LXVII. THE ALBA-WHAT?

The Little Martian gasps awake in the middle of the night.

His mind races, galloping across fields littered with ex-lovers and other mistakes. Old Estella smiles wistfully from behind the shrubbery, like a Martianic Bollywood heroine he can’t quite grasp.He turns over and checks his phone, 4:30 a.m- far too early to do anything, and far too late to pretend he has been up all this time.

The Martian flicks his bedside lamp on and then off and then on again, as though he is trying to get his room to blink, to clear away the visions of his sleeping mind.

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I catch him the next morning at the kettle, bleary-eyed and disoriented.

“Didn’t sleep well?”

“Didn’t sleep.” He replies, bringing the kettle to a boil and dumping clumpy dollops of coffee powder into a conical filter.

“Stressed?”

“Depressed,” he chuckles drily.

“What now? The human condition too much for you again!” I joke,but the Martian doesn’t take the bait.

“The Martianic condition isn’t much better, you know.”

“I thought you guys were a lot more emotionally sturdy and no-nonsense than us idiotic earthlings.”

“Did you know that Martians mate for life?” he replies instead, oddly serious, and quite unlike himself.

“Like albatross?”

“Alba what?”

“They’re these massive sea birds that live till like 70 and mate for life, they’re quite fascinating. Kind of like the whales of the sky!”

“That’s nice—but—”

“And they co-parent equally! And they can fly for months without touching land! Just kind of skimming the ocean and napping as they please…”

“What are you, some kind of bird lady now?” The Martian snaps, and I consider shutting up about the many wonders of the albatross.

“Sorry, you were saying—the Martians mate for life?”

“We are a practical sort. We don’t believe in wasting our lives dating and wooing and falling in and out of love in the same petty fashions as you humans.” He looks at me quite pointedly and I shrug. A girl’s gotta eat, right?

“Every Martian knows, from a very young age, that their Martian mate is out there somewhere- seldom far, and seldom unattainable. They could be friends of the family, classmates at school, or even playmates from the pen - the point being we don’t believe in traversing great distances to find them. The people who belong in your life are usually in it—as per the laws of Martianic dharma.” I nod. This is the most Martian philosophy I’ve received in years, and I don’t dare to interrupt his cool little flow.

“I’ve always been something of a black sheep in my family. I found the whole Martian mate concept a splash stupid - surely there was more than just one person out there for everyone? Surely, with a little work, and time, and enough space travel we could find thousands of compatible Martian mates… right?”

“One would imagine, yes.” I chime in.

“And then I met Estella Squire.”

I wince. Even I know Estella is rocky territory.

“Beautiful, warm, kind, intelligent Estella." The Martian’s eyes get a soft, powdery glint in them. "My Estella!”

“I was so young, and so foolish, and not a day goes by when I don’t regret that drunken night with Snizzlong.”

The Martian lays a hand across his clammy forehead, and my heart sinks a little for him , we all have our Snizzlongs. Mine still texts me every Valentines Day while his girlfriend isnt looking. Despite his usual theatrics, there is an oddly real quality to his sadness today.

“She won’t even reply to my Martian-grams,” he sniffles and meets my eyes, his gaze finding mine like a wistful ship lost at sea.

“I’ve traversed the galaxies, swum in Neptunian seas, climbed the peaks of Pluto-they’re not very tall, mind you!-and sat around at every charming earthling café I could find-but there is no one… no one quite like my Estella Squire!”

The Martian breaks into a little sob now, his chest heaving, snot running in narrow rivulets down his ivy-button nose. I am not sure how to comfort him. I can’t quite conjure up an Estella out of thin air now, can I?

No seriously, can I?

“Do you know why I love the albatross?” I say instead, and the Martian rolls his eyes at me as he blows his nose.

“Why? Why do you love the stupid, stupid albatross and what’s it got to do with me!”

“It doesn’t flap like crazy- it just glides, did you know that? It doesn’t go mad, like some kind of hyper hummingbird, it just manipulates the laws of physics and uses its great wingspan to kind of take energy from the atmosphere, so it can go a couple of miles without even flapping its wings. Just kind of gliding like a hippie aeroplane.”

I don’t think I have got my facts totally straight, but consoling the Martian takes precedence over factual accuracy today.

“Okay?” the Martian replies, anticlimactically.

“It doesn’t fight the atmosphere—it just defies gravity despite its weight and flies.”

“How?”

“Self-belief?” I shrug, and the Martian snorts.

“Right…”

“Belief is an armour. As long as you can believe in something, you’re protected.”

“What are you, a Christian missionary?”

“I got that from a John Mayer song.”

“Oh.”

“If you truly believe that Estella is your Martian mate, she’ll come back to you.”

The Martian looks me in the eye.

“You really believe that?”

“Yes. I do. Not always. But I try to.”

“And you’re okay with that? The agony of not knowing?”

“No.”

“Then?”

“There just isn’t much you can do about it. I can’t exactly march up to my own Estella and point a gun to his head until he forgives me…”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound very legal.”

“Or very romantic,” I chuckle.

“Coffee?” the Little Martian offers,  holding out a little pot of bitter black ecstasy. 

“Please.” 

The Albatross hiccups on distant shores as Little Martians and young women wax eloquent about his many talents.