Route 267: Bison Crater, Mars to Gaborone, Earth

“These Merlin engines better work this time, failing twice in the same day, that’s insane, passengers are getting jittery.”
“Raptors, Lizzy, these are Raptor engines…the Merlins have been scrapped for over five—“
“—I KNOW! Gertrude, yikes. Are you prepared to take one for the team then, telling all those passengers they have to wait another two years for the next launch window to get to earth? Heck, I know that I for one will not be doing that anytime soon.”

We were having the typical Lizzy rant all over again. All other space-attendants who had flown with her before had learnt to expect her craziness; it was perhaps a strangely reassuring constant in these Mars-Earth journeys. Being nearest to her meant I couldn’t avoid getting entangled in her internal arguments. No matter the futility of the exercise, I always tried to placate her.
“They wouldn’t have to wait that long, SpaceX always rebooks passengers onto other spacelines. Blue Origin would jump at our loss, and Virgin—”
“If any of these passengers could afford Jeff Bezos’ fancy spacecraft they’d have been on it already. At least the New Glenn doesn’t have failing engines on startup. I swear to Elon….” Lizzy’s last words were buried in a deafening roar as the Raptors exploded into life as if to make a point. But the PA system continued to drone on “—cabin crew please remain seated until the seatbelt indicators turn green on your dashboards, we’re are going to be…"
“Didn’t even realise we left the ground,” whispered Lizzy.
“Thrust required for lift off on Mars—”
“—is a third of that required on Earth, again Gertrude, I know. Gosh if you’re gonna lecture me about something, can it NOT be about something we both learnt at the SAME university.”
“You’re funny.”
Lizzy looked at me and smiled. She gave me a hard time now and then but we had been together far too long for me to mind whatever douchebaggery she threw my way.
We had reached cruising speed 45 minutes later and the solar array panels had just been deployed. The sight of the MCT unfurling the wing-like arrays was not unlike that of a majestic albatross preparing to take flight on a quiet Sunday morning by a deserted lake with nothing around it for tens of thousands of miles. Looking out at it through the cabin crew window never got old.
A few moments later Lizzy and I were shuffling between the isles serving passengers their dinner. Most were already restless and looking forward to leaving their confined launch chairs to head on to the upper deck. No one could blame them. The upper deck was the only thing among the strangeness of the interior of the Mass Colonial Transporter that had some sense of familiarity. It was a large space designed to look as homely and warm as possible, capable of having all 50 passengers at one time. Retractable book shelves, harnessed furniture and faux green lawn by faux walkways…everything that could make the 150 day journey comfortable had been thought of. Well, not everything, apparently Blue Origin’s New Glenn had much larger living quarters, with a passenger and crew dining area so that passengers didn’t have to return to their launch seats to be served meals.
“—can I have it with some lemon juice-please-thank-you.”
“—thanks darling, I’ll have the potato salad too”
I could tell Lizzy was already getting flustered as we pushed the service trolley from one customer to the next, and as I strained to see how far back the other space-hostesses were.
“Kopa o nthotheletse Bacardi foo tlhe motho wa modimo, nna kana ganke ke ja nako tse,” said a stout female passenger to a bewildered Lizzy. This made me smile.
“She wants the Bacardi for now Lizzy,” I helped her out, and in turn rewarded me with a quick smile of pretence-thanks (more like a "mind-your-own-business" smile), and served the lady. After all these years she still hadn’t picked up some of the basics of the language of those using route 267…this is going to be one long ride.

Her story...

She was birthed onto this world, with no choice over the vessel she’d occupy. For all she knows, she could have wanted to be a duck and spend her life in a lake somewhere, or been an olive tree in some Arabian desert. But at such stages in time, there are no such ornaments as choice, the big universe barks at how such a lofty thought could be conceived. She was instead given this life form to occupy. What to make of it?

She left the nest, each day trying to piece together the laws that maybe. Surely this living thing came with a manual. She needed quiet time to make sense of it all. So she left those of her race and ventured alone into mans old habitat. There she learnt about creatures of the world. But they cared not much for her and went about their own things. With time she felt a growing weight increase its load over her, a kind of unhappiness. No, not a physical weight, but some unseen force blurring her vision. Something felt amiss. She happened to be reminded of a musing in philosophy, about whether or not a tree falling in a forest made a sound, if no one heard or saw it. Could she really be sure of her beingness, if there was none to echo against, to let her know if they liked how she looked today, and report on the liveliness (or lack thereof) of her hair and skin. At that thought she saw the warthog she spotted earlier and thought of calling it over for a talk. No, she was not successful, dear reader, for no one here seemed to take the slightest of interest in her. So she decided to return to the land of her kind, and seek to fill the invisible void.

After many sunsets, she happened upon a person walking the other way on a path. They were a little taller than she was, but with same dark skin, only smoother. The person had a slender body, but had arms, legs and a core that betrayed no weakness. Sweat glistened over their neck; must be son of the town’s farmer this one. Then she happened to meet his gaze…the scariest and most exciting moment of her life. She felt like one peering into a precipice, and knowing they wouldn't succeed against its lures, that they would be pulled in and be at the mercies of some strange force. The velvets of his lips parted as he addressed her, a voice which to her sounded like a sweet melody, one more eternal than anything Stravinsky could have ever dreamed up.

That night, with her head to the boy’s chest, amongst the meadow and river sounds, she dreamt.

