LXVI. PAINKILLAS

The Little Martian slips and slides off a water slide and lands by my side.

We sip virgin margaritas and pop fries, feet propped up- sandalled and tanned- on a striped sofa.

“Luverly,” mutters the Martian, cricking his little green neck and wiggling his toes happily. “Lo-ve-ly!”

He’s in a Hawaiian swimsuit with bright green sunglasses that contrast rather oddly with his complexion.

It’s nice to see him relaxed, despite the conditions that have brought him here. The Martian almost collapsed a few weeks ago. He had a “brain fart,” as he likes to call it. I can think of a few more serious medical terms for it, but I let the Little Martian exist in his safe bubble of potty humour, far from the confines of human rationality and the laws of mortality.

“It’s nice, no? To take a break?” I ask him gently.

He has been rather jumpy of late, eyes ever darting, hands constantly shading him from light and sound. The doctors have told him to take it easy, whatever that means.

“I have three words for you,” he repeats, eyes closing against the soft summer sun. “Lov-er-ly!”

“Gosh, what are you on, LM?”

“About four different painkillers,” he snorts.

“What for?”

“The human condition…” He pulls off his shades and meets my gaze. “Can be quite painful.”

“Don’t think too hard. Remember what the doc said.”

“Which one?” he replies, drier than the martini I’m not allowed to drink.

“Intentional inactivity. Remember?”

“Yada yada yada bombada.”

“It’s not funny. You have to take this seriously, LM.”

“I have to take doing nothing seriously?” he claps back. “I have to intentionally set out time to do nothing and solemnly carry out this task of nothingness with effortful effortlessness?”

“Yes.”

“You humans are weirdos.”

“Trust me, I know.”

“The docs on Mars never prescribe this crap.”

“Oh really? What would they have said?”

“Down a Glutzon Sparkle* and get on with it. Martian up and march on, comrade!”

“It isn’t always that easy, LM. It’s okay to cut yourself some slack.”

The Little Martian gestures towards his Hawaiian swimming trunks and shoots me a dry smile. “I cut them off, didn’t I?”

I laugh. "You sure did LM."

"You gotta nap before you pass out my brotha."

*A glutzon sparkle is an intense intergalactic cocktail that combines the effects of all the vodka you would rather not remember drinking at you-know-who's birthday with all the tequila that you downed at that Mexican restaurant which had buy one get four free that one friday.

Tastes like a Corona but one of these is more than most humans can cope with.