Life on Mars

We are getting in our first full reports now of what seems to be the dawn of a new era of mankind; Today, July 7, 2013, is the day that we now know for sure, there is life on Mars. Here is NBC news correspondent Jeff Schultz, live at capitol hill with questions for Wisconsin Senator and former NASA director Barry Pullman. Stay tuned for more images as they come to us.

Breathe in, breathe out…. Just act like you’re a regular guy. They don’t know what you’re thinking; they don’t know what you’re about to do…

I try and tell myself to stay calm, but my heart is beating out of my chest and my muscles are acting weird; the feeling reminds me of living under a tarp in Afghanistan, eating the crumbs out of the nearly empty packaged meals that ran out two days earlier, I start wondering if I am going to die from starvation like I almost did over there; I remember my tarp-partner going into hunger-convulsions. I remember not even being happy when the ANAs finally got us little bits of seasoned rice and clean water; I thought, wrongly, that I was finally done suffering. Now, back in suburban North Carolina, there are plenty of supply lines around me, but the only food I've had in the last two days were a few stale muffins and croissants that Starbucks dumped when they were closing. I don’t have much left in me, my still larger-than-average biceps and quads are telling me that they are going to shut down if I don’t get them some food ASAP.

The .45 caliber glock tucked into the back of my pants is digging into my lower back and I think I am bleeding, but I can barely feel it; my adrenaline has kicked in to the point that life around me is like a muted movie. I can remember my last 2 adrenaline rushes: one was 8 months ago, when I had 40 some rounds shot at me from high ground with no cover around me; the other was 2 months ago, when I impulsively put my last 500 bucks on red on a casino boat; it hit on double zero. The adrenaline is nice, my mind is taking a few minutes off from its usual coup of my existence; I should attempt to rob banks more often.

Nothing is confirmed yet, but oh boy, is it an exciting day for America, human-kind, and Earth. Reports are pouring in that the most recent Mars rover, Wonder II, has captured video of some kind of moving creature feeding on plants that grow just below the surface of Mars. Experts speculate that these animals are subterranean, and that they don’t require oxygen. I will tell you Elizabeth, this is a day to remember… today is the fabled day of first contact, back to you at the studio.

I am 30 feet away from the BB&T, and at this point I am committed. The world around me seems distant and greyish, even when loud metallic scrapings and crunchings start taking over the airspace around me. People start running towards the noise a block away, I don’t concern myself with it; instead I make my way towards the glass door. At this point, I am too hungry, too angry, too desperate to watch some disaster happen, I have seen enough violence and carnage for one pair of eyes.

I can feel my middle and rear deltoids cramp and lock up as I pull open the right door of the first of two double glass doors. The noise is still audible from in the bank; twisting of metal, perhaps even a few small explosions. People start running past me out the door to see the source of this noise. I seem to be the only person walking towards the bank counter. All this action is making me feel alive again, like I’m not just watching some shitty reality show whilst suffering from insomnia on some friends couch. I become aware of what I'm doing; I don’t like it. I walk up to the now line-less counter and tell the woman to give me everything in the drawer, and I discreetly point the pistol I have at her. I tell her in a low voice that I will fucking kill her if she doesn’t cooperate. She discreetly starts handing me stacks of money; 3 stacks of 20s, 4 stacks of 10s, 3 stacks of 50s, 6 stacks of 100s. No one is paying attention because everyone is screaming and asking questions and running around like a bunch of panicked pedestrians. I tell her to go to the safe and fill me up a zipper envelope with 100s. she leaves to follow my directions.

The implications of this are just tremendous… I think this kind of discovery is just what we needed to put an end to war. Now people will finally see that there are other things in this solar system that could pose a threat, that we are not alone, that we need to start thinking of ourselves as Earthlings, and not Americans, or Chinese, or Swiss.

Thank you very much Dr. Morton; that was Dr. Morton from the Astronomy department at UCLA and a leading member of the growing field of study of Astrobiology. I hate to have to interrupt this momentous occasion but we have breaking news out of Mooresville, North Carolina. There has been a massive train car pile-up, and anywhere from 39 to 52 silver back gorillas have escaped from the wreckage. We have local reporters rushing to the scene now to keep us informed about this story, so stay tuned for more. Back to Jeff Shultz, who now has Wisconsin Senator and UFO enthusiast Barry Pullman ready for some questioning about the discovery of life on Mars.

I can’t wait for this girl at the counter to come back with the money, and she will probably put one of those ink bombs in there anyways, so I leave. I’m sure I made enough off the drawer to do whatever it is I am going to do with this cash. I walk out and peel my top shirt off and drop it in the trash can. I hang a left and reality starts to kick in. People are running from the direction I am walking towards. Nobody bothers to stop and tell me why they are running, but there is genuine fear in their eyes; I've never seen an American civilian with genuine fear in their eyes before.

