by Sean Clark
“You’re very unbothered by this whole ordeal Cecil. We still don’t understand fully what we’re dealing with, yet you’ve invested all of your confidence into it. Remember that once it… almost killed you. Now you go out nightly to have a nice chat with it. Do you want me to brew a pot of tea for you two to talk over?” Agrippa clicks his tongue. Cecil stifles a small laugh. “This is serious. I don’t want you being brainwashed.”
“You don’t understand. For once I feel like I’m not being doted on. Growing up, I asked my mother why nobody ever said anything other than ‘good, okay’ when asked how they are… even if they weren’t okay. She said that even if you’re feeling bad, you don’t want to make other people feel bad by saying so. It’s all just fake pleasantries. Nobody wants to deal with another person’s problems unless they have something to gain from it.
Ever since I woke up in the med bay, people have been asking me if I feel okay… if anything hurts, if I’m hungry, thirsty, cold, or bored. It’s all more pleasantries by people who think they can make themselves feel better if they help me out. I get it the worst from you. You’ve admitted to barely knowing me, but you still want to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. You treat me as if I can’t help myself either. You walked me back here just now as if I were a lost child or something. It’s like you’re trying your hardest to make me feel useless so that I’ll want to go back to Earth so I can be out of everyone’s hair.
Mother… she doesn’t care. She can tell what I’m thinking and feeling… she knows that I’m perfectly fine. She thinks rationally because she isn’t relying on idealistic bullshit like you… saying that problems can be solved if you just think positively. I’ve told her about the problems we have back on Earth, and how we caused them… the damage that humans have done, and how we’ve tried in vain to attempt to fix them. Humans aren’t perfect, Agrippa, definitely not me or you. I think mother understands that… why can’t you?”
Agrippa lets out a long sigh, waiting a long moment before responding. “I see. I apologize.” He says insincerely. “Perhaps all this time I still imagined you lying in bed in the med bay wishing you could avoid any and all human interaction. Perhaps that’s still what you’re doing, but… this makes you happy, I guess. As long as you… nobody gets hurt, I won’t say any more. Listen, kid. I’m going to discuss with Martin how we are going to coordinate the next step. I’ll… consult… you if I need any technical input, for now stay put, okay?” Agrippa speaks in a slightly condescending tone before walking off.
Grinding his teeth, Cecil pulls his legs up in front of him, wrapping his arms around his knees. Leaning himself up against the wall, he closed his eyes and drifts off.
The Answer
Cecil awakes from his nap, awkwardly propped against the cold stone wall. The hard aluminum crate flexes slightly under his weight, and his shoulders ache from sleeping in such a poor posture. The others are still awake in the room, the light shining bright in Cecil’s vision.
Cecil stands to stretch. He rubs the back of his head that had been resting against the hard surface. His hair is still stubbly, matted down in some places. The skin on his neck feels greasy from a buildup of sweat and grime.
He slides between the maze of cots and bed mats in the room to find his way out of the room. Down the hall just a bit he comes across the latrines, complete with plastic sheet covering the entrance. Pulling it back releases a waft of air carrying the unpleasant odor of bodily functions. Cecil breathes strongly out of his nose and heads in to do his own business.
Standing up from the makeshift latrine, Cecil cleans himself and pulls his coveralls back on. He finds his way to the basin where he is able to fumble around for a bar of soap. The slow trickle of cold water takes its time cleaning the residue off his hands. He cups them, his palms collecting the water before splashing it on his face. The cool liquid starts to drip off his skin and streak down the front of his neck. He runs his still moist hands through his hair and back behind his head. The sensation is refreshing. He wipes his hands on the thighs of his coveralls and heads outside, pushing the curtain aside to the much fresher air.
Cecil follows the wall back to the entrance of the sleeping quarters. Standing outside the door, he stops to listen. A few carefree conversations continue, but the room seems quieter than before. Cecil quickly slides past the opening, and continues down the cold hallway.
Once again Cecil finds himself in the cold, silent chamber. He sits down under the railing and crosses his legs. His thighs are still slightly damp. Thinking about what Agrippa had said, the words speaking of him ‘being happy’ repeat in his head. Sitting alone in the quiet darkness, away from all the others, Cecil feels content.
Cecil.
“Mother.”
You have something new on your mind.
“I don’t know. I think it’s relief. I told Agrippa off, finally. The fool’s been asking for it. I was tired. I don’t know if it was his fault entirely, but making him realize that I can do things for myself felt good. He should know what I’m capable of. All of work that’s gone into this place down here is coming to an end, and I get satisfaction knowing I was a part of it. We can start generating more power. That means we can support more people… more great minds can come here to make this planet a place where we can live.
The ground here… it really can’t support life. There are no nutrients in it like the soil on Earth. We couldn’t hope to ever grow plants in Martian dirt as it stands. We grow food using hydroponics. That way we don’t require any dirt… all of the nutrients come from water. Then we have to replicate the sunlight which plants need too. Of course, Mars gets sunlight, but not as much as Earth. There’s not quite enough solar energy for photosynthesis, not to mention powering solar panels to any great effect.
