You can’t see the end from here. I guess that’s one of the joys of it. That blue marble doesn’t care how it’s played, it just keeps rolling. We, on the other hand, are fighting the apocalypse every day. This planet wants to kill us far more than our blue home ever did. There are endless dust cyclones - raging hurricanes wrapped tightly into the size of a tornado. Then, there are the equipment issues. You wouldn’t think you could drown on a planet as dusty and barren as this, but if your condensation recycler goes down, you’ll be breathing water before you know it.

At least we have our shelters. They are sturdily built, with a purpose that ignores luxury. In the months and years spent building them, you would think some expense could be spared, but I guess it’s too expensive to bring up a soft bar of soap and a heating pad. But hey, I won the lottery and got off that planet before the inevitable happened. Or at least, I thought I did.

Now I am assigned to the water unit. Our domiciles were built near the shadow line of a massive crater that was discovered to have ice locked up in the rocks under the soil. Well, we found enough to build this new ‘civilization’ nearby, but we recently discovered we only have 3 months of a supply left. My background in chemistry and water extraction techniques as a geologist set me up for a unique role here. It makes me wonder if the lottery was really random, or if they just picked people they knew they needed under the guise of a random selection..

Our last drill attempt yielded nothing. The soil is hard, compact, and very difficult to work with. Since I don’t have a lot of the same equipment I had back home, I couldn’t really explain why there was nothing there. Our autonomous rover also has sensitive searching equipment and water detection radar on it, but we set it to search on its own and it wandered off beyond our acceptable recovery range about a week ago. Someone should have paid more attention to its programming. Hopefully, it should be back in a few days with updated data from its auto discovery pathing. If it finds more water, we may have to pack up this entire place in three months and move. I am not sure that’s possible, but transporting water is very difficult due to the weight. Like I said, we are fighting against the apocalypse every day.

We could talk for hours about the simplest things. But even the simplest things were not the same anymore.

“What did you think of the polar vortex?” I asked.

“I don’t know, it had pepperoni on it.” she said. “Do you know how pepperoni is made?”

I just smile, “Enlighten me.”

A sparkle hit her eye as she went on, “They take the sausage and grind it up with herbs and spices, then cure it. It’s really a matter of pigs and spices.”

“Oh?” I said.

There was a moment of clarity in there somewhere. These were the things they said to watch for. Maybe there was still hope.

“Yes,” she said, “and the spices make it hot sometimes. Did I tell you about the one time your grandmother put spicy peppers in the milk?”

“She did?” I laughed. “When did this happen?”

“Oh, I think it was just yesterday,” she said.

She couldn’t possibly have forgotten that, I thought. I didn’t have the heart to tell her how long ago grandma had passed.

Mom continued, “She was making pancakes and decided to use the milk as a rolling pin. Oh you should have seen the mess!”

“Yes mom, I bet it was a terrible mess.” I sighed. “We need to get you back upstairs now. I will have to hear more about that story later.”

“But I don’t want to go upstairs! We are having so much fun.”

Mom was really good at resisting.

“Yes, I know. Maybe next time I can stay longer.” This was getting harder and harder every time.

“Why can’t you just stay,” she insisted. “I can bake you a pie.”

“No mom, you can’t bake me a pie right now. They don’t have an oven in your room.”

“Then let’s find one down here,” mom said, “I don’t want to go back upstairs. I just got here.”

“Mom, we have been here for four hours.” I was trying to squash my frustration.

“You need to take your medicine. I’ll have the nurse bring you up.”

“No you won’t!” she snapped.

“Ok, ok.”

Boy, she could be really determined when she wanted to.

Then, in my own moment of clarity, I said, “Mom, I’ll take you upstairs so you can bake me a pie. Does that sound good?”

_______________

#alzheimers and frontal lobe #dementia are terrible diseases that take our loved ones from us in ways unimaginable. This is but a shadow of the difficult conversations and the patience required to live through that progression. I hope it resonates. N.J. Karels