I make it a block, and then I see it. I am not sure if I am hallucinating from the combination of hunger and adrenaline, but there are gorillas running in the street, and not the democratic socialist kind. I have hallucinated before, but usually its men in robes and turbans, or little brown women screaming and crying, and mostly its marines dying on the ground in front of me as blood spills out of them and they ask me to take care of their wife and newborn baby that they haven’t met yet; sometimes they tell me to play catch with them when they are old enough, some tell me to make sure she doesn’t marry another Marine; some just ask me to pray with them.

These gorillas seem too real to try and ignore though; they seem to vivid, I don’t think my fucked up head could even make this up. I hang a left and a girl is screaming on the ground with a giant gorilla over top of her. I am brought back to the time I saw my standing officer raping an Afghan woman in a little compound we had taken over and were using as cover for the night. I couldn’t report him, he was my superior and 'brother'; and we weren’t close enough to a base for it to really matter. Sometimes that woman calls me a monster in my dreams.

Here was my chance to redeem myself. I pull out my Glock and fire 2 rounds into the Gorillas head. The gorilla blood splatters on the American pavement pretty much the same way human blood does on Afghan soil. A gorilla jumps on me from the back. It’s really fucking strong.

We are going to have to take this one moment at a time, Jeff. But I have already compiled a digital copy of great achievements in the arts and technology to present to these beings, if, of course, they have the capacity to appreciate it. I have put together a crash course in human history on an iPad to give to these creatures. It contains pictures, films, music, and literature since the dawn of human civilization. I have always been the type to assume any extra-terrestrial life is friendly until they prove otherwise. But words can’t describe the excitement I am experiencing right now, and I will be glued to the TV just like the rest of the world as we get more information on this great day.

I am face down on the pavement with a gorilla punching, clawing, and biting my back. I am trying my techniques I learned in basic training to flip this gorilla on the ground and gain the upper hand, but this thing has to be at least 350 pounds, and nothing is working. I edge my right arm around my body and blindly let off 3 shots into what is probably the stomach of this giant animal. He lets up for a second, I turn over and put a bullet through his jaw and into what might be his brainstem, because it falls limp almost instantly. I am splattered with bits of Gorilla flesh and blood. I try and get up, but I can’t. I think I have lost too much blood for my muscles to respond. My vision starts to fade… sounds start fading… my vision goes grey to black to white…

And this video has garnered over 150 million hits in the last three days. You have probably already seen it, but if you haven’t, take a look at this. Former Marine and veteran of 1 tour in Iraq and 2 in Afghanistan, Private First Class Jeff Thompson of Mooresville, North Carolina, saves a woman from an attacking gorilla and then wrestles with another before successfully neutralizing the primate attacker. While everyone else was running away, Private First Class Thompson went into the thick of the danger to save a woman from sure death. Although he is still in critical condition, doctors say he is recovering well, and President Obama has already decorated him with numerous honors for his heroic acts in the small town in North Carolina. We will warn you before showing this, the contents of this video are quite graphic, the faint of heart may want to change the station.

I open my eyes and there is machinery all around me, the beeps of the heart monitor start speeding up. The room is white and pale green. I try and keep a cool head and assess my situation. It seems I am in a hospital, and I am not cuffed to the bed. I don’t feel hungry anymore. My bag is sitting on the table. I struggle to reach over to it, and there are sharp pains all over my back that would probably be a lot worse if I wasn’t getting drugs through a drip bag. I look in it; the cash is still there.

I sigh; it looks like I will have to keep on suffering. This is the second time I had written myself off as dead prematurely.

I buzz the nurse in and ask her to turn on the TV for me. The channel that comes on is CNN. My vision is blurry; probably a combination of the drugs and the fact that I haven’t had my eyes open for some uncertain amount of time, but I make out the headline:

Life on Mars?

Karen and Daren

Cold, dry, grey; it’s hard to say which was the most of these 3 on January 13^th—maybe the coldness, greyness, and dryness were all evenly distributed in massive quantities.

Karen and Daren are the only people intrepid enough to venture out and weather the elements in the name of physical and mental health—Daren didn’t have to say anything; he just stared into Karen’s eyes and she knew…

You’re right Daren; we have to get out of this house.

Karen has been retired for 16 months now—the last 5 months of her pregnancy were wrought with illness and complications, too many to effectively design and create jewelry. After Daren was born, she had a sit down with Chess to discuss numbers—Chess’s specialty.

Chess explained to her that she would be contributing more to their household, which was increasing by 50% in terms of personnel, by not going back to the jewelry world. He presented charts and figures on his iPad that he had likely had some intern draw up for him, illustrating that the income she generated from jewelry was comparable to the rate for a good nanny. He went on to show figures suggesting children who spend time with their biological mother may be better tempered and go on to be more productive human beings—although this conclusion had a small superscript cross and in Chess’s footnotes, he explains that more research is needed before this statement can be confirmed.

