Mark Watney
Sol 201

First up, I loaded up on Vicodin for my back. Hooray for Beck's medical supplies!

I'd quite forgotten about them, actually. I took some for the antenna wound that is responsible for my current predicament, but hauling the dirt was not backbreaking in the same way these rocks are. That was constant physical activity distributed over weeks; this is just a singular, crushing weight, then nothing, then the crushing weight again.

—

Christ, the bathwater was dirty. My first bath was long, because there was no way I'm getting out, but even I'm disgusted by how brown the water is. And it doesn't matter, too, because the moment I step outside the bath my poop-soil-floor is going to get on my feet again. I'm so used to the smell of shit-soil that I don't even notice it anymore unless I take special note of it.

But cleaning out the floor is out of the question. I should have done it earlier, when I had some down time, but at the time I was just so ready to die it didn't matter. Now, my back is decimated and my full-time job is to get the Watneymobile working for my trip to Schiaparelli. I'm going to have to live with the dirt floor.

Maybe I can lay something down over the dirt, at least from the bath to my bed. That way I can just go back and forth without getting dirty. Although, my bed is filthy too. I can probably take it outside to beat some of the dirt off of it. And hundreds of years from now, scientists can be confused as shit when they find particles of earth soil and dead bacteria in some random martian sand. I love confusing future scientists.

But I'm not going to take an EVA just to try and clean my bed. Maybe I can just beat it off in here. (heh heh)

—

I cleaned the bed, just shook it off across the Hab.

I tore a Large Flexible Container (Hefty Lawn and Leaf) down the middle, and laid it down along the dirt. I can probably lay more down around the Hab, but for now I'm just doing this. It's kind of a nice feeling, because the soil has soaked up some water again and is soft, so the flooring has a comfortable squishy feeling.

I'm shamelessly spending the next few days days either in this bathtub, or in my cot. I've even put the computers on a cart and wheeled them around, so I can spread all my crap out around my bed like a lazy asshole. People in their mothers basements the world over would be jealous.

—

Mark Watney
Sol 202

I'm going to lay down flooring over all of the Hab.

I didn't realize how much I missed the feeling of being clean. I already recycled the bathwater twice, pouring it back into the water reclaimer in between baths and letting it clean out more. It would need a hell of a hose cleaning, except that I clean the hose whenever I move it to the RTG, so it's getting regular maintenance. So I have a clean bath, a clean bed, and a clean floor between them. It's amazing.

I haven't ran out of deodorant, mostly because after the floor made of human shit, I felt like it was a lost cause. I only used it when I felt so sweaty that the sticky feeling bothered me. But now that I have a non-dirt floor, and a bath, I might use deodorant every sol in a feeble attempt to keep myself clean. I've ran out of toothpaste and mouthwash and everything else, though, so we'll see how that goes.

—

Mark Watney
Sol 203

I stand in front of a mirror and scratch the plaque off of my teeth with a thin metal rod. It's not teeth brushing, but it's something.

—

Mark Watney
Sol 204

You know, I'm really gaining an appreciation for reruns. And for sitting around the house naked all the time. Maybe people living in their mothers basement have it right after all. I'm basically doing the same thing, except that if any of my appliances die, I die too. The way those overgrown children act, though, you'd think their lives depended on their appliances too. Maybe they do, what the hell would I know?

—

Mark Watney
Sol 209

Waking up to frigid weather felt surprisingly nostalgic. I grew up in Chicago, after all.

For a split second, I thought I left the window open.

It felt like the brutal winter air was let into my apartment, and I woke up shivering under my inadequate blankets. Why the hell would I leave my bedroom window open in the middle of winter? Maybe the heater messed up and made my room too hot again.

I sit up to close it, but I remember that it isn't winter. It's Mars, and my blanket is a threadbare sheet and my layers are people's shitty spandex clothes for temperature-controlled environments.

With the realization that I'm not in Chicago comes a crushing sense of depression which closes over me so quickly I double over in my bed. For one amazing split second, I thought I was at home in Chicago.

