that night Conrad’s articulated shadow hovers and shimmers in the blackened room.
It hums and shuffles the files on his Computer display and touches his cheek and he mutters in his sleep.
It squeezes through the atoms of the hypercompressed glass window and bursts out into the Martian night—cold and glowing at its edges, sand creaking silently and shifting in a tenuous drift of CO2.

Far away, a dust particle shivers, dry and electrostatic, and another, and a churning begins.
Another infant duststorm kicking up on the far horizon.

˃ about ˂

AN EXPLOSION DREAMT

☉ sun 1

☽ moon

CONRAD GOES WALKABOUT

☿ mercury

CONRAD ACCIDENTALLY DELETES MANY PAGES OF NOTES
WHICH WERE VITALLY IMPORTANT TO THE NARRATIVE OF HIS BIG WRITING PROJECT,
“WHAT I’M SAD ABOUT WHEN I’M SAD ON MARS”

♀ venus

⊕  earth

AN ECHO OF AN ARGUMENT BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE WHO MET BRIEFLY,
ONE OF WHOM IS NOW DEAD

♅ uranus 1

WHAT HAPPENED TO JAMES / WALKABOUT CONT.

♃ jupiter

REPORT AFTER INCIDENT IN PYRAMID 6551-C LEARNING SECTOR

🜚 sun 2

CONRAD OVERREACTS AGAIN, THEN HAS A VERY LONG NIGHTMARE

☌ conjunction