Come on, pick up the phone. I kicked some pebbles and scattered them. The streetlight was jaundiced. I felt ill from its flickering. The night was cold. Not windy, but cold. I felt a buzz and heard the phone ring, a hangover from a time when the phones had chimes, but now it was obsolete. People just liked to know that they were still on the line.
“Hello?”
It wasn’t the voice I wanted to hear. It was deeper, jovial. Had to be her boyfriend.
“Hey man, is Destiny there? She said she was gonna pick me up at the grocery store and it’s been an hour.”
“Who? How’d you get this number?”
Damn it.
“I think I dialed the wrong number.”
“Yeah, you definitely did. I’m not on Earth right now.”
My SIM card can’t even make intersolar calls. There was no way.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. I’m about …” I heard shuffling. “An hour away from Earth.”
“Where are you coming from?”
“Oh, just Mars. Nothing crazy.”
“Oh … wild.”
I’d been wanting to book a trip there. But with work being what it was I didn’t have enough leave for it. And besides, it was kind of like going to Greece on holiday. Everyone does it just to post pictures, not to have fun. Mars was the same. Sure, the mesas looked cool but there wasn’t much to do besides getting raucously drunk and hooking up with a silicon miner.
There was silence.
“Sorry to hear about your friend,” the stranger said. “ Er … about you not being picked up anyways.”
“Yeah. It’s fine, she does this all the time.”
He chuckled awkwardly. “Sorry you got me instead.”
“You’re fine, you’re fine.”
I wasn’t even convincing myself.
“Anyways, uh … I’ll see if I can reach her.”
“Good luck.” He sounded more genuine than I anticipated.
“Thanks, man.”
I dropped my arm down and hung up the phone, snaking my free hand back into my hoodie. My cousin’s messages popped up as soon as the call ended, and I looked over the number he gave me for Destiny. I’d typed it precisely. He gave me the wrong number. Typical. I looked through to see if I had saved a number like the one I’d called. Nope. Not even the same area code. Of course, this was the moment that petty bastard chose to screw me over. When I was penniless and several miles from home.
The electric car chargers in the lot hummed. It was a sound I’d grown accustomed to after a long shift filled with argumentative customers and incomprehensible automated shoppers. This white noise was preferable to the voices of people and robots alike.
But the voice on the end of the line was nice. He didn’t try to tell me all about his three children who have soccer practice like Gary did or start an argument over intersolar borders like the Cart Getter Guy. Cart Getter Guy was the worst.
I picked up the phone again and called.
“Hello. Again?”
“Sorry I’m calling again I—I’m just out here all by myself, and I don’t think Destiny’s gonna be coming any time soon.”
“You want someone else to talk to?”
“Yeah.” Really, I wanted a friend. I supposed a disembodied voice was fine if he stayed polite.
“If I’m honest, I’m kinda glad you called. I haven’t heard a real human voice in, like, a week,” he responded with a little chuckle.
“F’real?”
“Yeah, for real.”
“Wack. I thought Mars was super popular.”
“I mean it is in some parts. But I was there for research.”
“Bro, what is there to research on Mars? It’s been, like, picked over.”
I heard a laugh. “You sound just like my parents.”
That phrase annoyed me. No one ever wants to sound like someone else’s parents. It makes you feel old. And, even worse, it makes you feel like you’ve done something wrong.
“What are you researching, the nightlife on Mars? How fast you can get solicitations in New Vancouver?”
“I’m studying the effects of active terraforming on colony culture.” I could sense the spiel coming on. “There’s this fascinating phenomenon of people celebrating when the humidifiers turn on, it’s like a holiday but every two weeks. I had to do some technical work at the humidifier site to tick some boxes, but no one lives out there anymore.”
I’d heard about the humidifiers. Glorified sprinklers. I said so, and he seemed to find that very funny.
He asked, “Have you ever been intersolar? Or are you terra-bound?”
“I’ve been to Venus on a school trip.” It had been ages ago, and the only time I could think of, but I supposed it counts.
“Oh geez, how expensive was that?”
“My parents made me do a bake sale with the neighbor’s kid. He was a little brat and ate like half the cookies. I almost strangled him.”
There was a devious laugh. “Remind me not to get in the way of you and cookies then.”
“It was the principle of the thing!”
We both laughed now. I liked this guy, whoever he was.
