5
Alienation
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Test subject #1, patient zero, the guinea pig. They advertised it as ‘beta-tester,’ which has a nicer ring to it than the only idiot lonely enough to let us blast him off into the unknown. At this point in my too long, too unfulfilling life I had two options: succumb to its demise or forge a new path, the path they gave me. While both intriguing, kinda, (not really), I chose the latter.
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I stuffed the little belongings I had left into my shallow pockets and prepared for my midnight departure. They said no human would be able to survive this. 60 seconds to 120 seconds max was the estimated time I would endure, but I am not human, nor am I one to abide by the chains of confinement others have placed on me. Onwards and upwards, I ascended 666,666,666 miles, straight up past the clouds, through the stars, breaking the sound barrier and gasping for air as I rose above the Kármán line.
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When I touched ground on the frozen desert, dry, barren, and covered in dust, time had stopped—or at least time in the way that I am used to feeling it. The desert, deserted. It was awfully quiet, stillness reigned. It had been a long time since I felt as serene as I did trudging through the static haze and red rock-covered floor. Still, the silence here made me long for the subsonic hum of a weathered jukebox I once knew, the sticky floors, and the bartender who never let me see the bottom of my glass. For a split second I missed the ghost I once was, the shadow of happy hour.
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Unlike originally promised, there was no sign of life, no buildings, no light. To an untrained eye, it might as well have been completely abandoned, and I had failed yet again. Until, there, in the far-off void, I saw it, like it had appeared only for me, a sign of hope and promise—the soft glow of a dim green light. It was far, or so it seemed with my intense lack of depth perception.
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I had no other choice but to push ahead, the past no longer mattered and the future lacked promise. Like a moth to the flame, I followed my dim green guiding light, wherever it may lead me. I had not come all this way to just lay down and die, if that were the case I would have done it many moons and a few million miles ago.
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Guided by nothing but the pungent smell of sulfur, the pull of Sirius, and the steady glow of my green light, I carried on. I could only hope that whatever lay ahead at least had air, music, and a cold beer.
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Finally, a structure appeared in the distance with a sign: The Martian Mirage Club. The shadow guarding the door had a long, ghoulish face. Tall in stature. Lanky but not frail. The type that comes to mind when you get that unsettling feeling someone is watching you but you turn around and no one’s there.
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My body pulsed with the beat that crept out through the bolted door while my eyes readjusted to the flickering street lamp we now stood under and smells of sweet tobacco flooded my nostrils.
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I needed to get inside.
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“Excuse me, sir?” I tried politely. “Is it alright if I address you as sir?”
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He didn't budge. I continued anyway.
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“I come alone, and I come in peace?” I said, making a quintessential alien joke. It didn’t land. I threw caution to the wind for my last chance at redemption.” . . '
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“I’m not here to conquer your land. You see, you have to understand. I’m not a 1700s explorer, although I’ve seen that world crumble from the inside out. I have no interest in stealing your land and making this my home. I have never had a home,” I explained. “You see, where I came from, Earth was overpopulated. People packed into every corner like sardines. Our waters filled with waste, our livestock slowly dying off, resources ran completely dry. You see, and then the invitation came, a way out, an offer for those with nothing, with no one, so unhappy with their lives. They promised us something better.”
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I knew the countdown on this conversation was ticking rapidly as well as any hope that this new planet would be any less lonely than my original one.
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“They who sent you have lied,” he said, still staring off into space.
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- * ' '' * . o I figured as much.
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“Run.” He told me, while simultaneously turning his back to me.
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So I ran. I knew no one was chasing me—how good it might feel if they were. Once again, I was put out, shackled in the imprisonment of my own mind, forbidden from the spaces I craved but withheld. It was intangible, muted, faint and low. The soft buzz, stereo panning starting in my right ear and slowly spreading to my left until it had all of me. I was losing breath, and speed—two things a creature of my nature should effortlessly maintain. The buzz turned into a hum and gave me the strength to power on. I found my breath again and my jog turned into a sprint—far enough away now to lie down and shut my eyes. There is nowhere to return except inward.