An Exile’s Bargain

Visions of dust drove us into the rocket; grey, omnipresent dust. The missiles would fly, I did not know when. I knew only that we could no longer bear the dread, the knowledge that our homes and monuments and children’s schools could become rubble before the next morning’s bagel.

We exchanged Earth’s impending ash for the certainty of Martian sand. I hear it this moment, battering our domicile. It is the sound of madness; it is the sound of freedom.