“I don’t think I asked your name,” I said.
“Well, it’s certainly not Destiny.”
“Well, yeah. If you were Destiny, you wouldn’t like me very much.”
“I suppose I wouldn’t. My name’s Ronnie. Short for Ronazoid, destroyer of worlds.”
“Nice to meet you Ronazoid, I’m Jean. Short for Jeanshorts, destroyer of respectability.”
I still had a migraine, but it wasn’t as annoying now. Having something to distract from it helped. A car drove out of the parking lot of the grocery store; it had to have been one of the cafe workers leaving for the night. It was too suburban of a car to be a drug dealer. I looked around. It was just me now. Just me and the humming chargers.
“I’m actually pissed about Des.”
“Well, that’s fair. I would be too.”
I gripped the side of my hood. “She does this so often, it’s unbelievable.”
“Sounds like she’s not that great of a friend.”
“She isn’t, but she’s”—I did my best impression of my cousin—“a family friend.” I kicked up stones again. “And she has a car, so I kinda have to talk to her.”
“I get you.”
My feet reminded me how long I’d been standing around. I looked around for a suitable cement parking guide to sit on, and there happened to be one directly under a streetlight. Parking myself there, I leaned against the pole and sunk back into the conversation.
My curiosity got the best of me. “How come you were all alone up there?”
“Oh … well …”
There was a long silence on the line. I thought he had hung up or dropped out. Wouldn’t have surprised me, my connection was shit even in the city.
He sighed. “I had a research partner but”—a hesitation—“She got fed up with the conditions we were put in by the MBoH and had to leave.”
“MBoH?”
“Martian Board of Housing. They’re like the worst Homeowner’s Association mixed with the worst Renting Agency.”
“Sounds like hell.”
“It is.”
“That’s why you got stuck by yourself for a week? Housing B.S?”
Another deep sigh. I could almost imagine him pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. The ethics board for the research project wasn’t notified about her departure until five days in, and I only had 4 left. They figured it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“Damn, looks like we’ve both got shitty friends.”
“She had her reasons. And honestly, I was tempted to join her. But I need to finish this dissertation.”
I never understood those kids in academia. They were always so intense about the weirdest shit. It felt like they chose the most niche, uninteresting thing possible and decided that was how they’d make a personality for themselves.
I scoffed, “You’re really gung-ho about this, huh?”
“Very much so. I’ve got a master’s candidacy riding on this whole thing. If I don’t finish this, then my uni career would’ve been for nothing.”
I’d never really known anyone who had such passion for their future. Ambition’s an expensive habit to have, not many can realistically afford it.
“Where are you studying then?”
“Terra One University.”
Prestigious. Pretentious. I’d met a student from there before, and the stick up their ass could’ve outmatched sequoias.
“Oh, that’s pretty nice,” I replied.
“Yeah, took a lot to get there …” He paused. “What do you do for a living?” He didn’t ask if I’d gone to school somewhere. Would’ve been too embarrassing to admit I’d dropped out of community college anyways.
“Retail. I’m just tryna survive, y’know?”
“Understandable. Earth’s economy is in the shitter right now so I can’t blame you.”
“Yeah, everything’s getting outsourced to Titan,” I groaned.
“I can’t believe it’s second generation now.”
“I know! It’s so weird to think there are kids who were born there. God, I’m glad I’m not one of them. Imagine being born in a place where the sky is piss yellow.”
The hypocrisy hit me as I looked up at the streetlight. But this was man-made. At least I’d seen a gray sky before.
“Mars has a really interesting sky. Always looks like it’s dawn.” Ron sounded wistful.
I’d only ever seen what my parents called ‘the Golden Hour’ once or twice in my life. The whole world caked in orange. It made everyone and everything look beautiful and exciting. He’d gotten to experience that 24/7 for several months.
“That sounds so cool.”
“It is. Messes with your perception of time though. The jet lag is so intense that employers account for it there. By law, they have to give you reduced hours when you arrive.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. If Mars is good for one thing, it’s good for the employment committees.”
I laughed. “You’re starting to sound like a recruitment officer.”
“Ha! Maybe I should become one. It’ll get me off Earth for good.”
That stung a bit. I don’t know why. Earth was home, as much of a shithole planet as it was. I don’t think I’d trade it for Mars, not even for that golden hour. Not even for the luxurious seas of Neptune.