This new power source comes from Mars itself. It’s like the planet has finally found a way to offer itself to us. You probably feel it… feed off it like we do. It’s the heat deep down in below the crust, a churning force of nature. It will allow us to grow plants, purify water, and help us recycle oxygen. Who knows how much we can expand by? We only have one generator right now, but adding more is no problem. The power is nearly inexhaustible. They could be sending us more supplies and people as we speak. Who can say really? I think I’ve realized it… that this place is my world now, what happens outside is completely separate. You know, I was asleep for three months while this was being put together. It’s almost as if they did this overnight for me. I still can’t believe it.”
More humans will come?
“Without a doubt.”
I feel I will be disturbed more by this.
“What are you saying? I’m sure nothing we’ve done here has ever caused you any real harm, or am I wrong to think that?”
Do you enjoy being here?
“I just said so… this place… this planet, has become my home. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”
There are thoughts in your conscious now that say otherwise. You are tired, frightened.
“Sometimes, maybe. I can bear such things. If I were on Earth, I don’t know how I would go about trying to fit back in with society.”
Your feelings and the feelings of others are invasive here. It is unnatural. It conflicts with the natural energy of this planet.
“Humans have feelings both good and bad... it’s human nature, Mother. As a collective we all just want to live, and that includes dealing with the emotions we carry.”
I have thought about why humans do what they do.
“Do you have a conclusion Mother? Humanity has been searching for an answer to that since the beginning, you know.”
Humans act the way they do because they have no choice. They are hard wired to make the decisions they do. Some are made to do good, and some are made to do bad.
“What you’re talking about is free choice, free will. It’s the idea of sentience. I don’t think you understand… humans make conscious decisions every day. People can decide to do good or
bad. We are sentient beings because we’re aware of this.”
Did your mother choose to die?
“What do you mean? That’s not something that humans choose to do. They can only choose what to do in life.”
Did you choose to come to this planet, Cecil?
“I was offered it… and I decided to come on my own accord. There were those who urged me, but in the end, I knew being up here would allow me to do good. That’s why I’m here now.”
It was your decision, because you believed it to be the best for you. That is the point where you lost your free will, is it not? It is because the decision was the best for you. That is what drives all humans I’ve summated… doing the best for themselves.
“What you say has some truth to it, Mother, but everyone is different. You can’t imagine what we have to deal with here. Out here on Mars, we’re more isolated than any human ever has been before. Yet we still think about those left at home more than anything. We’re dedicating our lives to them.”
You said to Agrippa ‘Nobody really cares how another person is doing.’
“I did say that. To be honest, it’s hard to imagine what another person is going through… especially if you’re disconnected from their world, their existence. When I was a kid I had that outlook. We had it tough sometimes, my mother and I. I went a few times just eating scraps… bread crusts or day old rice. My mother always said though to be brave, and that we would have a proper meal after she got paid. She reminded me that someone could always have it worse. I would lay in bed with a growling stomach thinking how there could be no worse situation than the one I was stuck with. I never stopped to think about those children who wouldn’t be getting the free school breakfast the next day like me, because they didn’t have a school to go to, or worse, they didn’t even make it through the night.”
Yet you still suffered… your suffering justified the need for you to wish for what you desired. An individual seeks what is good for themselves, rather than trying to help those who are in a worse situation. Even in the end… when all their needs are met to the best of their abilities, they will not look back. Is this not true, Cecil?
“Not all humans are like that. They just want to live their lives.”
Is the process of a human living their life taking away from others… from the planet?
“It does have an effect.”
You said previously you tried ‘to make the world a little better for those who came after’, but it seems human existence innately causes destruction. I feel you will come here and cause the same.
“We’re not like that anymore Mother. It’s true… humans tend to act in their own best interest. It used to be acceptable that someone down the line could suffer if you were able to get what you wanted. That’s what brought us to the point that we’re at now… the fact that humans love themselves more than anyone else. We’ve changed now. Just look at Agrippa… haven’t you seen all the times he’s put my well-being first? He seems more and more tired each time I talk to him, but I just keep putting him down.”
Are you one of those humans, Cecil? Do you love yourself?
“What the fuck do you mean by that?”
As a human, do you love yourself?
Cecil stops to ponder the words. He feels unmoved by the question, yet tears start to well up in his eyes.
“I left the only place I knew, and lost the only person I could say I loved… my Mother. I knew coming to this planet I would probably never see Earth again, never get to start a family. I knew that I would be working myself to the bone without rest until I could no longer do so. I left right before the next book by my favorite author was going to be released. My best friend was just about to have a kid with his girlfriend of six years. My baby cousin was just about to start her first year of kindergarten. I left all of that. I could have had a normal life. After the accident, they gave me a chance at all that again… to be put back together… to be back on Earth. I decided to stay here once again because I felt like there was something I could do. I sacrificed it all, including my own well-being, so I could help develop something that would contribute to the future of humanity… to people I will never meet or know.
