Lies
Joanna Sizer
Wasn’t the artificial atmosphere supposed to make the night less frigid? The controllers who sat thousands of stories above the blinking lights of the city were probably laughing their asses off at me as they sip on rum flavored coffee and eating jelly-filled donuts. They are probably chuckling as I sit here on the rust red dust we call ground, huddled in a ball covered from head to toe in mysterymaterial that science insists will keep you warm in negative 50 degree weather, shivering and watching my breath turn to mist before my eyes. All I can say to that is that someone along the line lied. Actually, a lot of people probably lied. The scientists lied to their corporate bosses, saying it was possible to live here without freezing to death at night and burning up during the day due to special alterations of the atmosphere and to modern cloth. The corporations in turn lied to the government official, greatly exaggerating the actual facts that the scientists had lied to them about. Then the government, having been lied to, decided to set up this “space colony” and tell the general public that it was affordable to go and that it would make their lives better. Not knowing that they have been lied to by people who haven’t even talked to them, the public moves to outer space for several years before landing on this godforsaken hunk of rusted red rock. Hell, the coffee makers probably lied to the controllers about what actually goes into the coffee. It’s probably rum with artificial coffee flavoring. So here I sit on that same hunk of rock, staring up at a dark blue sky. Cold stars blinking back at me. They are lies too. Half of those stars probably died thousands of years ago, but they have the audacity to keep showing up every night, as though they are still there and glittering brightly. The only thing that has never lied to anyone is this ground I sit on. It never pretended to be pleasant, or even habitable. The jagged edges of craters look sinister. It’s as bare and unforgiving as even the driest desert on earth. But these things are familiar now. There is almost a comfort in the hostile environment now. I know everything there is to know about this place. I know the caves, dark and filled with strange dark creatures that flapped strange wings and hid
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