“Y’ever been to Neptune?” I asked.
“Eh, once. Briefly. It was kind of a layover situation. Had to stay the night in one of the resorts. My family was visiting my uncle. He got stationed on Pluto, but there were some difficulties with the engine on the charter ship, so we had to stop off.”
“Damn, okay. So y’all are rich rich?”
“Not exactly. Mom has a really important job. Can’t get much into detail, but suffice to say that I eat nothing but ramen while jet-setting all around the solar system.”
“Ok, I see, y’all are on some spy shit. That’s cool.”
He laughed again but didn’t respond further. Knew it.
“What do your parents do then?”
I replied, “Dad works construction. Mom’s head of a landscaping business.”
“Oh, very nice.”
“Yeah, very blue collar.”
He hummed in agreement.
“Neither of them could pick me up. They’re too busy.”
“Trust me, I can understand that. The number of times my mom had to send my brother to pick me up from school was frankly ridiculous. Bear in mind he had only just gotten his driver’s license. And had just flunked out of pilot school.”
“Sheeeesh! I bet you were gripping onto those handle things above the windows like nobody’s business.”
He laughed. “I really was!”
I remembered when I had done the same when my sister had gotten her license. Sometimes I would hold onto the handles when my cousin drove, but he got so upset that I stopped. It reminded him too much of her. It reminded me too much of her. Still, he could’ve been less of a dick about it.
A silence descended. I looked up past the streetlight and squinted my eyes, there was a juvenile hope that I’d spot some movement up in the sky and know he was overhead. I saw a blinking light. But it was only a drone carrying some package or something. I remembered when drones became standardized, people started naming them all kinds of stupid things. My dad called the one that dropped off packages for our neighborhood “Jerry.” I asked him why, he said that was what his old mailman’s name was. I wondered what a mailman was.
I figured I’d call that drone Ronnie, pretend it was him piloting that little hunk of junk.
He finally broke the silence. “So, how’s Earth been these past three months? Martian news has been focused on Jupiter’s cost of living crisis lately, so I didn’t hear much about home.”
“Same-old, same-old. Political unrest, natural disasters, climate’s getting worse again.”
“No different than usual then.”
“Yeah.” I tried to think of something optimistic to say. “But, hey, there’s been some good stuff too. Bees are making a comeback.”
“Oh, nice!”
“Still can’t get honey in stores though. Remember those little honey sticks you could get?”
“No, never heard of that.”
“Oh … must’ve been a rural thing.”
We didn’t have that much in common. Different backgrounds, different prospects, different families. We were both insufferable 20-somethings wrapped up in our own worlds, so that had to count for something. And we were from the US. His accent was more generic than mine, but I could tell it was broadly American. Or he grew up in an American settlement.
“Where’s home for you on Earth?” I asked.
“East Coast. I assume you’re American too.”
“Unfortunately.”
Ron seemed to balk at that. “Are you also an East Coaster?”
“Yup.”
He made some noise of acceptance. The electric hum made it hard to hear.
“My family had to move a few months ago.” I added, “Coastline caught up with our town. City hall just sank into the water.”
“Wow. Same thing happened when I was a kid. We used to live in Rhode Island if you can believe it.”
“Rhode Island? Damn, y’all held out. I heard about Providence becoming Landslide City.”
“Yeah … I still miss the old house. It got taken out by …” He laughed grimly.“Well, I think you can guess.”
I sucked my teeth. “Shit, man. At least in Virginia it was a slow change.”
We couldn’t afford to move too far. And forget selling the house, it had started to flood weekly by the time we left. I remember my cousin bringing in all those trucks to take the materials to a reclamation center. They paid us a nice sum; told us it would help repair houses damaged in the meteor shower on Jupiter. I wondered how wood would help rebuild blimps.
“Where are you living now?” I asked.
“Upstate New York. It’s cold as shit up there but it’s better than nothing I guess.” He didn’t sound convinced by that. I wouldn’t be convinced either. Losing a home was a grim reality, sure, but that didn’t make it any less surreal. Everything you knew was wiped out and all you could do was watch. And then you had to just pick everything up and keep going.
A stiff breeze blew by. I shivered in my thin hoodie. The temperature dropped as the clock ticked over to the next day, as if the night were trying to remind me how far from shelter I was.
“Man … I just wanna go home.”
