Stone (Volume 1, Bonus Issue 1)

Image Description: Uno cards are spread out across a table. They are facing up so that the colors and numbers are visible. A wild card is at the center of the pile.

Credit: Del / Unsplash via Webador

Stone (Volume 1, Bonus Issue 1)

by Laura Browne-Lambert

Shonda sat cross-legged on the maintenance pod floor opposite Martin. She had tied a fleece blanket around her shoulders like a cloak. Martin’s blanket, on the other hand, hung over his head like a tent. Turning down the temperature control to save energy was beginning to feel like a sacrifice. Nighttime on Mars could get surprisingly cold. In their hands, they held cards decorated in bright primary colors. The rest of the deck sat atop a pillow between them. Shonda set a card on the pillow.

“Draw two,” she said with a half-smile.

Martin grimaced. “Aw, come on! You’ve already done that to me three times,” he growled good-naturedly. Shonda just smiled. Martin raised an eyebrow. “You know what? Fine. If that’s how you want to play this game, you can draw four cards and I’m changing the color to blue.”

Shonda put a hand over her heart and gasped dramatically. “How could you?” she exclaimed. “I thought we were friends!”

Martin laughed. “Not when we’re playing cards!” he said. “The sooner you know that the better.”

Shonda doubled over in laughter. “Oh, I see how it is,” she said as the giggles took control. Shonda knew she was laughing more than the joke required, but once she started, she could not stop. The stress that came with fighting to survive came out in peals of hysterical laughter and a steady stream of salty tears.

Over the last two months, Shonda and Martin had spent each day searching the wreckage for usable supplies: food, water, fuel, clothing, undamaged suits, and helmets. Shonda still hated the wet wipe baths they each took daily to avoid using water for anything other than hydration. She had even learned to recognize Martin’s angry stomp whenever they had to further restrict their rations of hardtack and freeze-dried ice cream. Even still, their consumables ran low. Early mornings were dedicated to harvesting frost to supplement their meager water supply, and around midday, they would scour the greenhouse for seeds and fertilizer. The spaces near the windows of the maintenance pod had become growing spaces, and they treated the desk as a kitchenette. They had turned the supply closet into a multipurpose room, storing all manner of supplies as well as treating it as a dressing room where they could perform their daily ablutions in private.

Shonda wiped her face as her laughter subsided. “Oh wow,” she sniffed. “I don’t know why I thought that was so funny.”

Martin shrugged. “I get it,” he said. Martin played a card as if nothing had happened.

“You do?” Shonda asked as she studied the cards in her hand. “Wait, did you just take my turn?”

Martin gave her a cheeky smile. “I’m just getting the game moving again.”

“Sure, you are,” Shonda answered. She bit back another giggle that burbled up in her throat.

“I get it, though,” said Martin. “We’ve been running on adrenaline and too little food for months. Sooner or later, you have to laugh or cry or scream.”

Shonda played a card. “Then why haven’t you?”

This time, Martin’s laugh was laced with sarcasm. “What makes you think I haven’t?”

Shonda’s eyes widened in surprise. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Martin dropped his eyes and studied his cards more carefully than he needed to. “I had my little break down weeks ago.”

Shonda dropped her cards into her lap, all pretenses aside. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Martin fiddled with the pile of cards between them as he spoke. “I had it out with the tool shed – or what was left of it,” he said. “You know, screaming, begging, the whole nine yards.”

“You never said anything,” Shonda mused.

“Why should I have?” Martin shuffled the deck.

“I mean, it’s just the two of us,” Shonda sighed. “We’re supposed to be in this together, aren’t we?”

Martin said nothing for a long moment. He shuffled the deck loudly and finally asked, “Are we? It’s been two months, and I don’t think we know much more than each other’s names.”

Shonda’s jaw dropped. “What are you talking about?” she exclaimed. “We talk every night.”

Martin rolled his eyes. “We don’t talk, we banter.”

Shonda crossed her arms. Irritation warmed her from the inside out. “Well, if you want us to talk, really talk, then why didn’t you say anything about the tool shed?”

Martin got up, stomping his feet to reintroduce blood circulation. “Because you need me to keep it together.”

Shonda’s eyebrows met her hairline. “Is that so?”

“Don’t you?” Martin shot back.

Shonda leaned back, trying to put on an air of coolness. She knew where this was going. “Try again.”

Martin’s cheeks turned pink. “Don’t you need me?” His voice lost some of its confidence.

Shonda smirked. She had him now. “Sure, but that’s not what you’re talking about,” she said. She eyed him, silently daring him to say something that might be construed as sexist. “Try again.”

Martin turned around and studied the tiny shoots growing under the porthole window. “I need to feel useful,” he said after a long silence.

“Go on,” Shonda said.

Martin sighed, defeated. “I need you to need me because why am I alive if I don’t have a purpose?”

Shonda leaned forward. Now that they were finally talking, she realized he had been right. They needed conversations like this. “Why isn’t your purpose to get back to your family?”

“I –”

“Or do you not have one?” Shonda cut in. “I just assumed—”

Martin held up a hand to stop her. “I have one. Just – How can I face them now?” He wiped a hand across his face. “I’m the one who convinced them that taking this gig would be good for all of us. How can I go back there and explain to them how badly I failed. Besides, no one is coming for us.”

His words made Shonda’s face smart in a blend of fear and – for some reason – embarrassment. “You don’t know that.”

Martin stalked toward her. “Don’t I? We’re collateral damage, Shonda,” he said. “After everything that happened here, what makes you so sure that we aren’t an acceptable loss? No one is coming for us.”

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Shonda pulled her legs to her chest and fought the urge to cry. She could not give up hope. She was not ready yet. After a while, Martin returned to his seat across from her.

“Sorry,” he said.

Shonda shrugged. “I know what you mean – about feeling like a failure,” she said. “I had a lot riding on this mission, too.”

“Like what?” Martin asked.

“I was going to put in my time, help turn base camp into a real settlement. The people on this mission – we were supposed to get first dibs on bringing our families here. I thought, if my family was one of the first, I could take them away from all the issues on Earth.” Shonda shifted, finding a new position huddled deep in her pile of blankets. “We would have been part of starting a new society here. I had hoped that meant we could influence things here. Maybe we could leave all the inequalities and prejudices on Earth and make something better here.”

Martin settled into his own nest and turned onto his side so that their eyes met. “So, you have a family?” he prompted.

Shonda nodded. “A wife, two kids. You?”

Martin smiled. “Same.”

“I’d love to meet them someday,” Shonda said.

“I’d like that, too.” Martin rolled over and closed his eyes.

Shonda turned away. She tossed around in her blankets for a long while, but when she finally fell asleep, she dreamed of her family.

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