable look of an officer in low command. "Are you stupid? If you stay here, the stand storms will wipe you clean of the map."
Nodding electronically, Peter let his hand fall from the glass. He was the only one remaining. Everyone else had cleared out. Maybe he was stupid. Maybe the sand storms would wipe him off the map.
Peter didn't apologize. He just turned to face the door. And as he did so, he made a point to catch the officer's eyes. They were dull, brown and lacking the twinkle of a lively soul or intelligent mind. This man had been beaten down into servitude easily. He accepted convention and followed orders. A man like this could live a comfortable life in the station.
As Peter opened the heavy door to leave, he caught the officer strutting pompously in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, as if their encounter had given him a new feeling pretentiousness.
Stepping into the hall, Peter cringed at the abrasive fluorescent lights, which had the unique ability to illuminate ones most unattractive qualities: oily complexion, blotchy skin, age spots. On Peter, they illuminated the crevasses of premature wrinkles deep within his skin.
He sauntered down the dimly lit corridor, dragging his feet absently. The halls were hardly an arms span in width, and the metal walls echoed at the slightest vibration. Peter coughed and listened as the sound bounced yards ahead. He felt suddenly claustrophobic.
Of course the station had not been built for comfort. It had been built as a tool to pursue greater learning and prompt scientific discovery. No one was supposed to actually live there. They just visited. They visited until there was no other option, and then they stayed. But Peter knew like everyone knew; this cold, structured, glamorized prison would never be home. It was only a transient facility between life and death.
Reaching the transporter, Peter caught the eye of one of his fellow scientists: an Indian man called "Deependra". The two of them exchanged what could be loosely classified as a greeting. It was a wordless, gestural acknowledgement where Deependra raised his eyebrows and Peter responded with a brief nod of the chin.
Two more scientists filled in, and all punched their room numbers into the pad. The transporter soared upwards, then right, then left; following the preset labyrinth of coordinates. The lights flickered, and Peter noticed how oily Deependra's forehead was. In fact, all of them looked positively revolting in the unnatural light. They were a grotesque, deformed race with red, sweaty hands, grey completions and greasy foreheads—but they were all that was left.
Suddenly, the doors slid open with an appropriate mechanical whoosh. Peter stepped straight into his apartment. The station did not award the luxury of privacy to its inhabitants. Rather, it was as though they were all just children whose juvenile actions demanded constant surveillance.
The living room smelled a mix of sanitation chemicals and chicken. Peter picked up one of the plastic flowers from the vase upon the table and fingered a petal slowly, as though he found it unfamiliar in this common space.
"Is that you, Peter?" His wife, Lisa, called out from the kitchen. Her voice was a cherry sort of neutral; the kind of voice that would have done well as a narrator for television ads.
He didn't call out right away. Instead, Peter held the flower a moment longer. He continued to rub the smooth, artificial decoration; starring at it, studying it. "Yes, it's me," he set it back on the table.
Lisa tip toed daintily from the kitchen into the living room. "Welcome home, Darling." She reached down the squeeze his hand before kissing him on the cheek. She was wearing a grey dress deemed a standard by all married women as a status symbol. Her long blonde hair curled loosely at the ends just above the shoulder strap, and her round eyes glistened in the fake light.
Her style and femininity was a wonder to Peter. It was so perfectly, painstakingly crafted. She had taught herself to be fragile, soft and pure. This, she reasoned, was what men wanted. This was what husbands would want in their wives. Yet in spite of her beauty—her grace, there was something brazenly artificial about Lisa that ruined her otherwise untarnished façade of purity.
Their relationship was that of parent and child, but it didn't seem to bother her. Lisa was, after all, nearly half his age, and she feared him as a sign of respect. As a husband he was reserved, clam, and collected. Still, she sensed an untapped rage within his soul that seemed to threaten the balance they all strived to keep.
Lisa had no recollections of Earth. She made her memories from stories and snippets of narratives given by those who had survived the catastrophe. Through this lens, the station was divided into two camps: those who spoke of the event constantly in an attempt to unravel the mystery behind it and those who remained definitively silent on the matter.
Peter rarely recounted his time on Earth; choosing most often to let his memories rot in the untouchable corridors of the past. He would have no reason at all to recount the awkward childhood, the painful adolescence or the lonely adulthood had it not been for his beloved Diana.