It was pathetic the way I said it. Ron didn’t respond. I knew he must be sitting there in his warm spaceship pitying the poor kid stuck outside of a goddamn grocery store. He must be wondering why this Earthling stayed on the line with someone who had a far more interesting and adventurous life. He must be thinking, gee, isn’t it great to be where I am?
“Me too.”
His voice cracked; I could hear it even through my shitty speakers.
“You never really realize how far you are from home until you can’t get back,” he added.
“I thought you were heading back just now?”
He inhaled sharply. “No … I mean, yes, I’m heading back to Earth but …” There was a long silence. “No.”
“How come, if I may ask?”
“I don’t really want to get into it.”
The cold bit into my chest now. It stung my throat and sent tears into my eyes. I willed them not to slip past my eyelids. It’d just make my face even colder.
“I understand.”
“Everyone seems to understand these days.”
I backtracked. “I don’t think anyone understands it as much as you do, obviously. But I think I’m a good candidate for runner-up.”
A sniff. A clearing of the throat. “Y’know what, yeah. You get it, don’t you? You’re just about the only person who gets it.”
“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be understanding but whatever it is”—I huffed out a cloud—“I do. Least I get how you’re feeling about it.”
“Yeah.”
I sank back into my hoodie. “It can be such shit, man. You have a place, and it’s the best place you’ve ever been, and before you know it you realize it’s not even real. It’s not a real place. It’s a memory. It’s a song you listened to years ago, it’s a food you ate, it’s an hour you spent doing nothing. It’s a person you knew a long time ago.”
“And they’re not here anymore.” He was so defeated.
“And then you try to revisit it, right? That memory. And it gets blurrier and blurrier every single time. ‘Till you can’t even make out the faces or the names of things. It’s just … vague feelings about it.”
“Still makes me cry. I hate that it makes me cry.” I could hear him on the other end stifling himself. “When we lost the old house, we lost everything. I lost my friends. My childhood was just … wiped out. And my brother, he—”
There was something like a sob. I couldn’t really hear.
“Is he okay?” I asked.
Silence. Fuck. I couldn’t hold those tears back anymore. I was suddenly more aware of the void outside of the light. It closed in on everything. I was too close to the city to see stars, so the sky was a wall of nothingness encasing me in this dome of outdated fluorescence. My urge to leave morphed into a fear of what lay beyond the light.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I know what it’s like. Losing someone. Hell, it’s why I’m out here.”
“I think I could say the same. Any reason to get away and stay away … I took it.”
There was more. I didn’t push.
“When we hang up, don’t lose my number, okay?” It was a desperate plea on my part, I had to admit.
A silence, and then, “Okay. I won’t.”
Relieved, I wiped away the tear streaks.
“You seem like a decent guy, Ronnie. Even though you’re secretly a rich spy.”
He chuckled. “Thanks. You seem like a good person too, Jean. Even though you’re territorial over cookies.”
“Hey—”
I heard him laughing. Mean. But he remembered the small things. People didn’t usually do that, not for me at least.
“Would you want to meet up when I get back to Earth? I could treat you to some gourmet ramen in my tiny dorm.”
I laughed. “Sure. If I ever get out of this goddamn parking lot.”
“I believe in you. You’ll find a way out.”
And, for once, I believed it too.
“Goodbye. Safe travels.”
“Goodbye. I hope Destiny finds you.”
I couldn’t help cracking a devilish smirk. “Wanna hear something stupid?”
“Sure.”
“Pretty sure it already has.”
“Oh my god. kay, I’m actually hanging up now. Bye.”
I laughed. “Bye—”
But the call had already ended. I looked at my phone battery. 2%.
Shit.
Kas Schroeder, who was raised by two medieval re-enactors and nurtured in the crucible of the early internet, has always had a fascination with fantastical and speculative fiction. While attending the University of St. Andrews, he discovered a passion for writing dramatic and slightly oddball works of fiction. He is now developing screenplays, moving to Los Angeles, and hopes to bring his dream-inspired works to life on the silver screen.
Featured Artwork:
The Gardener at Edge
Sarah-Jane Crowson’s art and poetry are inspired by ideas of accidental trespass, surrealism and romanticism. Her work can be seen in various places, including The Adroit Journal, Rattle, Petrichor, Sugar House Review and Iron Horse Literary Review. You can find her on Twitter @Sarahjfc or at her website.