Another day past, on Mars. The sun was setting, dusky reds splashing over the vast landscape. The dust of the day settled underneath coming shadow, a reddish moon.
A small craft careened through the air, floating like some toy on a string. Gliding to a gentle halt in a desolate parking lot, in a small, terra formed area between city-craters. It was so misplaced, really. Like a figment of a tired child's imagination. Almost fantastic. Commonplace settings should not be disturbed by those things... Maybe it wasn't even the craft in and of itself... Perhaps it was its aura. Perhaps.
It was so... Bright, against the ruddy reds. A palpable change in... Something.
But nonetheless, the craft slowly opened, and out stepped a man.
A commonplace man.
Perhaps.
(Was it his aura?)
A metallic arm catching the last rays of reflected and refracted sun, and under the dusky light, he ran that steely hand over the top of his bare head. On its decent, back to his side, he caught the edge of his beard, and stroked it momentarily. There was something on his mind, and his face wore a look that was a clear projection of that. A look that many men wore, signifying one or more of many things... "I need to get home to my family," "I need to get something to drink," "I need to be put out of my misery..."
"I need to stop remembering."
That thought rang silently across the surrounding plains. Hm. He had heard something like that before, yes. When he was in his early-twenties (an age long past), he had been dragged to a play by an ex-flame. Plays and theater were not this man's forte, as one could probably ascertain from the weathered edge to his figure, but... The things one does for... Love.
Heh. Love.
There had been one highlight of the evening, though. As the play reached its climax, the heroine and hero, lovers, of course, stood beneath a red tinted sky. The heroine was dying, killed by the man's arch rival. The hero had bent down, his ear to his lover's lips, to hear her last words.
And they had been those simple few:
"I want to stop remembering."
Oddly enough, that heroine reminded him distinctly of a younger man he had once knew (maybe had been, at one time). Unlike the play, that man's story didn't end in a hale of applause. There had been no encores, no final bows. Just an roundabout good-bye... Over a plateful of peppers. Hum. That's why he was here, he supposed. That's why he kept coming back.
Perhaps.
When people leave us, we like to pretend they've gone on a long vacation. Maybe one day we'll open our eyes to see them nearby, just like then. And we'll crave and ensconce then in a little part of our tattered hearts (because all men's hearts are tattered after a certain point. Some call it puberty, some call it "the loss of innocence," some call it life) and wait for the vacation to end. We believe the people we're "waiting for" are getting a much deserved rest. But they'll be back... Someday. And if we pay respects to them, maybe they'll take heed and hurry back that much faster.
Delusion is key to the "human experience."
That was something this man had learned firsthand. He had also learned, in that same fashion and vein, humans are bad with handling "finality." If that weren't the case, we wouldn't have graveyards and tombstones and flowers for those things. Honoring the dead would no longer be necessary. If we could handle "final finality" we would realize that... We live to die. And after that... We're free. We don't need fancy granite carvings or loads of roses or tulips. We're simply free. Truly free.
Sad but true.
Sad, but true, the man thought, and with a sigh, began walking. Just when he thought he had beaten the ghost of regret, here he was. He walked and walked. A slow, beleaguered kind of walk, as if he were doing this out of obligation. Whatever "this" was.
How many months had it been? Had he run into years yet? He wasn't sure. Ah, well.
Through the dusky, dusty light. Solitary no man's land. Walking, walking, shoes dragging over cement and dirt.
Onto a sidewalk, his craft now a speck in the distance. Through a steel, ramshackle gate. Down a jagged, crumbling cobblestone path. Then the rows began. Silent, solitary rows of stones, jutting into the air, like demon limbs feigning disgust at the god who rejected them.
God. Hmph. He had once believed in "that" too. What a joke. He had seen enough to realize God was like the town drunk's whiskey. A drug, a diversion. A reason. People with their reasons. They should just learn that sometimes there aren't any reasons.
He wondered if he truly believed that.
The dying rays of the sun beat on his hunched back. This was the pattern, the way it always happened. Closer and closer he drew, the smaller his tall frame wished to be.
Why do I do this? He found himself asking, as he always did at this proximity. (One row over, six stones down.)
This kid... He didn't know what he had.
Or maybe he did.
That... Deadness in his eyes at certain times. He had mistaken it for laziness, once or twice, or maybe painful memories. But no, it had been deeper, deeper and blacker. More all-consuming, as he now knew... The only thing that could fill the void, scrape the needed cement over the proverbial pothole, was proof of life.
Proof.
Walk slower, because it hurts a bit when you read the name.
As a cop, he had seen it all, he had once believed. The wasted, the gone, the gruesome, the loveless. Yet, the depth of this one man's sorrow had left a scar on this old man's heart. It was a scar tinged with regret and hate and sadness and hopelessness, all because it reminded him of the futility that was life, how quick it went by... And how he was still here and this man, that young man was gone. Chose to "go," chose to search for that damn, invisible, nonexistent proof that the blood that pumped through his veins and the breath that entered his lungs meant something.
Clenching teeth, the man stopped, hands deep in his pockets, profile facing the stone. Weird. Life is simply weird.
A weathered, chipped, small stone, with a carved name.
Painfully, the man faced that stone. The same stone he had faced countless times over countless months and would probably visit countless more times but that didn't matter. Here lie the man that embodied all the beauty and ugliness of life to his visitor. If he could face him once more in life he would shake him. Just tell him, yell at him...
Life is meaningless, my friend.
So very meaningless.
So stop searching for the proof.
We lose and we gain, we give and we take. We cry and we laugh... And they had done that, and more, during a long dream they had shared as friends and partners... Brothers in a weird way. Despite the cruelty of life, despite the pain and sorrow... Despite the fact death was freedom and the knowledge we're all just bricks in some endless wall with no plan and no past and no future... Who cared?
Just being there was better than being gone. Even if you were never there to begin with.
Or something...
Jet Black shook his tired head and wondered how many more days he would stand at the foot of Spike Spiegel's grave and wax poetic about the meaning (or lack thereof) of life.
Somehow, he thought to himself as he pulled the slightly crumbled rose from his pocket and threw it to the surface of the grave...
It would never be enough.
Even though he so wished to berate his lost friend... Perhaps he, too, was searching for something he might never find.
Life is funny that way.
He turned his tight eyes back from whence he came and strode wordlessly out
of sight.