You’re right Daren; we should get some hot drinks for a cold day like this.

The idleness of a new mother is a strange brew. Ostensibly it’s probably less hours of work than that of a jeweler, but they are scattered, unpredictable, and grueling. The birth of Daren marked a definite departure from the regularity of her life up until that point. Karen valued 8 hour nights of sleep, quiet mornings, a steady regimen of yoga, and a Friday and Saturday full of jokes, mimosas, and stylish people… all of which Daren has taken from her.

The spotty sleep and lack of relaxing mud masks was definitely showing on Karen; her once smooth and light complexion had become splotchy; she stopped taking the time to exquisitely braid her hair into cool plays on French braids and buns and had resorted to ponytails, which highlighted all the wrong things about her slightly-wild natural curls. She had also been drinking a lot more coffee and hadn’t practiced yoga during motherhood—which compounded on each other to bring about anxiety. Daren was turning her into a twitchy, unhealthy, wretched woman.

Chess paid her less attention now than ever; they hadn’t slept together in 2 months. He was never warm or romantic, but at least he used to talk and sleep with her. Now the only time they talk are at semi-formal meetings his assistant arranges, which feel more like awkward roommate meetings than they do anything that resembles matrimonial conspiring. He always comes with charts, graphs, and literature to back any of his requests or grievances, but never prepares Karen for the meetings so she only has off the cuff improvisations to battle his well thought out arguments. This argumentative jazz used to be sufficient in maintaining balance, she was much wittier and more intelligent than Chess when it came to anything other than numbers. However, due to the aforementioned lack of regularity in her life, she was unable to combat Chess’s power points and intern-researched airings. Chess called the shots now.

Karen tells herself that Chess is just stressed and working a lot; that he still loves her. Daren often consoles her; he explains that it’s impossible that Chess is going to the meatpacking district every night and bringing some slutty 23 year old to some overpriced boutique hotel suite and doing to them all the things he used to do to her.

You’re right Daren; he loves me, he loves us, he would never do such a thing.

A generic shopping bag with smiley faces and an invitation for return business blows down the street like a tumble weed—accentuating the desolation of the yuppie Brooklyn neighborhood Chess and Karen moved to upon finding out about Daren. Karen envisioned spending her life in Manhattan, she loved their East Village apartment and the feeling of being in ‘the center of the universe,’ but Chess’s ‘cost per square foot’ argument compounded with the child’s ‘need for space’ argument were invincible.

Now it’s rows of sushi restaurants and coffee shops and clothing boutiques and organic markets. The gays here aren’t wild or flamboyant; the minorities have married white people and speak in standard Midwestern English. There are rarely car horns or cabs or rush hour delivery drivers. The coffee shops and bars are taken up with middle aged people in tweed and beards and Moncler jackets.

You’re right Daren; this isn’t the New York I know and love.

Karen decides against Tiger Coffee and opts for Vini Vedi Coffee another block down. She struggles through the heavy glass door with her stroller; no one helps her. She eeks her way through the 4 strollers already in the close-quarters coffee shop; once again, no one helps her. She feels the glare of the other mothers on her as she orders a latte with a double shot; she takes a deep breath to try and shake off the weight they are causing. The barista seems equally unwelcoming; Karen takes the coffee to go.

She exits the coffee shop with equal toil to the entrance. The hot drink is everything the day isn’t—hot, moist, and brown; all in comparable and massive quantities.

You’re right Daren; it’s the little things that keep me waking up in the morning.

She takes a sip to accentuate her agreement. She sees a mother with her 8 year-old son and thinks of her future with Daren; maybe it won’t be so bad. As they pass, the boy asks:

‘Mommy, why is she talking to a shopping cart?’   

Loving and Caring Mothers

These are turbulent times we live in, sometimes—just sometimes—we may even need a seatbelt…            -Ed Sorrenson

It was hotter than usual in Brooklyn, and it hadn’t rained in what seemed like forever. Tension was high in Park Slope, despite the fact that this was the first summer that civil unions of gay couples were permitted. Over on 5^th Avenue, a row of premium strollers all sat outside Thanks-a-Latte, like a row of Harley Davidson motorcycles outside a Hell’s Angels hangout.

Inside, 4 of the 7 tables have been pulled together to accommodate the 8 new mothers and their fresh-out- the-womb-offspring.

‘So Sven and I have decided to nix the nursery, we had to have somebody come paint the walls back to creampuff eggshell.’ One mom with 2 inch bleach blonde hair styled with putty said after taking a sip of her decaf soy latte.

