Rations

They told me to ration. “Ration everything out,” Colonel Jameson would shriek, “You’re gonna be all alone and food on Mars don’t grow on trees…yet!” It was an ambitious project. Send a man to Mars. Build a biosphere. We knew how to do it, but it was still a big puzzle. All the pieces were there, but everything had to be just so. Everything had to be just perfect or I would die. That’s what they always laid down as the bottom line for me. “George Wurster, if you don’t fully understand the schematics of this re-circulating carbon filter you could die!” “Do you want to grow crops in Martian soil, Captain Wurster? Do you? Or do you want to die of starvation cause you didn’t regulate the nitrogen levels in your garden?” Death was what I was taught to fear. Death was coming and it would only take one mistake, one slip-up, and I would open the door for death. So they taught me prevention. They taught me precautionary measures. They taught me to ration. Ration food and ration water. Ration exercise and ration sleep. Ration on-time and ration down-time. It was a complex equation, but we worked it all out. We found all the solutions. And when it was perfect they sent me off. Four years on a shuttle the size of two houses. I slept all the way there. And while I was sleeping everything happened, just like we’d planned it. The ship landed and the foundations shot deep. Each section of the ship unfolded like a flower onto the Martian surface, covering an area that amounted to a full city block. The tarps were laid out and the plants began to grow. I woke up a week later and everything was already on its way. I took my time. I went through every procedure, checked every mechanism as I’d been taught to. It was all humming right along. But the puzzle wasn’t complete. Something had gone wrong. Halfway between the Earth and Mars we’d lost communication. It’s something they hadn’t expected and there was no contingency, no precautionary measure. As far as they knew I never made it to Mars. They wouldn’t send a recovery vessel. They couldn’t. Too many variables. But I was safe. Everything worked. I wouldn’t die and that was my bottom line. I didn’t have to do much to keep everything working; it just hummed right along, the part of the puzzle that fit into place just right. I’d landed on the wall of a crater that was two clicks off of my original landing site. It was a site of frequent dust storms leaving me virtually invisible to anyone looking for signs of life on the red planet. I did what they told me. I rationed everything. Exercise, food, rest. But there were other considerations now. The communication I was supposed to have with Earth was gone. All my work was contingent on collaboration from home. I had many idle hours. I did what they told me. I rationed everything. Thoughts, moods, feelings. There isn’t much of a night life on Mars. I had a few books and a little music on a data box. Most of the supplies were intended for my work. Blank paper, chemicals and dyes, pencils and a graphing board. Not too interesting. I rationed the information. Read only a little each day. Kept it interesting. Picked a different song each week. This week’s song is pretty. I heard it in a bar once and couldn’t get it out of my head. I suck in every moment of it knowing it’s the only thing I’ll hear for a week. The singer is melancholy, but his words are important. Everyone is a burning sun. Our love is all of God’s money. Each star is a setting sun. I think it’s talking about Jesus, but that doesn’t matter. There’s a lot there to think about and I’m happy for it. The song ends quietly, like it began. Space is quiet. So is being the total population of your own planet. I don’t think we got it quite right. The puzzle’s not wrong; it’s just a different picture. The bottom line isn't death. It’s loneliness.