"I'm making chicken tonight," she said pleasantly; allowing her thick lashes to droop heavily above her eyes.
"Good," Peter responded dispassionately. He passed her abruptly and made his way to the kitchen.
It was no secret that Peter harbored little emotion for Lisa other than the remotest tolerance. He had never loved her. She had been given to him three years earlier by the governor's high council when was deemed old enough to fulfill the role of a wife. That was the way of the station. The young, surviving women were given to the dull, ageing men in the hopes of breeding a superior generation that would inherit the gross problems of the last. Socially, the station had regressed as controlled procreation became paramount to the existence of mankind.
"I made it because I know it's your favorite," she said slowly; sensing his detachment. Lisa had learned to read her husband well. She knew his moods and his tendencies. She knew when to leave and when to stay. She knew he didn't love her, and it was all she could do to deny herself such truths.
"Thank you," he responded dryly.
Lisa tried to smile. "Do you know what today is?" Her tone was tentative, forcefully relaxed.
Peter paused. He knew what day it was. "No," he said dully. He felt Lisa exhale behind him.
"It's our anniversary." She tried to hide her hurt feelings under a cheery tone, but they both knew what this day meant to her. Lisa had been trained her whole life to be a wife to some old scientist. It was her only duty, and thus consumed her. She would have been ecstatic if Peter even pretended to be as remotely interested in their marriage as she was.
"Is it?" Peter asked in monotone. He began shuffling through papers as he kept his back to her. Truthfully, he enjoyed doing this. He enjoyed bullying his wife. He enjoyed causing her pain. She had never been through the emotional upheaval of the twenty year old catastrophe. She had not watched in horror as their planet murdered itself; a thousand explosions churning oceans and charring cities to ash. It was this memory that embedded such fear into the souls of the survivors. It was a memory that Lisa, whose pregnant mother had been aboard one of the last escape pods, had never experienced.
"Yes," she said softly "three years today."
Peter didn't move. It was unfair. It was unfair he should suffer daily while she lived as close to an ordinary, happy life as the station could offer. She was always so bright and unaffected. She was so normal. He absolutely hated her for it.
"Peter," she continued against her better judgment "did you hear me?"
There was another pause.
"Yes."
Lisa tried to smile, but his indifference tore at her. He was all she had at the station; her one job—her only obsession, and he ignored her.
The old replica of a grandfather clock ticked away. Peter's eyes caught the time: nearly 8 o'clock.
"I thought maybe we could celebrate."
Before Peter could answer, the clock tolled eight times in slow succession. In the silence that followed, he continued to shuffle through papers and hang his head.
Lisa didn't move.
"I have to leave early tomorrow morning."
She smiled unconvincingly, but Peter never saw. "You didn't tell me you were going to work out in the field again." She opened the oven to check on the artificial chicken. "I thought they hired someone else to collect the samples." Her voice echoed from inside.
"They never get it right," he said absently. "They never collect the right samples."
Lisa slid a gloved hand into the oven and pulled out their dinner. "If you want something done right, do it yourself."
There was no response, and Lisa didn't ask Peter if he had heard. This was common behavior for him. If they talked long enough, eventually he just tuned her out. She set the chicken on the counter and began to violently cut off a leg; smiling placidly as she worked.
"Wing, please," Peter called from the table.
"Of course, Darling." Lisa blade slid seamlessly upward in a perfect arch to reach the boneless wing of the bird. She sawed rapidly; separating meat from bone with the ferocious skill of an abused wife.
After setting the meal on a plate, she walked with perfect poise to the table. She set the food in front of her husband who looked at it, returned to his papers for a minute, looked at the chicken and then finally set down his work.
When they began to eat, it was with awkward, measured bites, as though they were two strangers sharing their first meal. The initial few mouthfuls were consumed in complete silence.
"I assume you've leaving so late at night to avoid the early morning sandstorms," she said pleasantly; cutting her meat into delicate, bite sized pieces.
Peter nodded and continued to consume his food.
Lisa smiled. She slid her hand over the table and brushed his fingertips. He looked up in surprise. He instinctually opened his hand to allow hers room to slide through his fingers.
