the future that was and might be again
[a short story about everyday life on Mars]
The bradberries were ripe again. Twice a year is more than enough, don’t you think? But if I let them rot on the vine, they’ll bring the fruit flies and those buggers will infiltrate the house and because Milei never saw a piece of fruit she could pass without buying a few, they’ll infest the kitchen again and then she’ll complain to me for letting it happen and we’ll have to spend the next month with the smell of sweet vinegar in the air from the traps. It’s a real problem. Even the kids complain. And in the end, it’s another good reason not to let a woman think you are better than you are. They expect too much.
It’s all about the consequences, you know.
I was still in the army when I met her. I could have used some sound advice from an elder right then. Not that I would have listened. Just a precaution. She’s too beautiful to be resisted. But an enlisted man is also too easily swayed. Deprivations hollow the mind. On a dark night in a pod during a storm you overthink some things and totally ignore others.
I met her while on leave from Titan station. There’d already been twelve months of resisting right there. I was working with a sergeant named Palmer who was working off a felony charge and she was bound and determined to enjoy every minute of it. But I resisted, as I said. And then I came home and head over to the hardware store on my own dime to pick up some ‘C’ brackets which the Army never gives you enough of, and there she is, wearing her older brother’s work clothes to get her planting done after a fertilizer spill—all overalls and pony tail. I didn’t have a chance in hell.
First off, she is ordering the parts to fix her own fertilizing rig. Something about all those edgy words in a woman’s mouth that make you think new thoughts. But she smiles. Then she tells me that I have a spot on my uniform. Very rude, I’m thinking. But she’s put one of those price tags from a regulator on my back when we were waiting in line. I couldn’t see it and I had to take my jacket off. At least the clerk gets a laugh.
She just smiles again and says, “Actually, I thought you’d be worth more.”
So, I tell her, “The army will take just about anything these days. You should give it a shot. Better than fixing fertilizer regulators.”
And she says, “You ain’t smelled liquid Paragreen Fertilizer first thing in the morning, or you wouldn’t say that.”
Then a guy who looks like he could lift a pod all by himself leans in the door and calls her away. That was her brother, but I didn’t know that at the time.
A year after that I’m back home again waiting for my decommission. This little black-haired girl in overalls has been in my head the whole time. So, I go looking for her. No plan. She may be married to a fellow that lifts up pods for sport. But I knew her name then because her brother had called to her. It’s a popular name, but there are not that many working farms on that side of Elon. Maybe half a dozen, and I went to every single one. But the Milei I was looking for wasn’t there.
So, I go back to the hardware store. Of course, you would tell me, that I should have done that thing first. But I’m not that smart. And the clerk who helped us isn’t there anymore, anyway. But, after a lot of hemming and hawing, the new clerk says, “Does she have black hair and pony tails?” Affirmative. “That would be Milei Adams. She’s from out in the Boon Docks—over by the ridges. But she seems to come in here every chance she gets. Seems like something is always broken.”
So, I am out of there to the Docks, straight away, as soon as I can borrow my Dad’s car.
Now, here is the joke.
Milei came in that hardware store again the same day that I am out scouting for her in the ridges. There are farms buried down in every one of those furrows. and it’s a three hour drive just to get to one. But now, the clerk has told her that a soldier has been in asking for her. And she says, ‘Son of a gun. Took him long enough!”
Glen, the clerk, told me that himself, later on.
Well, she passes me on the road back home after my first couple of inquiries came up empty. But I had a lead, then, so I am whistling. There is a ‘Milei’ out in dock three. But now I’m running out of day light too, so I’m heading back to try another day. And then this car passes me going too fast, and on the screen I can see it raise a crop of dust and stop to turn around behind me. So, I stop too. Right there. There was no room to pull over. Just the sun-pink cut in the crust at either side. It’s that time of day and there is traffic. And she comes up just behind and stops. I’m still fumbling with the closure on my suit and she is already out and standing there at my door. Somebody honked. She smiles. And then she says, ‘“Follow me.”
And I’m not even hooked into my system yet, but I say ‘okay,’ anyway.
Now, that’s consequences for you.