Tears are pricking at my eyes because for a split second I was home again, and it was fucking taken away from me.

—

Mark Watney
Sol 209

The trailer's battery is in the undercarriage, but the main power line runs through the pressure vessel, so I was able to wire Hab batteries directly in (no small feat in the damn EVA suit).

"Fuck!" I yell into the EVA suit.

My hand is too large in this fucking suit to quite get the cable to reach where I need to splice it in. It's lingering a few centimeters away, taunting me. I stretch my arms down and over the battery, but it doesn't come any closer.

There's nothing fucking for it, either. I've been a mechanical engineer long enough to know that sometimes, you just have to keep shoving 'til it fits.

I grunt as I throw my entire body weight into shoving my arm down further, pressing all the air from my chest and through my vocal chords.

It's moments like this, as I strain uselessly, that I really fucking hate this planet.

—

Mark Watney
Sol 211

Okay, so I'm a sentimental freak. It's the day the Taiyang Shen is supposed to launch. I spelled out a message in Morse code, GOOD LUCK CREW.

I'm completely tied up in knots. I don't get nervous like this over my own stupid shit anymore, but this is dangerous for them. If they don't get those supplies, they'll die. Christ, I'm more nervous than the first time I had to measure my potato growth.

—

Mark Watney
Sol 226

I wasted half this day without meaning to. Just woke up, went to sit by the window, and ended up staring at the empty MAV struts for hours. They have a tendency to catch my eye and then make me remember that I'm not actually alive. Forgot to eat my breakfast ration, though, so that's a plus.

I don't know what came over me. I just couldn't get up, couldn't move. Thought about it, but it kept getting lost in my head. Just kept thinking about what everyone is doing on earth, there, without me. Wasn't sure I existed anymore. It was just me and the empty landing struts and the fact that humanity was never supposed to see that.

Started scratching my legs, there are red marks all up and down where I drug my hands over them. Don't know why I did that. Was just… it was too empty. This planet is empty, this Hab is empty, this atmosphere is empty. Too empty.

—

Mark Watney
Sol 238

I'm doing it again, the fucking wasting time. The last three days I've spent hours just sitting in front of the window, staring out at the landing struts and not getting any work done. The papers with the math are spread out in front of me on the table, but every time I read numbers they just dance in front of my eyes until I forget what they were and I find myself staring at those landing struts again.

Out of nowhere, I slam my hand down hard on the aluminum table. The pain in my knuckles feels nice, and I feel the impact reverberate up my arm. I do it a few more times, enjoying the sensation on my hands. Once more, I punch the table, staring at my hand as I do it. My hand is really beginning hurt, my wrist aches, and I feel myself being dragged back into my body.

Okay, numbers in front of me. I can do this.

—

Log Entry
Sol 255

Remember when I let Venkat talk me into life again? Somehow, it's still working.

Every day I wake up with the same profound desire to just fucking die that I woke up with on Sol 6. My back hurts, my legs hurt, my chest hurts ten times more than those things do, and I can barely get my addled brain together for the ten seconds it takes to have a useful thought.

Knowing there's a world full of people watching me try to get home, every day, though… I don't want to let them down. They've worked so hard for me.

—

Mark Watney
Sol 257

I'm so unbelievably bored.

Yes, most days I lay around feeling like the embodiment of emptiness and death or whatever, but sometimes I get a reprieve and get to bounce around the Hab, bored out of my mind. Well, lay around the Hab, because I don't want to waste calories.

I'm playing chess against the computer. The longer I'm here, the more appealing the strategy game becomes to me. It was never interesting to me before, but the more time I'm alone the more time I spend thinking about the actual strategy in the game. One game of chess a month turned into two, turned into three, turned into once a week, turned into multiple times a week, turned into this. 257 sols later, and I'm actually playing against the computer on the hardest difficulty.

Johanssen loves chess. She was in her high school's freaking chess league. I try not to think about what it will be like if I get to the Hermes, but I can't stop myself from fantasizing about playing chess and beating her.

Oh, don't worry, the computer is trashing me. Not that much has changed.