Some Things Are Hard
By Writing in Circles
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Some things are hard. Loosing my parents was hard. Sometimes I think about how maybe if Mom had been home that day things would have been okay. If she'd been home, Dad wouldn't have gone looking for her. We could have all stayed home, stayed safe. They never came home. I was told the Daleks killed them but we'll never really know for sure.
We had to bury empty caskets. That was hard.
Being an orphan is hard. My Uncle and Aunt took me in. They love me. I love them too but... they're not Mom and Dad. Their house is not the same house, my room there is not the same room. It's not the room Dad read stories to me in, or the room where Mom marked my height against the wall every year on my birthday. It's a nice house. I like my room. It's just hard. Dad's not here to take into the yard and point out constellations through my telescope. Mom's not here to make us wear jumpers and take a thermos of tea when it's chilly, or scold him for keeping me out too late on a school night. Dad wont ever tug on my pony tail again. I used to hate that. I miss it now.
The first new permission slip from school was hard. It says right on there Parent or Guardian signature. Because some people don't have parents, you know. And listening to everyone else complain about their parents is hard. The first time I heard someone say they wished their parents would just die I punched him. I got in trouble at school but when I got home my Aunt just hugged me and cried. I don't like to tell people I'm an orphan. I hate the look people give you when they find out. They never seem to look at you the same way again after that.
Being thirteen is hard. I'm too tall and skinny and awkward to be pretty. I don't really care about TV shows or movie stars. I spend too much time staring up at the stars and too little talking about boys and clothes to be popular. The teachers are starting to put the pressure on and give out harder assignments. "You're all teenagers now," they say. "In a small handful of years you'll be moving on to University. What do you want to do with your lives?" Everyone says, "How are we supposed to know that? We're only thirteen! It's too hard to decide yet."
But I don't think that's hard at all.
It's just a picture. Just a grey scale thumbnail photo. Just a wheel on rocky dirt stretching out to a distant, curved horizon. But looking at it makes my heart beat so hard I can feel it through my whole body. Like it's not blood but electricity that's being pushed through my veins. My skin is tingling and prickling from excitement I can feel filling me up like a helium balloon.
Mars.
The Americans have landed another robot on the planet and it's transmitting. It's the first picture. Dad would have loved it. Love that little grey picture. Mom used to call us her Big and Little Martians. They're saying that someday we'll be able to send people to Mars.
I'm only thirteen but I know exactly what I want to do with my life. It'll be hard, but Adelaide Brooke is going to be the first woman on Mars. Just watch me.
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AN: Just a short one shot inspired by the Mars Rover Curiosity touching down on Mars today, August 6, 2012.