Year 2109, The Martian Equator
Simon was the third elected leader in the history of the Martian Colony, which we colloquially call "The Garden". Because our settlement was placed so close to the equator, it was always hot and thickly atmospheric, and therefore we always had plants growing year-round, of course maintaining healthy crop-rotation.
Simon was the president; he had run his campaign in partnership with the Friendship Party which vouched for affordable oxygen and more access to dirt. The two other candidates were from the two other main parties: The Financial Party and The Science Party. With only two thousand total citizens and fifteen-hundred eligible voting citizens (as residents over the age of sixteen may vote), Simon won the presidency with a seventy-two percent majority--the largest in Martian history, though it made sense really.
It had seemed that Simon was running for president since he was ten years old. Even as a child, he was more aware of the problems of civilization than the problems that ten-year-olds have. He was a writer and a speaker, and when he published his words onto paper or into air, people stopped to listen to him. Everyone loved Simon Herman since he was born, which is why ninety-five percent of the entire Martian Colony attended his funeral when he supposedly committed suicide via his cereal at the age of sixty-two.
Because of our deeply devoted friendship as a two-thousand strong community, we properly honored him. He’d always wanted to die in a part of the Garden with lots of windows. His idea of death was always too romantic to be realistic in a dusty Mars Colony, but we fufilled his wishes the best of our abilities.
The memorial was held in the greenhouse–the only room decently lit by our distant sun tainted orange. The National Garden Greenhouse was typically occupied by botanists, botanists in training, farmers, and those studying any combination of those trades. Today, however, I saw no men or women in boots, straw hats, and waders despite the importance of our food stores and plant research. Today, lit by a forever-golden light, they were replaced by nineteen hundred residents gathered in black to mourn something more important. The Mars heat was, however, unbearable. "Ha, I'm lucky I'm dead," Simon would've said; he hated sweat.
Like everyone with power, he had a darkness underneath his unabashed joy. He did not have the death he deserved where he was surrounded by family in a field of Earthly meadows and blue skies--he'd never even been to Earth. Instead, Simon passed in the dining hall, a large militaristic room shrouded in large triangular steel panels and lit with white lights reminiscent of a futuristic-dungeon.
Alexis, the mortician, had stated that the cause of death was through the ingestion of Roachrat poison. It was not clear if it had been Simon who sprinkled it himself into his food, or if there was a murder in the Garden; no one was in the mood to ask. Simon was truly beloved, but he was not beloved enough to ignore the very real chance that it was he who had poisoned himself on his own accord. It was indeed better for everyone for the matter to remain unknown.
—
Jeremy and I stood quietly alongside our children and their spouses in the damp room as a rabbi murmured things in Hebrew and in English, switching between the two every few sentences. The man in black, whom we called Sal, had sweat beads along 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.
“Simon was–and still is–one of the greatest men I have ever known on this divine Mars.” Half of the crowd gave a weighted sigh as they buried their chins into their sweaty black linens. When the man repeated in Hebrew, the other, older half gave another sigh. “Simon’s legacy in this Garden will never be forgotten. He was the best elected leader Mars has had in its 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.” I smiled at that; Simon would’ve liked hearing that.
“Oh, stop that Em, don’t do that.” Jeremy whispered, tugging at my pinkie.
I cast a playful glance. Simon would’ve loved to see us having at least some fun at his funeral especially if he was going to torture us with a suicide, a manifesto, Sal, and greenhouse humidity.
“But you’re right, Simon would’ve loved hearing all of this from Sal--of all people.”
I looked at Jeremy and forgot about Simon’s Great Manifesto because I loved Jeremy even in his moments of old age, and loved him even more when his age was a testament to how close we really were. Only he could attend the third funeral this week and tug my pinkie as if we were still thirty and unhurt. Only Jeremy could fix me at the age of sixty-six with a single gentle look. He planted a solemn kiss atop my head and turned to the ceremony. I felt the wrinkles of his lips and his thinning mustache that had turned dark gray, but had once been a dashing black. He turned his ear back to Sal's speech, and I was left alone again inattentive and lost, still holding his hand.
In my lostness, I saw in a distant corner Simon’s widower, Allen, who had been sitting quietly. I had never in my many decades of knowing him, seen him look so stoic and unmoving. Allen was one of the most sentimental and emotive folks I’ve ever known. To be sitting at his own husband's funeral after thirty years of marriage, without a single disturbance was unnerving. I thought of the Great Manifesto, and how Allen was most certainly the first to read it in its entirety. I 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–the one thing on everyone’s mind since the Final Communication: what is the meaning of life?
But perhaps this was the meaning of life; perhaps it was what I had next to me. I stood with my husband and my two children and their spouses, one with my grandbaby on the way. I mourned the loss of a great friend whose death was so heavy I felt as if I’ve lost a part of my own reflection--a beautiful thing. I was a successful scientist who was well decorated for my contributions and I lived in the most esteemed residential quarter-lot, reserved only for successful residents. I had gone through life wondering what my purpose was and I had found it in many ways–although how bleak it was when it came in the mail that day eight years ago. That letter has still been the talk of the town.
I had lived a life so full of love and loss and joy, so how could I stand here and find myself following my friend in his Great Manifesto? We all handle purpose differently; I suppose Simon found purpose in his writing, and I saw the same longing in Allen’s eyes–the same 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 sandstorms just last year with his husband. The man I saw seated on that small aluminum chair without a tear in his eye was a man who had lost his purpose in life, and I no longer recognized my friend. When would the Great Manifesto take me away from my purpose who stood beside me holding my hand, whole smile was wavering as he too said goodbye to his best friends--including me, I'm almost certain he knows; he knows because he loves me.
I didn’t feel ready for those times and thoughts to come. It was nearly impossible for me now as I stood by Jeremy to admit that I too was gripped by The Great Manifesto.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhul8GPlF3P
"If humanity is the foundation of freedom, what are our choices but items listed on paper if we are robbed of the one true thing we had thought to be ours, forever unconquerable: humanity? If we cannot trust even the blood in our circulatory system to tell the truth, on what plane do truth and justice prevail? For how do we know that it is not I who am no longer human and therefore capable of either good or bad, but that it is you , the creator(s) for taking that away from us?"
~ Simon Herman, The Great Manifesto
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