text: Another day under the small, distant sun. The algae tanks are fully stocked. Perfect. All of the electronic systems are functional. Perfect. There are no dust storms on the horizon. Perfect. 8 years hunkered in a freezing desert can do wonders to lower your standards. Your designated mating partner is asleep. Perfect. Silence at the edge of humanity. Two bodies buried at the edge of the landing site. Seemed appropriate at the time. You buried them and then a dust storm kicked up and rolled their corpses three klicks across the rocky landscape. You found them and buried them again, deeper. Seemed appropriate at the time. You could have used the water and nutrients from their exited vessels. But you didn't. Dust to dust. The greenhouse has flowers, but you have to wear protective gear even there or you'll get cooked pink by the ultraviolet. Another little negligence on the part of the engineers back home. Home is where the heart is. On a planet that never changes, one is simply to whether the seasons of the self. A new calendar forged and old habits erased. Replaced. Like each thing in every cycle. Replaced. Entropy just doesn't have that romantic ring to it. The days get longer, then shorter, then longer again. What a motivation. Get away from it all to save it all. Sometimes you just have to take a step back from a problem, put it in a new perspective. I'm sorry for heresy. Father is pushing me away. Mother's promises have faded. On a new planet there is no one to tell you what constellations there are. You could pour a bottle of water into the dust, but it wouldn't make a puddle. It would just freeze or volatize. Not that a puddle is much use to a human being. It would be pretty interesting, though, if three or four billion years down the road some nascent civilization could point its origins to a puddle you made. But you can't make a puddle, so it doesn't matter. Information is energy. Or maybe it's the other way around. On the moon there are footprints that will last a thousand thousand years. Here, the wind erases you with each step. So each day you go out again and make a brand new path. Just like you did yesterday. There is a comfort in familiarity... Constant updates. Attention: this, that, or the other. Constant vigilance. Maybe it's just a game to stay busy. There are bugs. Things that snuck in that shouldn't be there. And it is those unaccounted for errors that keep things interesting. A mosquito landed on you as you tried to sleep. You didn't move. You left it, feeling its proboscis penetrate you, stealing your precious bodily fluids. Hoping that within its guts lay a host of spawn, ready to feast upon you in some future day. One way or another, you will give birth to life. A manmade shooting star landed in your back yard, but it couldn't save your species. You puked up your intentions and curled away your desires. It is worse within the safety zone. Attention. You like to pretend there are new constellations, but you can't see the night sky. You could even project them, see them as they would be. But there is a lack of romance on a monitor. There are many wonderful classics available for enjoyment. And, really, it is all about setting. You can make something entirely novel and meaningful in the setting of the mind. The trick is to translate to the daily mundane. A daydream can evoke more than - Attention. That is why you are walking back from the burial landing site. Your buggy disappearing behind you. You chased a daydream to the furthest edges of possibility. Attention. The radio transmitter is sending out your messages. Perfect. The station receiver is snatching them and saving them. Perfect. All of the electronic systems are functional. Perfect. It is the bugs that make things interesting. You are halfway between destinations, unable to reach either. Attention. Yes, you have my attention. I'd been going through the motions, doped on repetition. Well, I've gotten my wish now. I wonder how long things can go on without me. I like to think that I played an important role. That somehow the disjointed recordings of my actions could be pieced together into some meaningful whole. Though that is entirely up to the possibility of an audience. The lightweight armour is heavy. The superpurified recirculated air is dirty. Everything was so meticulously accounted for. Things ran on the only path they could. It was the bugs that made it interesting. The creepy crawlies. The glitches. The nagging fancies. Attention. There is a dust storm on the horizon. There is certainly something romantic about using one's last breath to spread information. To say something meaningful. There are little splotches, wait, spoltches isn't the right word, there are times when, even when, despite the effort that one has made, Attention. Something meaningful. Nagging fancies. Attention. Click. Klicks. How many? Another day of liberation amongst the unliving. Ultraviolet rain keeping the cogs turning. The process has become more efficient. Not quite perfect, but closer. Those systems unable to use the available resources have fallen out of the cycle. Naturally. There are no constellations for those who don't look for them.