Men of Mars, Part 1: Just a Miner Threat (421 hits)
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Submitted by Paddles (View user info) at 2008-11-06 17:42:24 EST
Blood doesn't always wash off easily, like in the movies.
Sometimes it takes a good half hour of scrubbing the same offended place till it's raw and pink, and you can't tell which blood is still caked onto your skin and which is the burst capillaries underneath.
I know this because I was standing in the shower on this miserably hot August morning, when back home, the heat and the humidity are so oppressive that even the crickets' motivation to chirp is melted away.
It was the last of our cold water for the day and by God was I going to enjoy it while it lasted.
I stared at the dirty walls of the shower, estimating just how many years of grime were caked into the tiles that were probably originally meant to be some cream or some other stupid fucking name for off-white. I likened the layers of filth to the blood on my skin. Both required an unreasonable amount of effort to be scrubbed off entirely.
The blood in question offending my skin was, irregularly, not my own. I had a weak nose and a weaker chin, so my mouth thought it necessary to double its size and workload in compensation for its lazy neighbours. This was not a good solution and it had gotten me in trouble more than once.
Sorry. I got sidetracked. It happens sometimes.
This blood was, as I said, not mine. It belonged in its natural habitat in the body of a man named Stanley. Stanley was his last name; I didn't know his first. I only know that last night, there was a horrible accident down in the mines, and as the rescue crews prepped and suited up and calculated the risk of entering versus the chance that there was even anyone alive down there, Stanley bled a noisy and remorseful death out in my arms.
What had happened was typical, almost routine in a morbid sort of way on Mars mines. We spend most of our days digging out minerals you'd never find dirtside and sending them off to overpaid geologists who hem and haw over them and try to figure out what the fuck to do with them. What happens with these minerals is that in order for them to form, they need to exist in an area of high pressure and filled with gas that just happens to be absurdly flammable. Mining these areas is slow progress as extreme caution must be exercised to not level the entire goddamn tunnel with a single spark.
But mining is taxing on the body and mind. Long days of undercompensated work lead to short tempers and unclear heads. Under these conditions it seems all too easy that somebody near the end of his shift and having snuck a few too many bottles of very illegal beer might move too hastily into an unknown area, brandishing a mining laser, eventually stumbling across a pocket of such a gas and creating an explosion that results in just one casualty; the only other man working beneath the surface with him.
Somebody like me.
I should note that I didn't know I caused the accident. It wasn't until years later, when I felt mentally ready to unearth (if you'll please pardon the pun, it was unintentional) that particular memory and analyze it, that I put all the pieces of the story in their right place and made sense of the whole thing.
At the time it was just a bang, a rush of wind, a bright light, and then I was flat on my ass. I wondered what time it was and what I was going to do for breakfast before I became vaguely aware that someone was screaming in the distance.
I groped my way up to my feet - that took some effort. I couldn't discern which noises I was hearing from outside stimuli and which ones were the engine of my brain working overtime to get back up to speed. I felt as though I were in space - no, underwater. I had gravity, but it was lessened, and not just in the usual Martian way I had grown accustomed to. I put a hand on one of the cave walls, and I was reminded that I did indeed have a hand. Taking half a second to remember how to walk, I started a drunken stumble back up the tunnel.
I was following the sound of the screams.
I can't even describe how awful Stanley sounded as he lay mortally wounded, deep underground Mars, thousands of miles from home.
I thought I knew dread from a pregnancy scare with some long-forgotten girl when I was just coming out of high school. I thought I knew dread when I sat in a hospital room and waited for my dad's test results to come back, knowing that his liver was shutting down and taking his body with it.
Boy, let me tell you, I didn't know dread like I did staggering down that Martian tunnel, hearing Stanley howl and holler what were to be his death throes and truly not wanting to see what he was yelling about, but knowing I was going to anyway.
If I could have stopped myself I would, but there's a funny thing about human response. We're conditioned to be attracted to things that should repulse us. Just as sure as the Hindenburg came down in flames on a New Jersey evening, I was going to come around that corner and watch a man die.