I don’t love myself. I hate myself. I hate myself, Mother. But goddamn it If I don’t love humanity, if I don’t love the Earth.”
Cecil grabs the railing above his head and begins to hang his head down low. He starts to sob. The tears burn his cheeks. He tastes the salt at the corners of his mouth. His hands lose their grip and the weight of his arms fall into his lap. He lets himself collapse on his side as his cries echo lightly through the room.
I hope that there are more humans that share those same feelings, Cecil.
The Other Side
Violent shaking brings Cecil to consciousness, fingers digging into his shoulder. “Cecil, Cecil. Damn it, Cecil.” Agrippa prods him. “I should have checked on you again last night.”
“Stop shaking me, fucking hell.” Cecil snaps. “Sorry Agrippa… stop, please.” He sits up slowly.
“Sorry, sorry. I don’t mean to be so jumpy.” The old man apologizes. “Last night, I was furious… I just said ‘forget it’ and went to sleep without even thinking twice about what you might be up to. Hell, like it was hard to guess.” Cecil feels Agrippa sit down on the floor next to him, groaning on his way down. “It pains me every time I think about you disappearing out here all alone. You look like hell… have you been crying?” Agrippa says, concerned.
“Some painful things were brought out of me last night, Agrippa.” Cecil shakes his head. “To be honest, I didn’t know if I still could cry. I just felt callous to everything. In that letter that I wanted to send to my mother, I said I didn’t have any regrets. I wanted to believe that coming here to help the people of Earth was the best thing that I was ever going to accomplish.”
“It’s okay to be homesick, Cecil. We’re millions of miles away from home, in an installation that feels like a glorified work camp. We don’t have any real comforts… contact with people we know, vacations… food tastes like shit too.” Agrippa laughs softly.
“I could have been at my mother’s side when she was dying… wishing for the company of her only son. I still have no idea what happened to her. Maybe it’s better that way, you think?” Cecil ponders
“Let me tell you something. When I became a widower, I was still pretty much a kid myself… your age. The best thing in my life slowly slipped away from me. I thought I had lost it all. It was my… mid-life crisis… if you want to call it that. However, instead of throwing my money away on things to happily distract me, I emptied my savings on medical bills and burial arrangements. I barely had time to grieve. Instead of dwelling on my feelings, I signed up for the program that would eventually bring me out here. You were brave enough to leave while you still had someone there for you.”
“And now I have no one.” Cecil snarls.
“You have us.”
“You’ve said that before, haven’t you?”
“I have.” Agrippa agrees. “You refused to believe it when I first brought it up. You were only thinking about yourself… and feeling sorry for the position you were in. Then you became obsessed with this voice, thinking it would be able to turn you around.”
“I think I realize now that I wasn’t doing myself any favors. The fact that you’re here, even after I pushed you away, convinces me now. I can’t stand the thought of you hating me.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think of you… you deserve to be treated like a person, even if you don’t reciprocate. Besides, I’m still not convinced that somehow, you’re not going to hurt yourself running about here at night. For now, though we need to get going. We have actual work to do today.”
Agrippa huffs and grunts as he tries to stand. Cecil jumps up and helps him to his feet. “I should be worried about you hurting yourself here, old man.”
“I could trip you up and you would never see it coming.” Agrippa jokes.
“You know t
hat’s cruel. So... what’s new?” Cecil asks, putting his hand lightly on Agrippa’s shoulder so as to let him guide them down the tunnel.
“I made contact with the main base yesterday after our discussion.” Agrippa starts to explain. “As it stands, the system is as ready as we’re going to get it. Of course, I foresee issues popping up here and there as we get the kinks out of the system, but that will be dealt with when we get there. We’re slimming down the team here and sending some of the men back too… they deserve it after working so hard. There’s a transport vehicle expected here in not too long.
Otherwise… we’re clear to start pushing the system up to operating capacity. I talked with one of my men who was looking at core samples of this area. It seems the rock base underneath us is holding up just fine to the saturation tests we’ve been running. To be honest, I would have liked to be back in the lab working samples myself, but it seemed they needed someone level-headed down here to keep people in order. Cassius pretty much insisted I do so actually, especially since you ended up coming along too. You know… Aetius headed back a couple days after we got here. Cassius was furious at him for hindering the project, but to be fair it wasn’t his entire fault…”
“How do you put up with Cassius?” Cecil chips in. “He’s kind of an ass.”
“He is indeed.” Aetius lets out a small laugh. “He kind of reminds me of my father. He means well, but doesn’t always say it in the most pleasant way. After all those years, I learned how to deal with people like him.”
“I never had to deal with my father in such a way…” says Cecil sorrowfully.
“Why’s that?”
“Well, my father never talked down to like that at least….” Cecil shakes his head. “He was never really good with words anyways… English wasn’t his first language. My parents refused to speak Spanish around me either… they wanted me to speak English so I could get ahead easier. If my father was mad, he would turn physical instead. Even if he didn’t hit me, I could see him clench his fist sometimes, and I would immediately shut up and give him his space.”