Lisa squeezed and smiled. It was almost genuine, Peter noticed. She bent down and kissed his knuckles. "I love you," she whispered quietly.
Peter's eyebrows slid down the sides of his face as his brow lifted in sympathy. He gave her a small smile. He was not sure why this one sentence from her always seemed to soften him. They both knew the emotion was fabricated, like everything else there. Perhaps it was the flattery of it; the vanity that came with being adored by another human being. More likely however, this false affection reminded him faintly of the real thing. It made him feel, for once, alive again. In the midst of their replication 1950s suburban kitchen and fake chicken, Peter allowed himself to pretend human love still existed.
Getting out of her chair, Lisa leaned towards him. She kissed his hand again before standing up. She kissed up his arm until she reached his lips, and she pressed her mouth softly against his. Then he stood up. Peter put his arms around his wife and guided them slowly to the bedroom.
-X-
The grandfather clock struck four. Peter opened his eyes hazily to stare at the wall where a window should have been. Lisa was sleeping naked next to him. Her long body curled into a tight ball on the other side of the bed. Peter suppressed an urge to touch her shoulder.
Instead, he turned around to reach across and opened the top drawer of the side table where he recovered a tiny skeleton key. Holding the antique tool in his hand, Peter sat up. He put both feet on the floor and he leaned forward to pull a small, metal box from underneath the bed he and his wife shared. Delicately, he held the box at chest level before setting the key inside and turning. There was a small "click" and the box popped open.
Inside was a curious montage of objects and pictures that had been chosen with the utmost care as keepsakes to accompany the young scientist on his first voyage to the station almost 21 years ago. They were dirty, ripped, smothered possessions of little monetary value. To the owner however, these items might have been the treasures that surrounded the bodies of ancient Pharaoh's which accompanied them on their voyage to the afterlife.
Through the clutter, Peter removed a single, palm-sized photograph of a woman. She was small with angular brown eyes and a heart shape faced. Her hair was dark with a short, boyish cut that extenuated her fairylike features. She was sitting on a Park bench leaning forward with her hands on her knees and laughing.
Peter smiled back. Although the glare from the sun that day had obscured much of the picture in white light, it was still his favorite of the many photographs he had of her. The back read "Life is either a great adventure or nothing" with her signature. Peter had snapped the shot months before he was chosen to study Martian geology at the only American station on the planet.
Days before he left for the six months exploration, She had handed back the picture with her seal and the promise that she would be there when he got back. She kissed him and squeezed his arm because she knew he was nervous. "You're allowed to be scared," she whispered in his ear "it's an adventure".
Peter smiled sadly at the memory. His time with her had been the happiest of his life. She had been so brave and strong. She had belonged to a time without fear and without dread. She belonged to a time when living had been possible.
Locking the box and setting his treasures back into their tomb under his bed, Peter stood up. He went to his closet to collect one of the seven identical suits he wore to work each day. Only one was made from natural fibers; the others were weaved out of imitation material and the labors of human ingenuity. It really didn't matter which suit he chose or even that he chose a suit. As soon as he arrived at the dock, he would be asked to remove his clothes in place of finer, more specialized material to be put on under the astronaut shell.
From behind him, Lisa stirred. Peter turned to look at her. Even asleep she looked angelic, otherworldly; perfect, alien. He returned to their bed to kiss her shoulder lightly so that the next morning she would not be able to recall whether or not it had been a dream. It was a silent recognition for having done all that she could to revive him.
Peter had chosen his suit at random. It was tawny.
Slipping his shoes over his dry, peeling feet, Peter blinked. He wasn't tired, but he yawned out of habit. He looked to the wall where a window should have been; registering dimly his longing for it before leaving the room.
As he passed through the tiny living space, Peter stopped at the flowers. He reached down to pick one up; examining it again as though it were foreign. He pressed his thumb against the pedal and trying to recall what a living flower felt like. He couldn't remember.
The door to the transporter slid open and Peter hesitated to put down the petal.
"Peter, please hurry up. We can't be late or we'll get stuck in the sandstorms," Deependra's heavily accented English came from inside.
Peter very rarely heard Deependra speak at all, let alone speak to him. Though the phrase was only said out of necessity, Peter took some warmth from it. He set down the petal before taking his place among the other scientists, sighing as they were whisked away through the labyrinth.