She was on the forest bed of some jungle, eerily quiet. Then sounds seemed to return from wherever they had been withheld, and her vision was a slowly focusing blur. She heard the voices first before the wispy smell of smoke. “She’s up”, said a groggy voice, followed by a staccato of grinding sniggers that she reckoned could have only come from a dozen ogres. Sure enough, the behemoth that strode to her side and bestraddled her didn’t fall short of one of those hideous beasts you hear of in fairy tales. The stench of his skin was a deathly warning, his nearly toothless smile and scarred face told of a tumultuous inhuman existence. He lowered himself onto her to the roar of his companion’s approval. She feared what was to come next, and nearly cried upon realising the source of the biting she’d been ignoring around her wrists and ankles…as it was nothing but the leather binding they had used on her. She thought she heard a wooshing sound somewhere, followed by a couple others. The Ogre grunted, trying to follow the source of the sound, only to have its head suddenly explode into a gory violent crimson, like a bursting watermelon, its lifeless body slumping sideways. All was quiet now, except the fading scales made by a quivering arrow that had buried itself in a nearby tree bark.

She doesn’t know how long she had been writhing beneath the corpse trying to free herself, when a mighty strong hand curled itself around her and lugged her on its shoulders. Something about the powerful hands of her new capturer told her it was futile to try attempt an escape. But something was different about her new capturer. Being carried like a sack of potatoes, she couldn’t see much. The capturer had long black silky hair, that reached the back of the knees. The girl could see their glistening ebony skin, as it stressed and relaxed from the action of considerate calf muscles, wrapped in taut sheets of dark skin. She was reminded of the greek myth concerning the tribe of Amazons…for it was now clear to her that her new capturer was a woman of considerable strength...she doesn’t remember whether it was the rocking motion or the fact that her head was upside down for long that caused her to fall asleep…

She woke to the sight of warm flickering light, golden, and the crackling of softly burning wood. There was a hint of myrrh and other incenses in the air. Her head turning to follow the scent met the gaze of an enchantress, or at least that is what she thought. Her hair seemingly caught in an eternal billowing wind, like the living snakes of Medusa. She met the eyes of the enchantress, their corners disappearing into the recesses of her hair just as they were about to curve out of the outlines of her head. Fighting the enormous gravity of her eyes, the girl dragged her gaze to take in other exquisite features of this ebony spectacle. She saw the fullest lips she had ever seen before, glistening and beguiling, had a gravity of their own. Much she cannot remember of what happened afterwards, or perhaps it were that all of it was dwarfed by the supreme feeling of awareness that now swept over her. The feeling of immortality. It was a differently shaped chest she was sleeping on tonight, but the same heart was beating underneath it. She looked up at her, to get a better view of her face, feeling supremely calm, as though resting on the very bosom of the master of the universe, and listened to the powerful rhythm of life, pulsating.

Her eyes opened one last time. The sound of the river wisening her senses. She was back in the meadows, in the embrace of a different kind, but still pretty much the same. Looked into the still sleeping face of the boy and felt her heart torn apart. A part of her wished she hadn’t woken up. And yet another part of her was filled with an even greater sense of belonging to this real world. It was getting lighter and one could make out the outlines of the surroundings. She rested her ear on the ebony chest and listened to the eternal rhythm. She smiled and strengthened her embrace around him, as if weary that he too may be part of one of her dreams, only to wither away with the opening of her eyes. The farm boy smiled in his sleep, and held her closer. She wanted to stay like that for as long as possible; for she was reminded of a quote from a book by some guy Mitchel:

“Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud’s shape nor hue size don’t stay the same it’s still a cloud an’ so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud’s blowed from or who the soul’ll be ‘morrow? Only Sonmi the east an’ the west an’ the compass an’ the atlas, yay, only the atlas o’ clouds.”

The Haunted Pearls

Everyone has their own haunted place on earth, plural perhaps…places. Special places that seem to lie in wait, just for them. I’ve found one of mine this summer holiday. I always find that the process of coming across these places on the metaphorical map of your life’s journey seems to be an inexorable one...as if you were meant to go through the dark valleys and shadows they afford, and dance to their sordid music, the bizarre notes plucking away at your brain’s neurons, derailing them. All of it is (usually) initially below conscious reception, but the effects are soon palpable.

So I went through my haunted place this summer…it was in the form of a ground floor apartment I had rented out. I would be all alone, when the sordid music would start playing. With time, the music took effect…it won over my own body…causing my own bodily units to mutiny against the integral structure that is me. Whenever the music played, I would be "choked", and wouldn’t be able to swallow anything, food, and sometimes even liquids. But so powerful was the spell of the music, that after a time, the music wasn’t required for me to gag, I choked of my own accord.

...I am hungry, but cannot eat; hungry, but cannot eat. What kind of mutiny is this…mutually assured…

Thus I tell myself I have to leave this place before this bodily anarchy takes permanent hold.

This mutiny, although (and probably because it is) at a microscopic level, is an incredibly potent and humbling reminder that although claiming to be the conductor of my bodily orchestra, I cannot make the perfect life-giving symphony, if the vital pieces in my body are so unhappy as to not play their notes. They are unhappy and try to push me and you away from the disturbing thing, trying to communicate with us by causing a little discomfort. So I have to leave this place. If not…if I persist here...I fear that the mutineers will not be so insightful as to realise that they are just about to lunge me, and by extension, themselves, into an eternal precipice.

Whoops! …its usually kind of hard to turn back from these sort of things once they've been allowed to happen.

But I left. I left before all of that could happen. Before I could be overwhelmed by the melee. I’m back again…conducting the orchestra of my life. Each time growing more careful…careful in trying to make sure every part of me is happy.
I’ll be out of there even before the vapour of a complaint condenses into my conscious, from the bubbling hot-springs of the subconscious. Yes I will leave, even if you promised me the moon and stars. For what worth are these things, if I do not have any peace of mind left to enjoy them.