‘Yeah, I read that you should definitely have the baby sleeping with the parents, it is apparently really good for the baby’s sense of self-worth.’ Another mom from across the table throws out; she has brown hair that is stick straight and absolutely no bangs. For some reason, she’s drinking black coffee

‘That’s totally true, but that’s not why we did it. Me and Sven decided it should stay an art studio, because it’s really important that the baby sees that my passion for the viola and Sven’s passion for water colors is still intact. I mean, the last thing we want is the baby to not truly value self-expression.’ Blondie responds, then takes another sip and grimaces a little, it seems she doesn’t like soy.

‘We threw away our Ikea crib, even though it’s super cute. We have been reading Bullinger’s new book, Malawian Child, and it basically says that kids in Malawi are super great and never cry and that you should try to recreate the Malawian experience totally, so the baby is sleeping on hay now. Plus we got this really great space heater to keep the temperature in the mid-90s at all time, and Sergio had some guy wire up grow-lights so he gets plenty of high quality sunlight.’ A stunningly beautiful woman sitting next to the black coffee drinker adds, she has a guava smoothie and dirty blond hair in a messy little bun; she's still in her yoga attire. All the moms flatten their eyebrows and nod their heads intently, a few give ‘mmms’ or ‘yeahs’ of approval.

‘Didn’t Bullinger say in Babies are the Future’s Lovers that they need a crib to establish groundedness as an individual so that they can have meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships, because that’s definitely more important to me than how much October cries.’ A slightly plumper mom chimes in after a few seconds of reflection and sip of her cappuccino that she is drinking out of her own red, handmade mug.

‘In the preface of his new book he pretty much says that times are changing and with new times come new parenting techniques. He is just such a good writer. Sergio saw him at a book reading in Hartford. He said he is such a good guy in person.’ Guava smoothie retorts firmly but calmly.

‘Jen will go to a baby-retreat Bullinger is hosting next month in Vermont, I cannot believe she found tickets. It’s a weekend of total infant bonding and education.’ A mom with a French accent says,  she has bright red curly hair to her shoulders and has a double shot of espresso with nutmeg and a slight pour of condensed milk, but she hasn’t drank any of it yet.

‘Where is Jen anyways? She wasn’t at baby yoga this morning either.’ Guava smoothie inquires to the group.

‘She said she had some extra stuff to do today on g-chat last night and that she might not make it, I think she is still trying to get pre-school in order.’ Cappuccino in mug says. The mention of pre-school clearly raises the cortisol levels in the mom-posse.

‘She is sooo sweet, I always miss her when she’s not here.’ Another mom, with Asian style bangs and green tea says, in hopes to diffuse the tension that is clearly building. All the moms agree.

Meanwhile, Jen is back at her Brownstone on 8^th Avenue, with her baby strapped to her chest and a smartphone up to her head. She appears disheveled.

‘No I will not fucking wait, I was waiting 8 minutes ago, I waited on Tuesday when I called and you fucking dipshits did absolutely nothing to help me!’ A pause for a moment

‘No, that is total bullshit, me and my husband timed it, we waited 13 fucking minutes, and we ended up not making it to our reservations at our favorite Thai restaurant on time, and we didn't get complementary ice teas and we were the fucking laughing stock of Park Slope.’

‘What do you mean? Ugghhh! You are a total fucking moron, how about you go fuck yourself and I speak to your boss?!’

‘Well then let me talk to your boss’s boss, because you obviously have no fucking clue and no power or responsibility. Jesus fucking Christ, why don’t you just work at Dunkin Donuts if you don’t give a shit about ever moving forward?’

‘No, that is unacceptable. I will stay on this phone until I have a satisfactory resolution, you fucking peon.’ As she finishes, she jostles the baby strapped to her chest to comfort it.

‘Alright good.’

‘Heeey Tony, this is Jen Caruthers, yeah, oh I am doing great. There seems to be some kind of mix up, I received a g-mail that Lance was on the waiting list for Lundham’s Academy and I don’t see how that could be.’

‘No, no, no. The system has it wrong. His BAT scores are off the charts, he got the triangle block in the triangle hole on the first try, Tony. And my sister’s daughter Thayla went, so Lance is a legacy.’

‘That’s absurd, Lance is not a crier, he was just a little nervous at his interview and I didn’t get to breast feed him before. He just wouldn’t eat.’

‘Is there any way we could at least get a retest?’

‘No, Applingers is not a viable option, Lundham’s is perfect for Lance.’

‘Tony please.’

‘Please, there must be something you can do.’

‘Oh, Tony, this is just unfair and, and, atrocious. It’s fucking atrocious.’

‘Don’t tell me to relax, I have Lance’s future in my fucking hands.’

‘Okay, when he’s not a fully developed and expressive individual you can have that on your fucking conscience! You will be hearing from my lawyer you fucking cunt!’

She says as she slams her thumb onto the end button on the touchscreen of her phone.