The Itches

by Jamie Newton, Campbell High School

The hospital TV was playing reruns, again. He wouldn’t mind as much as he’d always had a vintage streak and if it wasn’t this particular show. He was not even sure what the show was called, ‘Late night something-or-other’. It didn’t really matter about the show, but rather who was on it. He didn’t want to be watching this as he died. In his final moments, he didn’t want to be listening to this man who he had once revered. Joey wasn’t sure if he hated him; some part of him did. But another part of him was still clinging to the worship of his childhood.

The special guest for the night was Roland Einer, CEO of Horizon, owner of the only functional Mars Base. Einer and the host were chatting:

“Oh Roland, can I call you Roland? You’re too funny!”

“Cerise, you flirt!”

They were prattling on about launches and base expansions and nothing, all at once. Underneath the fatigue, the part of Joey that had dreamed of being a poet was admiring the conversation. Every sentence was another step in a fencing match – parry, deflect.

A frontal assault:

“We certainly have fun here Roland, don’t we? But on less entertaining matters, I have heard some serious rumours about the treatment of workers on your base. Anything to say about that?”

A deflection:

“Many things, Cerise, many things. Firstly, I am just a man doing my best.”

Flattery, to soften the blow:

“The richest man on two planets, ladies and gentlemen!”

And a defensive strike:

“Yes, yes, thank you. But for all that, I am just a man. I would never let anything dangerous happen in any Horizon Hub, on planet or off.”

That smile put him right back to the base, breathing dry filtered air and seeing Einer’s posters plastered on every surface.

Life at the base was very different after the awe of living on Mars wore off. Idiosyncrasies of life became normal; and then boring. The pros and cons list each settler made in their head lost pros every day at the base. A constant fencing match between Mars and its settlers.

The windswept red hills and dusty plains were beautiful, but only seen once in a blue moon. Windows were bad for structure stability and radiation. Living at the frontlines of space exploration sounded exciting until you realised that ‘living on the frontlines’ was a catch phrase that really meant ‘live completely separate from everyone you know and do the same work and the same hours you did on Earth, but in worse conditions’. A real frontier of progress, one of Mars’ match points.

These thoughts never left the privacy of his brain. They didn’t even exist until he was sent to the infirmary. There was never any time for wondering, not when there was work to do.

The only time you had to yourself was when the Itches got you; Mars’ way of playing dirty. If you weren’t in bed by the mandated lights out, you had the Itches. Everyone got them, usually every month and a half. It started with an itching on the surface of your skin. You wouldn’t even notice for the first couple days. Most of the time you only realised when you couldn’t remember when your fingernails weren’t red and sticky with blood. When you did notice, you wondered how you never realised it before.

The Itch would sink into your skin, into your bones and sinew. When it was deep in your system, it would shake through you, itching so fierce it felt like your whole body was buzzing with it. When the Itch was as deep as it ever could be, the next stages came quickly: nausea, vomiting, headaches, fever, dizziness and fatigue. When you collapsed, you’d be rushed to the infirmary. Ironically, the three days of itching down to your core with no one to talk to was the only leisure time you had. Everyone played as hard as they could, but you couldn’t win against the Red Planet.

If you could distract yourself from the Itches, the infirmary wasn’t so bad; a half-time break, refreshing, yet shadowed by the inevitable return. Still, better than the 20-hour shifts, were the lonely meals in a silent cafeteria. The only thing that made it worthwhile, the only thing that kept you going when hours of overtime went unnoticed and unpaid, when the exhaustion reverberated in your every thought and sleep slipped away until you were back at work again, was the knowledge that your family was safe. The letters he received from home, stories of children he hadn’t seen grow up, bills cleared on time, and mortgages paid early, kept him sane.

Even when the Itches came every other month, then every third week, then every time he left the infirmary, he seemed to go right back. Even when he was submitted to the Indefinite Wing. Even when the doctors told him it wasn’t worth going home because he wouldn’t get to say goodbye. Even when a bright trefoil appeared on his door and the doctors stopped coming. Because, despite his sportsmanship, the Red Planet would always win. But it was worth it.

Joey knew that if he hadn’t gone, his family wouldn’t have made it through the next winter. Jobs on Earth were drying up, being replaced with machinery. Unemployment benefits became smaller and smaller until they were nothing at all. But on Mars, jobs were easy to get and wages were sky high.

If he died on this faraway Red Planet with only his calluses for company, that was okay. It was worth it. For his family, for progress.

He had to believe that it was worth it.