Today, Mars is at it's closest point to Earth this cycle. It takes me back to a prior cycle in 2003, when it got as close as it ever does. It was all over the news, but I did not give it too much thought because I was on a deadline to submit a short, science fiction story to a publication, and my only idea so far was mired in a lack of energy and enthusiasm.
So, I wasn't paying much attention to my surroundings that morning as I left the apartment. I will never, though, forget the sound of the heavy front door snapping behind me because, at that instant, I heard a voice, distinctive from my own, say, "What are you going to do when the lights go out?"
I looked around but there was nobody nearby. Preoccupied and busy as I was, I just shook it off, and hearing voices was not exactly something to call my friends about, at least not then. But it was August 14th, and before sunset that day electrical power would vanish from a huge swath of the Northeastern United States and part of Canada.
Well, at least it took my mind off the deadline, no computer, no email... and there was hanging on the stoop and ingenious solutions to problems -- like using computer backup batteries to run aquarium filters and save our fish -- to keep us all busy. And, when it was over, my story was just "there."
Here it is as I rushed it to publication, but I realized today that the editor and I missed an error I made in content and continuity, right in the beginning. I left it to play with. Can you catch it? Then, take a long look at the glowing red orb in the sky tonight, with fresh eyes.
JUICE
“I’m a Martian.”
Well, why not, I thought. This afternoon 50 million bona fide, 21st Century digitally wireless American humans found ourselves, in a split second, without all benefit of electrical power. Anything’s possible.
Except getting out of Manhattan, that is, so I stocked up at the vending machines before walking down those 18 dark flights and settled myself into the crowded public plaza where hours before, clueless, I had chomped on a tuna sandwich and downed my lemonade. Grateful for my loyal walkman and the miracle of batteries, I tuned in to radio announcers reading sketchy information from handwritten slips illuminated by flashlights.
“The Blackout of 2003…” was universally proclaimed. Seemed quick for it to have a name, the could have waited for the scale of the thing to be clear and called it “The Big One,” or maybe “The Wipe-Out,” given the effect on elements of our day-to-day business that did not even exist in ’77, the last time the lights went out here in a big way.
Hoping to get hold of my wife and find out if we were affected in Connecticut, I tried my phone again, but there was still no service. I regretted not having followed up with that guy who tried to pitch us solar panels in April. If every tall building around here had one of those, they could at least light the stairwells and pump the water in. There’d be refuge. As it was, it seemed the whole city was in the streets.
“Juice?” The guy sitting next to me on the wall had a little cooler full of paper drink cartons.
“You gonna charge five bucks?”
“No. I was in a deli, they gave them out before they closed, no refrigeration.”
“Thanks.” I passed him my little sack of pretzels. “I was just thinking…”
“About the solar power? Great idea, they should have done it years ago.”
Barely able to swallow my Tropicana, I asked. ”How did you know that?”
He smiled. “I’m a Martian.”
My mind scrambled desperately for an excuse to get up.
“Not to worry,” they guy went on. “We’ve been here before, on Mars, that is. Technology, the demand for power, trying to get everything everywhere connected. Well, it didn’t work, spoiled the environment, crashed big-time even worse than this. Really dangerous. Do you realize it that a glitch in an alarm system in Ohio has left New York a sitting duck in the dark?”
“They don’t know yet…oh, yeah, you’re from Mars.”
He laughed, at what, I don’t know.
“Localization and accountability, that’s how we handled it. More and more solar, worked like a charm.”
He had a point about being accountable, it only had taken minutes for someone to float a story about lightning to get everyone off the hook.
“If Mars is so great, what are you doing here?”
“That was a long time ago. Eventually, Mars moved too far from the sun and it was time to re-locate.”
I swallowed. “Here?”
“Uh-huh, millions of years ago.”
“So you’re saying that we all…”
My pocket sang the theme from that TV show about the final frontier, meaning the phones were back and Chris had gotten through. Everything was okay at home, she told me to be careful and said she would be able to bring the car into the city in an hour or two to get me.
Thinking of offering my new friend a lift, I turned and saw that he was gone. He’d left his cooler beside me, in a plastic bag, a frozen Mars bar.
It got quieter as the sky darkened, and the city was lit only by headlights of the waning lines of passing cars On the horizon, I saw a planet with a pinkish cast and remembered seeing something on CNN, about Mars being closer to Earth right now than it gets for hundreds of years. A few of my office buddies strolled by. It was obvious from their volume and rhythm that someone, somewhere, had been selling beer.
“Yo,” said one, “You got any FOOD in that cooler?”
“Just plenty of juice,” I said, smiling at the irony.
“You shoulda come with us.”
I told them about the man who said he was from Mars.
“You watch too much Sc-Fi,” said the short one. “Solar power! They’ll sort it all out and get things back to normal. They always do, I’m not going to worry about it. Hell, it was my night to do homework with the kids, I got off easy.”
They all laughed and invited to me search for still more beer. I did not offer them a ride.
As the plaza emptied I noticed a young woman on a bench trying unsuccessfully to get a signal on her phone. I approached and let her use mine.
“Juice?”
She selected grapefruit and gazed up thoughtfully at the moon reflected in the windows of the dark tower above, like a huge spotlight shining out.
“Yes,” I said, “Solar power would have made this a lot more bearable. If it happened at all.”
“How did you know…”
I’m a Martian.
Copyright August 19, 2003 by Linda DiGusta, All Rights Reserved
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