On Mars

Yesterday, I was reading about Curiosity and gazing in awe at the pictures it sends us of Mars. It was so hard to understand that the images in front of me were not of this familiar Earth. Maybe that's the space I was waiting for, because later that night, I close my eyes and on the other side of my eyelids, is Mars. Vast, unknown, unspoilt.

MARS

On the entire planet, there is only Curiosity and me. And Curiosity is only there as a small token of the world I've drifted away from. And I shed all those layers that add up to equal me. I lose my shoes, my clothes, my skin, my hair, my education, my religion, my language, my voice, my name, my eyes. No, I'll keep my eyes.

There I am, just a pair of eyes and a conscience.

I'm so drawn to loneliness in space. (2001: A Space Odyssey, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Futurama, Doctor Who). I'm pretty sure I would lean against Curiosity, try to make it my friend, and sob for a long time.

But after the customary bout of madness, there exist clarity and tranquility, which remain elusive as long as identity is relative.

To be present at that moment, just a pair of eyes and a conscience, when the entire human species ends (it would be deliciously poetic if it happens everywhere in the same split-second). To even be among the humans--because even as I acknowledge it, I fail to live it--as they realize the one truth:

I am alone. I do not matter.