Martian Dust in the Wind

[Roxie and Mia are walking around Mars, collecting rock samples. Each of them are carrying two bags. Roxie hops across the flat stone formations making up the surface, while Mia takes slow, careful steps to ensure she doesn’t trip.]

Mia: I never thought I’d be doing this for a job!

Roxie: Collecting rocks?

Mia: Yeah! I was really into rocks as a kid, but never got to take them home.

Roxie: Awwww, why??

Mia: Moon dust gets into your eyes and lungs easily. The IF managed to find a way to make that not so much of a problem when going in and outside, but handling moon rocks unprotected is still a big no-no.

Roxie: Ohhhh. That’s scary, though! About the dust. I didn’t know that!

Mia: That’s why you go under those air-sprayer things when you first enter the dome, or if you live in a house like ours.

Roxie: You said you lived outside the dome?

Mia: Yeah.

Roxie: That must’ve been cool, then! You were surrounded by rocks!! But also not cool, cause you were surrounded by rocks.

Mia: If our house was able to keep oxygen from getting out, we didn’t have to worry about the moon dust getting in.

Roxie: Yaaaay!

Mia: Besides, our rocks were kinda boring anyway. You guys have all the cool rocks! I used to look in geology books a lot for all the smooth ones, like this shale.

[Mia stops to picks up a rock and puts it in one of her bags. She walks a little faster to catch up with Roxie.]

Mia: I know I was a boring kid for getting excited about rocks. [chuckles] Haven’t gotten much better, actually.

Roxie: No! Rocks are rad!! I never got to see any cool ones, either! Kansas is mostly flat, buuuuut! There’s this thing called the Monument Rocks, and they’re really huge, and come outta nowhere!! My classmates got to go there on a field trip, but I didn’t, cause we would’ve gotten back at night, and Daddy didn’t want me too far from home that late. Anyway! [spreading arms out] There’s this big arch that reminds me of a castle and I wanna live there when I grow up.

Mia: You’re 22.

Roxie: Do I stop growing now? Will I die this very second??

[pause]

Mia: Doesn’t seem so.

Roxie: Then I’m still growing, and when I’m more grown, I wanna live in the Monument Rocks! Maybe they’ll make a cool legend about me! How about the Monument Rock Monster? The Maiden of Monument Rock? What about the The Monument Rock Monster Maiden? Hmmm, that one’s a bit long.

Mia: Well, you’re not a monster….

Roxie: They don’t know that!

Mia: [smiling] Who are they?

Roxie: Them.

Mia: Who are them?

Roxie: [dramatically] ….Those people.

[They both laugh, and stop as Roxie picks up a rock. The two continue walking.]

Roxie: Would this be classified as a red or a brown?

Mia: Hard to say through these visors.

Roxie: …..Shoot!! You’re right! All of these look brownish with our visors!!

Mia: I’m sure the more reddish ones you’ve been picking are actually red.

Roxie: I guess you’re right….

[Mia finds a rock of interest. She picks it up.]

Mia: Does rock look grey or black to you?

Roxie: Hmmmm, I’d just throw it in the black bag. But what if it’s dark brown? Who knows?? I don’t!

[Mia sets down one of her bags, takes the rock, and places it in.]

Mia: Sorting these is lot harder than I thought.

Roxie: Yeah…It gets you thinking about relativity! We can only really judge things based on the information we have at hand!

Mia: Yeah. I sometimes think about colors like that. What you see as orange, I might see as blue! We never can tell.

Roxie: Yeeeeeeeeah!!! Isn’t that messed up??

Mia: It’s hard to think about, that’s for sure.

Roxie: And if it were just the two of us in this whole wide universe, I would consider you huge. But around people like Aiden and Jun, you’re tiny!

Mia: [embarrassed] O-oh! You meant height…

Roxie: And compared to a gerbil, we’re giants!! But compared to this planet, we’re might as well be moon dust floating in the wind…

Mia: We’re on Mars, and there is no wind on the Moon, but I get what you’re saying... It’s poetic.

Roxie: We’re probably really insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe, huh?

Mia: Yeah…

[Roxie places her hands on her hips]

Roxie: Welp! Guess we can’t do anything about that, but you’re significant to me, Wattson.

Mia: W-wh-I-I--! [bashful] ...Thank you, Roxie. You’re significant to me, too.

Roxie: [thumbs-up] And it’s that sort of human sentimentality that makes us matter in the end!

Mia: I…I guess so.

Roxie: It makes you matter and I matter and they matter!

Mia: Who are they?

Roxie: Them.

Mia: [smiling] Who is them?

Roxie: [dramatically, but whispering] …Those people.