When the doors opened at their predetermined destination, all the scientists filled out clumsily.
The dock was the largest room at the station. It had been built to mimic an airplane hanger with several old ships in disrepair cluttering the space. They were useless heaps of expensive material whose only remaining purpose was to remind the station inhabitants of their planet's former glory.
The treasures that had been preserved were the space suits worn by the original pilots and passengers who had almost entirely died out. The suits were rare and ill fitted to most who wore them. However, seldom did anyone complain of this discomfort. The artifacts were both a privilege and a punishment. The hurt was soothing as self inflicted pain sometimes is.
Peter began to strip off his suit; the fabric dropping gracelessly into a puddle about his feet. He was handed the first layer—a thin, plastic coating for the body. It squealed and jerked as he stretched it over his skin. Then, layer after layer, his face contorted in an attempt to bear each article that had not been made to fit him.
The scientists dressed in silence, their mission having been made clear days before. Several officers stood at a distance; more for show than necessity. Their presence echoed the omnipotence of an unspecific authority.
Once Peter and the others had finished dressing, the help stood back and the officers stepped forward. Without so much as an inspection, the men were directed to the small hatch that led to the dry, dead world.
As the door locked and sealed behind them, the scientists were left alone in the small compartment that was neither station nor surface. They stood in complete silence—the only noise being ones own breathing reverberating within the helmet.
Peter closed his eyes as the hatch jerked open and the inhospitable atmosphere wailed menacingly for a moment before fading back into the eerie silence; the planet's protest a clear reminder that it was no longer a world to suffer such life kindly.
Peter inhaled deliberately and a collective tension ran through the group. No one so much as stirred. They were like rodents being let out of a cage—overwhelmed by the desire to escape, while consumed by their fear of it. In the midst of reactions they had been trained to feel, it was difficult to derive whether or not this felt instinctually wrong or only socially taboo.
The group starred helplessly at the open wasteland while a collective consciousness held them all back. They had performed this task a thousand times, and each time it became more of an ordeal. Peter ached to turn around, to check and make sure the station still existed, but he remained as a stolid and immobile as the mountains that filled the corners of his eyes.
Finally, it was Deependra who stepped ahead to sniff the air. At first he appeared only to be leaning forward, and for a split second Peter worried that he was falling rather than walking. Perhaps he had died in his suit and would collapse right there in limbo, a readymade sacrificial heap of blood and bones. But Deependra did not fall. Instead, he made a large, premeditated stride into the atmosphere.
Immediately, he changed. They all watched as the Sun struck strange, weightless rays of light onto their companion's body; illuminating the old suit and transforming it. Deependra was no longer man, but spirit confined within layers of plastic and metal.
But then, with the slow slide of the inevitable, the sunlight settled on Deependra and he became mortal once again.
At first the men held their positions, but slowly, sheepishly they began to look at one another through the cumbersome masks that sloppily hid their expressions—ashamed for finding a miracle in the trick of the light. They checked to see who else among them was unworthy. Then, with quick, awkward jolts of embarrassment, each man took steps into the open air.
Peter, of course, was the last to leave. He stood in the entryway, stricken dumb by fear and anticipation. He was terrified that the old suit would fail and allow the caustic Martian atmosphere to seep in. He was terrified that he would loose sight of the station or his crew and be left to wander aimlessly across the cold surface alone. He was terrified that the sandstorms would come early and wipe him clear off the map.
Peter might have waited in this limbo until the very foundations of the station crumbled to dust around him, but he had made a promise.
Clenching his muscles together in a ferocious, painful, blissful contortion, Peter lifted his foot in a heavy, decisive motion. He closed his eyes and begged to be liberated.
Stepping through the entryway, he waited for a sign that he was succeeding. He paused with one foot elevated; refusing to put it down until he was sure of the transformation. Peter would achieve the impossible where Deependra had failed.
His eyes, which had been squeezed shut, became dark slits within the mask. He stared through eyelashes the blurred his vision. He pleaded to see; he pleaded for change.
And as he prayed to a God he did not believe in, Peter began to lose balance. He tensed he leg muscles helplessly as the proof of his age and his condition came crashing down around his ears. He wasn't strong enough. He hadn't been for some time.
