Life on Mars

Dear Diary,

I met an alien today.

I pause. That sentence doesn’t do it justice. Hardly Mars-shattering stuff. No prizes will ever be awarded for that mundane collection of words, if I can ever find an audience to read them. I swipe the air to wipe the words and begin the entry again.

Alien encounter!

Yes; much better. Snappy, dramatic, something to shake the monotony of existence. That will grab headlines, surely. Someone will pay attention to me.

Won’t they?

Now, I must move on to describe the setting and the thing/being I saw, I think to myself. Don’t overdo it – just give enough information to intrigue, to titillate, to turn someone’s head my way again.

Here goes:

A violent sandstorm had obliterated vision and access to the surface for an entire week, keeping me trapped under the ground, with only disgusting mine-bugs to eat, tasting of sulphur. Today, I had been relieved to see the sands settle again, and was determined to search for stone grubs beneath the rocks – a more satisfying nutrient, though in short supply since the war and windstorms brought in noxious gases last year.

I was strolling along, doing a circuit of the red sandy ground of the West Desert lands, when I heard a whirr and a clunk of something approaching me.

I pause again. Clunk? Clang? Clink? Clonk? I feel so out of practice. It’s a long time since I had any potential readers.  I’m trying to convey the sound and movement that  this shiny metallic thing made, rolling past me bolder than a sandworm, sliding past on small cylinders, stopping, turning, shuddering. I’ll go with clunk for now, I think, trying to convince myself that a reader would care either way.

Someone had obviously gone to a lot of effort to provide a face to the thing; although metallic and fixed in a set grimace. Perhaps it was meant to be a smile. I was out of practice with the changes to others’ facial features.

The thing jerked and juddered as it tried to roll over the stones and rocks. It stopped, straining to lift itself from a sand pit, sucking it down. It was obviously not designed with this gravity or sand in mind. I wanted to shout out a warning – ‘the ground tries to swallow you whole, if you don’t know your way here’. Yet, my mouth was frozen.

A long arm or pole telescoped out of the middle of the structure. Suddenly there was a flash of light, tearing through the thick air with the intensity of an atomic bomb.  

Caught unawares, I initially ducked, fearing attack.

I cringe at the melodrama. Yet, it’s only a few months since the Blazes war with the East siders, and the land is still scorched and scarred from that vicious bombardment. It’s understandable if I over-react to lights and loud noises. Their weapons were designed to maim initially, with tortuous accuracy, then kill by slow-acting poison. I was lucky to survive, that’s what I tell myself during the long, empty hours, with no-one to talk to, no-one to see.

I always thought I wasn’t one for company at the best of times. But since living through the worst of times, company has been all I have craved. Even this metallic object gave me a quiver of hope.

The flashing continued and slowly my mind tingled back into life as my body remained untouched and unharmed. An image-taking device? Perhaps. Of course, it could have been a spy sent by the surviving East siders (if indeed there were any), yet I did not recognise the metal used. It seemed most likely to be a device sent from further away, perhaps a factfinder, which could beam information back to its own kind. My heart clenched with a yearning I had not experienced for years. Could someone out there be looking for me? Did someone care about me, or the possibility of someone like me? Would I be able to contact others in this Universe at last? Would my lonesome existence change at last?

The thing (or was it indeed a creature?) tipped itself out of the sand hole and began speeding away.

“No, stop!” I shouted, reaching out an arm in desperation. “Please, don’t leave me.”

I began to chase it, and at last it stopped, turned to face me and flashed its light again. This was my only chance. I strode out, exaggerating my movements now, flinging my arms up and down, stretching out my pace. Take my image, I thought, share it with your world, and send help.

Then it was suddenly gone, hidden deep in the red sands. I rested against a rock, gasping for air, wondering if I would ever see it again. I looked out, far into the night sky. Surely someone was out there. Someone who would see an image of me, and care about my lonely existence on this barren planet.

Dear Diary, I can only hope.

I close down my recording device, hoping beyond hope that one being somewhere will hear me. All I have left now is hope, and the dark night surrounding me.