The Rover

When she was five years old, Aisha drew a picture of Mars and gifted it to her Mum. She had used her reddest crayon. A gorgeous red - unspoiled, its tip still pointed. An unworldly declaration of love. 

Thirty years later, with the red planet crumbling under her boots, the drawing struck her as a little naive. The vista that unravelled before her - its arid undulations, its butterscotch sky - were all brown. She held out her gloved hand and watched the alien dust land in the palm. It looked like soil. Like gravel. It brought to mind the pebblestone walls of her childhood home. The loose rocks in her driveway. A figure in the doorway. Her Mum.

“We’re here!” a muffled voice cried. She turned to see Ronnie, her fifty-six-year-old spaceship companion from Utah. Against all odds - age, politics, scientific disciplines - he and Aisha had become firm friends during their half-year voyage. He stood beside her now, arms spread-eagle as he gazed out across the starless dustscape. Through his helmet, she could see the creases around his eyes. He was squinting - perhaps in wonder, or disbelief. A boyish glee. Then he turned to meet her gaze and shook his head.

“This can’t be real,” he said. “We’re really here!” 

Aisha sighed, then echoed, “We’re really here.” 

She asked where the rest of the crew were. Unpacking the ship, Ronnie replied. He talked for a short while about radiation, and underground caves. Something about solar power, and water recycling, and aircraft. A scribble of words, tumbled from a schoolroom Encyclopaedia. Remote and scholarly. Aisha, meanwhile, was blindsided by a lash of nausea. We’re really here, she thought. And we always will be. 

She folded slowly, collapsing to her backside. She clasped her silver visor between her knees and focused on stretching out her breath. Her mind trembled with images of her lungs - fraying, coated with red wax - the bones of her ribcage gnarled like dead reeds. Branches. Trees. Ronnie crouched down beside her and clasped her shoulder as heartsick memories bloomed across her vision. Pristine English bungalows - rows upon rows of gardens, each in varying states of beloved disarray. She would never see sunflowers again, she thought. Never again gasp at the unexpectedness of daffodils. 

“Are you alright?” Ronnie asked, his Southern drawl escaping. “Is your oxygen working?” 

Aisha clenched her eyes and nodded. “I’m fine, just a bit shocked. I think it all just hit me.”

Ronnie lowered himself to sit beside her. “Tell me about it,” he sighed. “I wasn’t expecting to feel so…” He hesitated. Homesick, Aisha thought. No - worse than that. Something new and nameless. Something she felt in her marrow. 

“Worst thing is,” Ronnie continued. “I’m a comfort eater. Ice cream, chocolate - Jesus! I don’t know how I’ll cope.” He offered a weak chuckle, then silence. The cosmic air was still and plaintive.

“Maltesers,” Aisha mumbled at length. “That’s mine.” 

Ronnie guffawed. “They sound British as hell!”

“They’re honestly divine.” 

“Well you never know, maybe we’ll find some here when we start digging.” 

Aisha chuckled and lifted her head. “Anything we find will taste better than what you Yanks call chocolate.”  

They filtered the sand between their suited fingers and rambled on about earthly comforts. Birthday cake and fast food. Cats and bikes and alcohol. Music videos, baths, the smell of washed bed linen. Sitcoms. Cinemas. Forests and funiculars. Clouds and rain and the distant sound of buses. Museums, and museum gift shops. Planetariums.

“I spent hours in our town's planetarium as a kid,” Aisha said. “The planets were awful. I honestly think school kids made them using papier mache and balloons. But you know, I didn’t care. It was always so exciting.”

“It's funny, my favourite planet was always Venus,” Ronnie said. “It was my son who loved Mars.” 

“God, he'd be so excited for you,” Aisha smiled. 

“Yeah, I think he would be.” He turned his face from hers. He was lost for a moment in the landscape’s unearthly mists. 

“I always loved Mars,” Aisha ventured. “My Mum bought me this set of books, and each one was about a different planet in the solar system. I took the Mars one with me everywhere. She used to call me her little Martian.” 

Ronnie turned back, his eyes glistening. “I bet she's so proud of you, Aisha.”

“Oh yeah, beyond proud.” 

Aisha thought of the day she had told her Mum about the voyage. How she lingered in the kitchen, poring over celebratory cups of tea. Her pale face, and the wobble in her voice. The spectacular weight of her body in that last, lingering hug. The total absurdity of the pride she’d hoped for. The abject, unutterable agony. 

“Your dream came true,” said Ronnie. “And my son’s.” 

“Yeah,” Aisha replied, her breathing steady. In the distance, they heard the whir of colonisation. Their colleagues' voices echoing across the new winds. Ronnie patted her arm, then squeezed it. An unexpected loveliness. It made her think of her friends back home. Friends from school. Their laughter, their voices when they sang. The wild, bewildering love she held for them.

She thought of boys she had dated, men she had fallen in love with. Flashes of faces - lambent, cinematic - in nightclubs and restaurants, creased against shared pillows. Glances across classrooms. Weekend walks, and lie-ins, and spur-of-the-moment kisses. The wonder of skin. How small it had felt. And now how faraway.

She looked at Ronnie. She wondered if he missed anyone yet. If the distance had hit him already. The hundreds of millions of miles, and all the distance ahead of them. The slow orbit, each second boring deeper into the cragged darkness, further from their memories. She wondered if he felt nauseous, too, and perhaps was better at hiding it. She wondered if he saw red or brown.

“We better get back, little Martian,” Ronnie said. He offered his hand, and helped Aisha to her feet. She thought of everything and nothing as she lingered to look out across the landscape. He faltered, turned back and joined her. Both craned their necks starwards. Two travellers, silent, awestruck by an unknown sky. Both sets of eyes scanned the new pink heavens, frenzied, hoping against hope they might catch a glimpse of the earth’s light on the horizon.