LXIX. Volatile Volacanos of Snot

The Little Martian has the flu. 

He snivels and snorts, and his phlegmy throat contorts, but he refuses to take a day off. 

“You're kind of grossing everyone out right now” I tell the martian, as he blows his nose loudly into a bright yellow hanky. 

“Everyone ib grossing me oub” he responds, barely making his way through the sentence. 

“Why don't you just call in sick?” I ask him , as gently as I can. 

The Little Martian has been a volatile volcano lately. He rambles on about evil cookies and reads poems by lovelorn Irish saints who wither away on frostbitten shores waiting for their lovers to call…  It's all been rather morbid and snivelly in the land of the Little Martian these days. 

“There is nothing wrong with taking a break, you know.” I tell him. 

“Broken-hearbed martians bont bake breaks, we work till we cant beel the pain anymore…’” he mumbles, his voice shrinking with every word. 

“What did you just say?” 

“I saib- broken hearbed martians bon bake breaks!” he yells back now 

I still cant quite understand him but I don't dare to ask the bad tempered, phlegm ridden martian once more. 

He looks at me sadly , points to his chest and mimes an explosion. 

“Congestion?” I ask him 

“Debression.” He replies, his little eyes welling up with tears. 

I roll my eyes, the little martian can be emotionally overindulgent at times, riding away on the waves of his own short lived joys and sorrows. It is up to me to bring him back to earth, in more ways than one. 

“Sadness is not the same as depression. And dwelling on crap you cant control is for the weak” 

“Maybe i ab weak” he says, with a snivel. 

“The weak dont traverse intergalactic oceans and brave the storms of  human emotion.” I remind him.

“Ibs not worth it!” he bursts out 

 “The oceans?”

“These goddamn emotions.” He replies, as he blows his nose with vigour. 

“I agree.” 

“You do?” his rheumy eyes dart up to meet mine, wide and disbelieving. 

“No,not really.”

“Hippocritter!” he yells out, waggling his thumbs emphatically 

“I am not a hypocrite.”  I remind him, “ I just know that this shit is multifaceted.”

“It's shit alright.” The Little Martian grumbles, his empathic outburst somehow clearing his phlegmy throat  . 

“Would you rather not feel anything at all? Be a robot, with no depth or emotion or understanding of the hyper emotional complexity of human existence.” 

The little martian responds without missing a beat, “yes.” 

I roll my eyes, but can't help but shrug in agreement. These human emotions really do ducking suck. 

“What happened anyway?” I dare to ask the little martian. 

“With what?” 

“The situationspaceship”

“It crashed and burned.” says the little martian, my glum little humdrum green chum. 

“Faulty wiring?”

“Nope”

“Meteor collision?”

“Nah”

“Enemy invasion?” 

“Meh”

“Then?”

“Long distance missile.” 

“Ducking hate those.” 

The little martian shrugs and blows his little red nose into his yellow hanky once again. I wish i could tell him that it all works out for the best. That things happen for a reason , and that people enter and exit your life at cosmic will. 

I wish I could tell him that there are plenty of fish in the intergalactic oceans, that the right one would swim his way soon, and he'd forget all about the last! 

But, that would make me a hippocritter,and the Little Martian hates those.