Short Fiction
The No-Earther
By Christian Mueth
A soft blue hue draped Mars’ horizon as the Sun dipped. Grinning, Bradley lifted a pebble from the ruddy silt and skipped it across the pond. The skipping stopped. A plunk resounded, followed by the yawning of ripples across the water’s surface.
Ted snickered, while wiping a bit of tuna from his face.
“Only two skips,” Ted said. “Please… I could do better than that in my sleep.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Bradley said.
“It’s all in the head. You have to convince yourself that it’ll skip longer, and it just does. Serious.”
Bradley gave a snort — a pause.
“Well… Gorgeous weather we’re having.”
Ted nodded, as he wrapped up his fishing pole. “Yep. Caught ten fish. Never seen so many.”
“And the sunset. There’s nothing else like it. I swear… You couldn’t get a better sunset in the entire universe. Even on the Earth.”
Ted’s fishing pole fell to the ground, followed by a burst of laughter.
Bradley’s face reddened. “What?”
Ted wiped a tear from his eye. “Well, you’re technically not wrong.”
“About what?”
“Earth. You definitely couldn’t get a better sunset on Earth.”
Bradley gave a quizzical grin. “So then, why the —?”
“Come on man… You haven’t caught on yet?”
An itch crawled in Bradley’s ear. He shrugged. “Load it on me: what am I missing?”
“Earth. The entire Earth, man. It isn’t out there. Doesn’t exist.”
It was supposed to be Bradley’s turn to laugh. Though, he could only gawk. Ted let out a chuckle.
“Yeah, that was my reaction the first time I heard it too. Don’t worry, it’ll sink in.”
“I think you might’ve gotten too much Sun. No Earth? What are you talking about?”
“Just calling it like I see it.”
Ted lifted his fishing pole and started packing it into the back of the rover, whistling all the while. The trunk flap closed with a smooth click.
“Well, I think I’m about done for the night,” Ted said, popping the door to the rover open. “This has been fun, but we…”
“Wait, wait, wait. We aren’t just going to drop this. You seriously think that the Earth doesn’t exist?”
Ted spun on his heel and gave Bradley a deathly glare.
“I’m serious as the sky is red.”
Bradley’s eyes darted around. “But, the timing of Martian days and years… They’ve been shortened to match Earth’s!”
“Please: all that calendar stuff is just a big show. What kind of idiotic society would actually base their calendar off another planet’s?”
“Okay then… Well, what about the landers that the first Earth colonists used to get here? They’re just a few miles from here.”
“Phonies. Those tin cans are too small and fragile for any sane human to have actually endured.”
“Then, the magnetosphere generators on each of our poles? They’re the whole reason we have a functioning atmosphere. Surely, their existence proves that humanity couldn’t have developed on Mars…”
“Those generators are fabrications. The amount of acumen and technical expertise required to create an artificial magnetosphere… Humans are simply too stupid to accomplish something like that.”
“Then, what about the fact that you can literally see Earth in the sky!?”
Chewing his lip, Bradley pointed upward. That should’ve been the nail in the coffin. Yet, Ted’s face was smug as ever.
Bradley plowed ahead. “With a telescope, you can even see how Earth is a barren wasteland! It’s the spitting image of everything said in the history books!”
Ted rubbed his hands together. It were almost as if he’d been waiting for those words.
“That’s where they always get you… But, what we think is Earth in the sky? It isn’t Earth. It’s Planet X, from way off in the back of the Solar System. We just think it’s closer, because of an optical illusion.”
Bradley was starting to think Ted was from Planet X. He threw his hands up. His veins were pulsing, and his head throbbed.
“Fine! Whatever! You win!”
With a tense jerk, Bradley took his fishing pole and walked toward the vast dust plain. He’d get to his house. Eventually.
Ted’s footsteps pounded behind.
“Wait! I didn’t mean to start a fight.” Ted put his hand on Bradley’s shoulder. “It’s just, sometimes it’s hard. I can’t stand how you bought into the lies… Into the fears that the government tries to instill in us. The doubt they try to put in our inherent greatness. We humans don’t have it in us to arrogantly conquer another planet. We’re not powerful or corrupt enough to turn entire planets into wastelands, either. We’re just… We’re what we are. And, that’s okay.”
Bradley’s eyes grafted to the ground and he tried shrugging Ted away. Though, Ted wouldn’t leave.
“I’m sorry,” Ted said. “I guess I — I sometimes get a little ahead of myself.”
Bradley looked up and gave a half-smirk. “A little?”
“Don’t push it.”
They shared a laugh and turned back. The Sun was but a dewdrop against the sky’s swath of gray.
Bradley lifted a rock and skipped it across the pond. “The view is still gorgeous.”
The rock sunk.
“And, you’re still struggling to skip rocks,” Ted said. He twisted his own rock in the air, and let it fall back to his palm. “Let me show you how it’s done.”
“Oh yeah… The ‘convince yourself’ maneuver, right?”
“I don’t think it ever doesn’t work.”
“You mispronounced, ‘never’.”
Ted raised a hand. “Eh, zip it.”
Ted’s tongue flitted to the corner of his mouth. His arm reeled back. His eyes narrowed. The rock came out as a gunshot and hurtled across the pond.
“Ten times!” Ted said, with a whoop. “What’d I tell you, huh? What’d I tell you?”
Ted gave Bradley a slap on the back. Yet, Bradley was unfazed.
“Come on,” Ted said. “Stop pretending you aren’t impressed by that.”
A glint passed through Bradley’s eye. “By what, exactly?”
“Ten skips in a row. It’s a new record.”
“Uh… I only saw it skip once.”
“Count the ripples in the water! There are ten of them!”
“Yeah, I’m only counting two.”
Ted sputtered. “Well… Well count the other eight, then.”
Bradley smirked. “They don’t exist.”
Ted met Bradley’s eyes, and could only smirk back.
End