Working On Mars
by Linda Meckler
Have you ever wanted to go into space? I mean get on a space ship and go to Mars. Well I am going! I am going to take you with me. The year is 2060. The government is sponsoring a work program. The qualifications are for people ages 20-40, six feet tall and weight 120 lbs. All I had to do was apply and pass a physical examine, which I did. I was accepted.
I was told I did not have to worry about the air on the space station. It would be just like living on earth as long as I did not go outside of the space station. The military were in charge of the space station and I would be taking my orders from them.
I was not allowed to bring along any luggage. The government issued me one back pack. Everything I needed was to be provided when I reached Mars.
I reported to the space shuttle and after putting on a white space suite I was strapped into my seat. I was told at this time I would be put to sleep for 3 days and nights. I would be awake when we landed on Mars.
When I opened my eyes in the space shuttle, I didn’t know where I was at first. I looked around and it looked like disconnected heads were floating in the space ship. Before I could react or speak to anybody I was standing in a room which looked like a hotel lobby. I was asked to place my right thumb on a computer screen and the next thing I knew I was standing in a small strange room with yellow walls, a bed with a red and yellow flowered quilt on it, a dresser and closet. That was it. My backpack was sitting in the middle of my new bed.
I immediately found myself in a dire situation. I had to go to the bathroom right then and there. I looked around and did not see a bathroom anywhere. To my amazement the back wall disappeared and a large bathroom appeared right in front of my eyes. I didn’t ponder the situation since my legs were crossed. I ran to the bathroom and opened the door. While I was sitting on the throne my bathroom started to talk to me. It said, “taking shower now, taking shower now.” The next thing I knew I was standing naked under a shower of hot soapy water and I must admit it felt good. My hair was thoroughly scrubbed and rinsed. I then felt my body being heated and dried. I stepped out of the bathroom and the bathroom disappeared and in its place stood the wall once again. To my amazement I was wearing a one piece gold jump suit. It was so tight my brain was thinking, “how am I going to take this off when I have to go to the bathroom again.” I felt a wave of tiredness wash over me. I then laid down on my new bed and was fast asleep.
I woke up to my back pack talking to me. It said, “It is time to get up. It is time to get up. You have one hour before you report to your work station.” I jumped out of bed I was already dressed. Suddenly, I was starving. I mean I was starviinnng. I hadn’t eaten for days. I looked around the small bedroom and realized I didn’t have a kitchen. I didn’t know where to go for FOOD. Just then the floor started vibrating and the lights started to go on and off. I heard a high pitch sound EEEEEE I heard this before I actually saw it. I looked up and low and behold it was a flying kitchen complete with table and chairs. It was headed straight for me. I didn’t know what to do so I jumped on my small bed. My bedroom walls expanded to make room for this strange flying kitchen.
There was a strange man standing by the counter in a green jump suit. He said hurry and jump on. He introduced himself to me saying he had been on the space shuttle with me. He pointed to a large wall which looked like a microwave oven. It wasn’t a microwave oven but it had rows and rows of buttons. He said pick out what you want to eat and push the button. I did this and my breakfast shot out a few second’s later piping hot and sooo gooood. By the time I had finished eating we had stopped eight more times and all together ten people were eating on the flying kitchen.
All of a sudden I heard my name called, “Linda Meckler # 260, jump off.” I did, right back into my bedroom. Then I had to go to the bathroom again and I couldn’t figure out how to open my jump suit. I didn’t know how to open my wall to get into the bathroom. I was in a mess. But finally my jumpsuit opened by itself and the wall opened up again. There was my bathroom waiting for me.
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After that unbelievable hour I didn’t know what else to expect. Once again my back pack started talking to me. “Put me on. Put me on. Push the red button. Push the red button.” I put on the back pack and pushed the red button. The next thing I know, I was in a large room with computers, video screens, all kinds of equipment I had never seen before.
I looked around more people were materializing around me. I finally was not alone any more. We were all the people from the flying kitchen this morning and we knew each other which made the situation easier to endure. We all looked around the room in amazement. We didn’t know what we were supposed to do.
The next thing that happened was one of the walls disappeared and a bunch of robots came marching out heading straight for us. The robots looked like humans and were numbered. There were five green robots and five gold robots. There was a gold robot numbered 260. I figured out all by myself that we were connected in some way.
I heard a loud voice say, “ Attention Earth People. Your job is to train your robots.” All us Earth People looked at each other. We didn’t have a clue as to what we were supposed to teach these robots. But the funny thing was the robots did. I laughed and said, “Only our government would come up with a job like this.”
I did this ridiculous job for about two weeks when my job changed one morning. I was materialized into another room a much larger room in another part of the building I had never been in before. It was now my job to actually build these robots. Life was so sweet. My first task was to take my robot apart electronic part by electronic part and then put it back together. I was in the electronics field and caught on quickly. I later learned these robots were the actual laborers who went outside the space station to do the routine work whatever that was. The air didn’t bother them.
After my shift was over for the day I was allowed some freedom. I had the option of going back to my bedroom and watch Videos, and eat or I could go to the Social Room. This was a large room equipped with all kinds of electronic gizmos for our use and entertainment. We could watch movies, eat in this room, read electronic books and talk to the other forty-nine other people living on the Mars space station. There was a separate room equipped with every kind of exercise equipment you can imagine. There was also a pool. It wasn’t filled with water but with a jellied substance which took a little getting used to. There was only one building so far since the space station had only been in existence for about five years. I heard the gossip that they had plans to add another building soon.
The best part of this fabulous experience was I could eat all the food from the mysterious food machine and not gain and ounce. We all liked that little tidbit.
Time went by so fast I didn’t realize my year was almost up. I was given a choice of signing on for another year or going on the next space shuttle which left next week. What do you think I did?
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Linda was born in Pennsylvania. Now she resides in California
close to her daughter, son and his large family. She loves to read to her
grandchildren. Her granddaughter said to her, “I love it Grandma, when
you read to me.” That has been the fountain of inspiration that drives
her to create what you are reading today. |
