A selection from "Weird Fruits" by Camilla Alexa

Weird Fruits

by Camilla Alexa

W

hen the largest volcano on Mars erupted, people of every nation on Earth watched the live satellite feed as plumes of fire and dust and the very stuff of the planet itself roiled into the Martian sky and filled its heavens. Tiny machines, which had roved the rocky red surface of Earth’s neighboring planet and faithfully transmitted back through intervening space images of unfathomably deep craters, majestic mesas, and countless photos of seemingly endless rubbled terrain, recorded and relayed the massive eruption in all its beauty and terribleness. The little mechanical rovers and wanderers and data gatherers recorded and sent, recorded and sent; the Martian skies grew brighter and brighter, then darker and darker, as ash and particulate matter boiled into the atmosphere, filled it, and finally choked it.

For a brief time Earth’s scientists were united in speculation and observation. They shared data and collaborated on notes, thrilled to have been able to witness, even remotely, an event of such magnitude. Especially exciting was the thought that it may have mirrored Earth’s own geologic history; if Mars had had any dinosaurs, it was observed, they certainly would have gone the way of the dinosaur.

But that brief time of peace and undivided interest ended. Earth’s customary bickering and squabbling ensued. Movie rights were scrambled for, transmitted footage from Mars was bought, borrowed, stolen. Theories flew across oceans like missiles, and scientists the world over had to be separated like bickering schoolchildren when their arguments came to blows. Only one thing was agreed upon by all: the force of the Martian eruption, certain unexplained atmospheric phenomena, and the mysterious makeup of the erupted matter had combined to cause an enormous cloud of uncertain composition to separate from Mars’s orbit, and it was headed directly for Earth.

Nobody was frightened. This was, after all, just a cloud. A big cloud, true; a strange cloud, which seemed to be traveling through space with inexplicable, increasing speed. But not a frightening cloud; not an alarming cloud. It was, agreed most scientists, merely a Gaseous Spaceborne Event.

Events, like rodeos and rock concerts, are successful only as long as hype is sustained. If the Gaseous Spaceborne Event had managed to reach Earth in a timely fashion—say, the first few weeks or months after it had caught public attention—its arrival might have been the Event of the year, the decade; even of the century. As it was, by the time it reached the planet, three years after it had faded from the front pages of Earth’s virtual newspapers, Earth’s citizenry had already seen the movie, read the subsequent book, and bought and discarded all the Mars-inspired Spring fashions. In fact, by the time the Gaseous Spaceborne Event reached Earth it was last-year’s last-year’s news, and interesting to hardly anybody at all.

It re-emerged as briefly interesting when, upon hitting Earth’s upper atmospheric strata, the cloud dissipated, spreading evenly enough to cover nearly the entire planet with a thin veil of tiny Martian particles. For a day and two nights, by North American reckoning, the sky glittered and twinkled as billions of tiny bits of that alien world traveled the last small portion of their interplanetary journey. Everywhere but the icy poles, people around the world glanced up for a moment or two to appreciate the sight of a sky sparkling as though sprinkled with fairy dust. It was generally admitted to be very pretty, but also generally said to be not quite as spectacular as the movie detailing the same event, released the previous summer to great acclaim and massive box office profits. No one, not even the scientists, thought any of the billions of little grains of Mars, shot deep from the bowels of that planet and propelled across the empty nothing of space, would survive intact to actually land upon Earthen soil.

Jennifer Jay Johnson, aged thirteen and three-quarters, was the first to find a doppel seed.

Jenny, as her parents insisted on calling her over her increasingly strong objections, actually saw the doppel seed fall. Unlike her older brothers, she was outside watching the glittering Martian dust in the evening sky; watching the glorious dancing of a million pinprick embers sparkling against deepening violet twilight. One seemed to glow brighter than the rest, then a little brighter, then much brighter. She followed its path, openmouthed and silent, as it fell to Earth. Directly into the earth at her feet, to be precise.

It made a slight plop when it hit, as though it fell into water rather than dirt, and then a hiss. Jenny squatted on her haunches beside it. She didn’t touch it. Even in the gloaming she could see faint wisps of smoke or steam rising out of the little hole it had made in the ground. Smoke or steam: either way it would be too hot to touch, Jenny decided. She leaned over the hole and blew gently into it, closing her eyes and breathing deep the burnt spice and hot salt scents which rose from the hole to greet her. This is how Mars smells, she thought.

She pushed a little dirt with her finger until it fell into the hole and filled it up.

At dinner, Jenny tried to tell her parents about the tiny piece of Mars which had buried itself in the dirt at her feet. Her brothers heckled. Her mother sighed. Her father laughed and said she’d be the next great scriptwriter for movies about things from outer space, only she’d have to pick a planet other than Mars because everybody was tired of it. Nobody believed her until after her father answered the knock on the front door. Damned Green Peacers, he’d muttered as he passed under the large archway which was the only demarcation between the dining and living rooms; Damned religious nuts, or people wanting to mow the goddamn yard, or whoever that is asking for goddamn money in the middle of goddamn dinner.

But it was none of those things. When Jenny’s father opened the door, an unclothed Jenny stepped in from the front porch.

Nobody said a word. Even Jenny’s brothers fell silent, though there was a naked girl in the living room. Jenny, sitting at the table, was grateful for the thick ropy vine which coiled its way, leafy and slick, from the navel of the naked girl. It twisted down between her legs and disappeared into the darkness behind her, enough leafy growth sprouting from it to cover at least the lower portion of the naked Jenny’s torso.

Jenny’s mother got up from the dining table, took the blanket that was always draped over the back of the living room sofa, and went to wrap it around the shoulders of the naked Jenny. The naked girl looked up into Jenny’s mother’s face, then grasped with both hands the thick ropy vine attached at her navel and gave it a two-handed wrench. It fell to the hardwood floor with a loud wet smack, and the girl turned to push it with her bare foot until it was on the other side of the threshold. When it lay just outside the open door on the painted boards of the porch like a huge dead snake, she closed the door behind it with a solid slam. Jenny’s father, standing stock still and gaping, turned slowly and stumbled to the living room sofa.

Nobody finished dinner that night.