Trip to Mars

 After all that, we still make it to the plane.

We are hurried and exhausted and relieved and looking forward to sitting down in relative comfort. Does anybody else see that this flight is not full?

I guess the others didn't make it through with us.

I'm not sure where we're going. Somebody says Australia. Somebody else says no, it's London. I'm disappointed. I'd rather go somewhere I've never been. Ireland. South Africa. Mars.

Isn't it odd the way people speak more when there are fewer people to receive it? Small talk for small groups. 

I listen to the chatter across seats, across aisles, across rows. These two are married. This one is alone. Those over there are all friends. I'm with some folks from work. The pilot misses his wife.

You wanna know who's on this flight? That guy. He's about five rows back sitting across the aisle from a woman from my office, chatting it up with her one-year-old baby. I can hear the softness in his voice, but I don't look back to see the laughter in his eyes. 

Somebody has texted me, but I can't make out the words.

Ready to launch, someone says. I should strap in, but I can't find my seatbelt. Let me find another seat. Don't take off yet, I'm not safe.

The aisle is cluttered with laundry, packed full so nobody can walk. I have to climb over the seats and eventually I must walk over the laundry, which is putrid and mushy, like a swamp. My bare feet disappear into the piles. It's so difficult to make any progress. I notice there are no snakes.

Hurry up, we need to go, they urge me to find a seat. I move to the back and sit next to the baby. Her mother has disappeared. She is not secured either, so I try to help, and I wonder why she brought this baby, but not the rest of her family. I can't remember the baby's name, so I make one up. Shh, Lily, let's buckle up. She's not a difficult child, but I am not the one she wants. 

That guy says the mother is gone. She fell out the back of the bus.

Did you say bus? We're on a plane. We're going to Mars. 

He gets a text, and I wonder who's texting him right now? We've got other things to worry about. I glance over, but I can't make out the words. I don't think he can either. I realize I've lost my phone. It must be in the other seat. 

Somebody at the front of the bus starts to sing. I know the song. We all sing as we push through a long dark tunnel. The baby cries, but when I turn to soothe her, she has already fallen out the back of the bus. 

Study Hour

I'd been studying all night. My big test is less than a week away, and I still can't remember how to find the inverse of a function. My eyes had become strained to the point that the computer screen was beginning to swirl into an unrecognizable eddy of misshapen coefficients and variables.

I stretch and yawn, but I don't rub my eyelids, because that can cause wrinkles, and if I suddenly develop wrinkles, people might start to suspect that I'm somebody's grandmother.

Reaching for the eye drops seems like a chore. The nightstand is a little too far away. I have to adjust my position, but still, I can't reach it.

The lizard that hops onto my hand is a bit of a shock. It is light and quick. I slap it away, but it is more determined than I. It hits the floor mid-leap and comes right back to me, attaching itself to the front of my shirt. Holy Crap! I smack and slap and push, but with every contact, the lizard becomes heavier and blacker and meaner. It grins at me with an evil intent in its eyes.

I'll trap it, I think to myself. Looking around, I see that I'm in a noisy cafeteria somewhere. There are people around me, but they don't seem to notice my dilemma. I grab somebody's tupperware bowl, slap the lizard to the floor. With a fierce leap, I slam the bowl over it.

A short-lived sense of smug victory runs though me, until the vile creature begins to outgrow its prison, pushing me upward until it seems that I am riding it like a horse. There was a moment I thought it might grow wings and carry me away. Another dragon dream?

Instead, it disintegrates into a pool of black ooze under a cloud of  thick, sticky smoke. I fall away from the mess, horrified that I've been poisoned by the noxious fumes.

I land safely in a landfill atop the world's largest pile of dirty laundry. My hand scrapes against a mess of caked-on food and grime. Gross.

I stand and view my circumstances. There is nothing on the horizon but more laundry.Endless hills and valleys full of stinky socks and boxer shorts.

Not a bathroom in sight.