Year 2109, Somewhere Near the Martian Equator
Simon was a very particular man who wanted things done exactly as he envisioned them, which is why he had laid out the task of arranging his funeral to his best friend, Margot. She’d meticulously organized the mourners into neat phalanx rows, reminiscent of an ancient Roman army. This careful attention to detail was a clinical necessity as there was no other way to accommodate the greenhouse’s small floorspace, as the room was in no way suitable for nineteen-hundred colonists. Margot was an experimental biologist, which especially on Mars, required a degree of precision that Simon always admired.
It was Simon’s dream to see the sky on Earth, but having never even gone on a Martian spacewalk for longer than an hour, the closest thing to oxygenated blue Earthly skies was the county greenhouse where the large windows were tainted an easy turquoise. The greenhouse was typically occupied by botanists, interns, farmers, and those studying any combination of those trades. Margot herself was often in the greenhouse, but usually for more mundane events. Not funerals. Today, however, there were no men or women in boots, straw hats, or waders despite the importance of the food stores and plant research. Today, lit by a forever-golden light, they were replaced by the mourning of something more important.
Truthfully, despite the careful decoration, the greenhouse looked nothing like Earth, but the golden glow of the distant afternoon sun, the tomato-pear plants near the walls of the room, and the mistiness of the damp air felt Earthly enough. She wholeheartedly knew Simon would've been content nevertheless.
Margot stood in the front row beside her family, tired from the humidity and the arduous planning. It hadn’t even occurred to her that it was her best friend tucked into that synthetic wooden coffin in front of her, but the reality of it all struck her when Jeremy laced his middle-aged fingers with hers. The familiar creases in his palm brought her back. It was always his hands that pulled her into understanding the simple truths of things: now it was just her and Jeremy alone in the world. The third pillar of her life had fallen; Simon was gone. 65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdXt2O2RbJi
In the damp room, a rabbi whispered murmuring things in Hebrew and in English, switching between the two every few sentences. The older man in black, whom the townsfolk called Sal, had beads of sweat on his wrinkled forehead, but the moisture on his skin did not take away from the tears in his eyes as he eulogized not only his congregant, but also his friend and leader. It was well known throughout the colony that Simon and Sal had had a tumultuous relationship that characterized both friendship and rivalry. It was known that Sal both deeply respected Simon, as he was a great leader, talented wordsmith, and an overall “alright guy”, but Sal was a salty old man and Simon was a gay man who talked too much for his own good. He would’ve enjoyed the irony of it if he were to have attended his own funeral. “Sal, you asshole,” he would’ve said with a coy smile.
“Simon was–and still is–one of the greatest men I have ever known on this divine Mars.” A large portion of the crowd collectively breathed a weighted sigh as they buried their chins into their sweaty black linens. When the man repeated in Hebrew, another, older part, gave another sigh. Mrs. Howell, his eighty-year-old mother, began to weep loudly, although the townspeople questioned whether or not she could actually hear the eulogy. The greenhouse seemed to get hotter with every breath the crowd took together.
“Simon’s legacy in this Garden will never be forgotten. He was the best elected leader Mars has had in its brief history, and he was talented in both the vitality of his kind spirit and his words.” He paused and spoke again in Hebrew, ushering an agreeing murmur.
“The Great Manifesto of Simon Herman has moved me and others, although I do not know what to do with this new breadth of knowledge without his direct guidance. I can only feel his loss, as he was truly my best friend, and I hope he has discovered all that he deserves to find in death.” Margot smiled at that; Simon would’ve liked hearing that. “What a load of scat! That stupid son of a gun,” he would’ve said. Margot remembered how at the end of his sentences Simon’s voice would drop to a deep cynical grumble stupid son of a gun… and Margot almost laughed out loud.
“Oh, stop that, Em. Don’t do that,” Jeremy whispered, tugging at her pinkie, but Margot only shook her head, still looking upward with the faintest trace of happiness. She knew that Simon would’ve loved to see the two of them having at least some fun at his funeral, especially if he was going to torture the world with a suicide, a manifesto, Sal’s ramblings, and this stifling humidity.
“But you’re right, Simon would’ve loved hearing all of this from Sal–of all people.” Jeremy gave her the reassuring smile she had known for nearly half a century, although it felt longer. The corners of his eyes wrinkled in the familiar way she loved. He didn’t need to turn his lips to tell her that he smiled–to tell her that he was okay. It was those eyes that pulled Margot out of thinking about Simon and his last few words, which he’d published to the world in The Great Manifesto.
Simon had always lived for the intimate moments of life, it was uncharacteristic of him to have died so publicly. Words were the one thing Simon valued most, to have printed his last words for the universe to read was strange and sad. She couldn’t help but feel that she was at a funeral for a much different man than the one whom she’d been so close to in the not-so-distant past. He’d always been a romantic, drawn to words on paper (or more realistically, typing on a computer), but he was distant and cold in the end of his days. Shut into his room, it was as if he was not the president of a Martian colony with an obligation to Mars, to Earth, and to his family and friends. His final devotion was to The Great Manifesto.