And die he did. When I finally got to Stanley he had stopped screaming and was mumbling, almost inaudibly. As he tried to speak, his lungs frothed up blood that took his words away. I sat down behind his head and awkwardly pulled him up into my lap. When I grabbed his skin, most of it bubbled away as fresh blood lapped over my arms. I fought a sudden violent gag reflex and turned my head away. I felt ashamed to pull away from him as though he was a leprosy victim in his final moments, so I gingerly laid my hands down around his neck that had been burnt nearly black.
I couldn't look at his skin because feeling it was more than enough. I couldn't look at his eyes because they stared at me - no, through me - pleading and blaming and imploring all at once.
He drew a giant, shuddering breath into fried, collapsing lungs and tried to speak. I could barely discern anything at first, he was so quiet, but then I realized he was asking for forgiveness. I would have told him to stop but then I realized it wasn't me he was asking forgiveness from. It was God. God, who had banished him to this shitty, dead-end, suicidal lab-rat job and forsaken him down in the dark, dusty and filthy tunnels.
His sentences were disjointed and fragmented. Each one seemed to change who it was addressed to as the words came out of his mouth. He spoke to fuck knows how many people, begging to be forgiven or forgiving them, and then when he stopped looking through me and started looking at me I realized his last attempt at a sentence was intended for my ears.
I didn't hear what he said.
Then he started screaming again. Then he begged. Then he screamed. Then he prayed. Then he screamed. Then he died.
It took another thirty minutes for the rescue crews to find me.
User Reviews
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2008-11-08 19:53:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
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Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2008-11-08 19:53:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-11-07 14:45:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I didn't read it all, but what I saw from skimming was good.
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-11-07 10:23:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Paddles (user info) at 2008-11-07 00:17:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Nobody appreciates my hardcore punk references. =(
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2008-11-06 22:49:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
seriously though, the title made me chuckle. so here's a one.
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2008-11-06 22:47:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Watch out for the miner threat! They're coming with their pickaxes! They're going to kill us all!
BEWARE THE MINER THREAT
Submitted by Paddles (user info) at 2008-11-06 22:05:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I can't say I wash off blood very often so forgive me for fucking that up. Thanks for the comments everyone. I'll keep going with this later - it does pick up eventually.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-11-06 20:40:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-11-06 18:12:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
and by spin i meant twist.
jesus.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-11-06 18:12:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
i actually like the impact of the second last but would removed the 'then's'.
He screamed, prayed, cried etc.
Jack's right about the blood, its only hard to get off clothes/fabric. Very easy to get off skin.
At least, HUMAN blood.
INTERESTING SPIN???????
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-11-06 18:09:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Actually, blood washes off very easily. Even the days-old stuff caked hard under your fingernails will dissolve if you sit in a hot bath long enough.
At least you're trying a story, so no negative rating.
The 2nd last paragraph could have used and edit though;
"Then he started screaming again. Then he begged. Then he screamed. Then he prayed. Then he screamed. Then he almost died. Then he begged. Then he prayed. Then he screamed. Then he begged. Then he almost died. Then he prayed. Then he begged. Then he almost died. Then he screamed. Then he prayed. Then he begged. Then he almost died. Then he prayed. Then he begged. Then he almost died. Then he begged. Then he prayed. Then he screamed. Then he almost died. Then he begged. Then he prayed. Then he almost died. Then he screamed. Then he almost died. Then he begged. Then he almost died. Then he begged. Then he prayed. Then he begged. Then he screamed. Then he prayed. Then he almost died. Then he begged. Then he begged. Then he prayed. Then he died."
Submitted by Paddles (user info) at 2008-11-06 17:54:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Haha, I guess the danger of being a lurker rather than a poster on this site is that when you do post you get accused of being an alter. Fair deal.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2008-11-06 17:49:41 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
Hey, look...it's oathmeal, being a giant turd!
Submitted by Paddles (user info) at 2008-11-06 17:44:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Yes, I know I suck at titles, don't judge me.
This is intended to become a short little series of 3 parts or so, written more or less as they come to me, which means it should be done around the time we actually start mining on Mars.