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The sky was, it felt, permanently orange.
Whether that was down to the street lights of a city that spread for thousands of miles, or the quasi in-interupted fires that raged outside said city, I didn't know.
In any case I was out of here. After years and years of patient bribes, and a small fortune spent, I'd finally secured a place on a shuttle for the Mars settlements. Still a mining planet, it also harboured independent, self managed settlements. Life wasn't easy there, but at least it was life. The best we could hope for here was micro managed, media fuelled emotions tailored and preprogrammed to keep us all in check.
This was my farewell tour - saying goodbye to the people I'd known, the people I'd loved, the places that had been meaningful to me. There was no coming back I knew.
Tonight was a special night - Elaine had agreed to meet me after I'd made it clear this was a one way trip for me. Elaine had been everything to me once, and still meant a great deal to my aching heart. We had been in love, incredibly, maddeningly in love. We were all there was to each other, the world, the sun, the air we breathed. And one day, just like that, she left.
Painfully, obsessively, I pieced out what had happened: she'd met people from an obscure sect, and had kept it secret from me. A secret ! How painful when I realised there were things she kept from me. And slowly these people had roped her in, until she was ready - and left everything to join them, leaving me in agony.
That was 10 years ago, and I still hurt.
Anyway, here I am, feeling as nervous as a teenager, waiting for her at a street corner, flowers in hand. A car stops in front of me, and there she is beautiful as she ever was. But she's not alone.
A group of people come out and surround me. I don't understand. All at once they start chanting "Death to the Martians". Elaine takes out a large knife and plunges it into my heart.
I fall, I bleed, and they all leave at once, as they arrived. I don't understand. And I die.
Aug 23 · 8 days ago · 👍 stack, 3curtain, mrrobinhood5