Simon did not have the death he deserved where he was in a field of Earthly meadows and blue skies. He had told Margot, many years ago, that he longed for a warrior’s death–one where he'd die at the edge of a sword for a lover or a kingdom. Instead, Simon passed in the dining hall five hours after publishing his book. The dining hall was nothing like a beautiful Earth meadow. It was a large windowless room shrouded in large triangular steel panels and lit with white lights reminiscent of a dungeon. There was one cutout in the center of the furthest wall for the cooks to serve meals to the public and there were two dark rectangular doors. There were eight long tables with small chairs at each one, but the room was otherwise completely empty when he died.
The mortician had stated that the cause of death was through the ingestion of Roachrat poison, which was mixed into his breakfast cereal. It was not clear whether Simon had sprinkled it into the cereal himself or whether someone else had done it for him. No formal investigation followed; most people preferred their own answers. Margot understood that it was a suicide. Although he wasn’t the same Simon she knew, it was very Simon to have gone out on his own terms.
“Stop.” Jeremy squeezed his hand around hers, “You’re trembling.” Jeremy planted a solemn kiss atop Margot’s head and wore an are you okay furrow of the brow. She nodded and stilled her hands. He turned his ear back to Sal's speech, leaving her alone again inattentive and lost, still holding his hand.
In her lostness, she saw in a distant corner Simon’s widower, Allen, who had been sitting quietly. Margot had never in the many decades of knowing him, seen him look so stoic and unmoving. Allen was one of the most sentimental and emotive folks on Mars. To be sitting at his own husband's funeral after decades of marriage, without a single movement was unnerving. It brought her mind back to The Great Manifesto and all it had said about love. Allen was most certainly the first to read it in its entirety. She knew the one thing that was on his mind if it really was Simon's book (which had condemned his own husband to this sober silence) was the question: what is the meaning of life?
She had lived a life so full of love and loss and joy, so how could she stand here and find herself following her friend in his manifesto? People all handle purpose differently, perhaps this search, outlined in his book, guided his hand in death. Margot found the longing in Allen’s eyes. The man whose round face would tighten itself with a friendly smile was so far. Perhaps she should approach the widow and offer condolences, but she too was lost for words and feared that anything she’d say would only make things worse.
It hurt her that the same Allen who sat in that chair to the side, refusing to speak and even eulogize his own husband was not the Allen who would eat cookies until he vomited when he was six, the Allen who slept with every girl in school until realizing he was a homosexual at seventeen, the Allen who was so architecturally brilliant, he designed every single living quarter on the planet at thirty-two, and the Allen who was nothing but laughs and drinks and stargazing after Martian sandstorms just last year with his husband. She stared in his direction hoping to make reassuring eye-contact, but his gaze was pasted onto the tiled floors. When would the Great Manifesto take her away from her purpose?
Margot didn’t feel ready for those times and thoughts to come. It was nearly impossible for her now as she stood by Jeremy to admit that she too was dangerously gripped by The Great Manifesto.
But perhaps, she thought, this was the meaning of life; standing next to one's husband who was so familiar he could communicate in the furrows of his eyebrows and the wrinkling of his lips. Perhaps it was what she had next to her: a beloved friend laying to rest, two beautiful children and their spouses, a grandchild on the way. Perhaps her meaning was found in the mourning of the loss of a great friend whose death was so heavy it felt as if she’d lost a part of my own reflection–a beautiful thing. Perhaps it was in her Nobel prize, or her successful chromosome extension experiments, or her mentorship of young colonial scientists. Perhaps, she thought, it was a combination of all of these things.
Margot was, after all, happy. She was a successful scientist who was well decorated for all of her contributions to the field of biology, she was a leader in the Martian bureaucracy, and she had a successful family. She had gone through life wondering what purpose was, and she had found it in many ways–although how bleak it was when it came in the mail that day eight years ago.
“Simon’s death has made me want to tear my own heart out, for life is truly no longer worth living without my esteemed colleague, since (if you don’t already know) I also worked in government alongside President Howell,” Sal exclaimed. Jeremy’s quick chuckle was a sharp snap in Margot’s mind. He was always anchoring her back to her feet.
The heat was unbearable–even Sal began to lose it. “That son of a bitch, Simon was a real pretentious prick at times.” Mrs. Howell hadn’t stopped crying. Even as Margot tried to listen to the speech, she could only think about the humidity. "Ha, I'm lucky I'm dead," Simon would've said; he hated sweat, he hated Sal, and he would’ve hated seeing how broken he had left them.
65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoOEwT0ghd8
"If I am not real, and he is not real, what does that mean for the love we shared for each other? A man can love a person. A man can love a thing. A man can even love nothing, but a nothing cannot love a nothing, just as a man who feels nothing can never love."
~ Simon Herman, The Great Manifest
and then Add to home screen.