In perfect unison, Peter's heart and his foot fell; deprived of even the poetic arch of shattered hopes. The miracle had not been achieved. He remained a soulless sack of old bones and dry skin. His boot collided roughly with the parched land; carrying the full force of his body behind it. A dust cloud puffed up around him, and Peter wished it would just consume him.
In the distance, Deependra turned around. With the glare from his helmet obscuring his expression, Peter pretended that he was receiving a sympathetic glance. Instead, Deependra beckoned him forward with a slow, exaggerated gesture. Hurry up.
Hesitantly, and with slow, rhythm-less steps, Peter began to walk forward. His shoulders slouched within the suit; aging him instantly like a crestfallen old horse. He trudged through the sand, kicking up small clouds of dust in his wake.
He moved with sluggishness in the hope that it would be mistaken for apathy. He wanted to fade into the rocks and the soil, into the sand itself. He wanted to become lost in it.
Peter did his best to wait until Deependra and the others were out of sight, until the only signs of life were the shadows wandering aimlessly across the planet's surface. Then, with the backdrop of the station behind him, he crossed the landscape. It was time to leave this place.
The early morning sun continued to rise over the horizon as Peter trudged onward. He looked up. It seemed so small in the Martian sky, and the light was older, more worn, distant. Still, he had to adjust the visor of his helmet to deflect the glare from the beams that made only a half-hearted effort to reach him. As he slid the shade lower, Peter recalled how in some cultures the sun had been considered a god, the God; the giver of life and its sustainer. He wondered dimly, Where is God now?
Without the Sun to overwhelm the heavens, Phobos and Deimos were given free range of the ancient sky. To Peter, they appeared devilish monstrosities; circling their father greedily like vultures who consumed the fear of this planet. Certainly Peter was afraid, though it was an old fear, a measured apprehension. They had all been afraid for so long that it was no longer a personal emotion, just something to be maintained and regulated like the air supply. Other emotions, no matter how strong, were always eventually stifled under the weight of fear that faded into the atmosphere.
Peter breathed in. He tried to set his mind to a specific memory. So much ran together now that it was hard to distinguish the lines between memory, dream and wish. Still, he concentrated. He fought through the haze to not only remember, but to feel a time he had been genuinely afraid, when the emotion had been fresh and fierce. A time when he had felt, if not human, at least alive.
He remembered water. Too much of it. An ocean of water crushing him. And sunlight. Sunlight winding its way through the blue and scattering in a million different directions. He tasted salt, and his eyes burned when he opened them. His arms and feet flailed helplessly; propelling him nowhere. I am going to die here, he thought. I am going to die and there is nothing I can do about it.
Peter licked his lips; using his tongue to probe the dry cracks across his mouth. There was no salt, no water. There was no struggle to reach the surface. The desire to survive was lost on him now. The desire to live required a living soul.
So he walked onward. He walked until his physical form begged for rest, and Peter did not stop. If this body was all that remained of his humanity, then he would walk until it too disappeared among the rocks and sand.
And as he walked in this timeless wasteland, Peter sobbed quietly to himself. He cried first the death of his soul and for the death of his people. He cried for them until his body fell upon the Martian soil as a sacrifice to the sky. Then Peter cried for that which he mourned most of all—the death of life and the truth which had accompanied it.
Peter begged aloud to be liberated from stagnancy and falseness. He begged for love and humanity. He turned his head to the heavens and screamed profanities to its keepers. He allowed the fear to rush through him and thus purged himself of it.
In the distance Peter saw a cloud of dust rip itself from the Martian surface like a great spirit. He braced himself as the winds howled a battle cry and ran forward to meet the challenger.
With the last of his strength, Peter pulled himself upright. He stood brave and tall as a man could be. Then, lifting his arms from their sides, Peter marched forward. A crucifixion.
The sand crunched beneath his boots and the sky darkened. All around him rocks and soil tore off into the storm. The planet would to cleanse itself of these ghosts of men.
Closing his eyes, Peter gave a mild mannered smile. This was a time for transience and change. This was emancipation from falseness and fear. This was sacrifice and rebirth.
As the winds lifted him, Peter arched his back in the ecstasy of liberation. The storm ripped plastic and mental from skin, and then skin from bone. Finally, the winds ripped the soul from man and carried it upwards toward the sun. Peter Ambrotious was free.