For My Friends Who Are Not Ready For the Fall, A Song.

summersong

These are the names and order of the graduates:

Aaron Aadi, wisdom.
Abott Abhay, knowledge.
Bade Abba, artillery.
Balthasar Addo, tactics.
Cadee Abarne, knowledge.
Cadmus Akuji, artillery.
Daffyd Abdullah, wisdom.
Dimitris Audland, tactics.
Ea Abel, tactics.
Edwin Absolom, wisdom.
Fabrizio Adalia, knowledge.
Fairfax Adair, artillery.
Gabriel Adelio, tactics.
Galeno Aden, wisdom.
Hajari Aderyn, knowledge.
Hector Adlai, artillery.
Ige Altsoba, knowledge.
Ilya Amiel, wisdom.
Jamon Amiri, artillery.
Jedrek Analu, tactics.
Kafele Anando, artillery.
Kame Anemone, tactics.
Lajos Anwar, wisdom.
Laramie Alair, knowledge.
Maeron Ancelin, tactics.
Mahon Arif, wisdom.
Naolin Asa, artillery.
Nowles Ash, knowledge.
Oakes Admon, knowledge.
Orestes Aila, tactics.
Paolo Aderes, artillery.
Parrish Adora, wisdom.
Qamar Abril, knowledge.
Quasim Abia, wisdom.
Rainier Adarsh, artillery.
Reynard Atalo, tactics.
Salim Acacallis, knowledge.
Sancho Agnes, artillery.
Tao Alpana, tactics.
Tian Amaya, wisdom.
Uday Alameda, tactics.
Ulysses Alistair, wisdom.
Vadin Alma, artillery.
Virote Alohilani, knowledge.
Washi Aaliyah, artillery.
Wei Arcelia, tactics.
Xanti Agu, knowledge.
Xia Aglaia, wisdom.
Yardan Annick, tactics.
Zevi Avedis, artillery.

I heard music begin to play. It was Dmitri Shostakovich's Quartet #8. Then a voice over a microphone. Then a name, Aaron Aadi. I moved. I walked out of the curtains. I stared in front of me. There was a sea of people. Staring. Fixated on me. I couldn't imagine that this many people could fit into an arena, let alone an entire planet. I couldn't hear anything. My heart was beating like drops of water in a giant cavern, loud and reverberate. It seemed like the people were frozen, staring at me. I heard my heart beat two times inside of me. I remembered to turn at five seconds. Approach the podium. Stay stoic. Take the diploma with my enhanced arm--a gasp loud enough to swallow my heart beats--transfer it to my right hand, walk to my designated spot. Face the crowd. Wait. For one more dreadful moment the gaze of the entire crowd was drilling into me.
Then, "Abott Abhay, school of knowledge." Then, "Bade Abba, school of artillery." Then, "Balthasar Addo, tactics." Then, "Cade Abarne, school of knowledge." Then, "Cadmus Akuji, school of artillery." And my brothers, one by one, surrounded me.

In moments we were behind the stadium that would hold our graduation.

The stadium was designed with the Roman coliseum in mind. Some of the early architects of Mars had a sentimental connection to ancient models. All of the graduates were ushered into the building in a main staging area. We had been given specific instructions regarding our graduation. We were to stay unseen behind the curtain of the backstage until our names were called. We were then to walk to the podium, take our diploma with our enhanced arms, transfer it to our human hand and stand in formation to stage left. We had been given special graduation attire. A fully fitted slate gray suit, a red badge with a gold outline of Mars in themiddle on our left shoulder , a gold chevron on our right shoulder denoting our specialist role: one stripe for knowledge, two for wisdom, three for tactics, and four for artillery. A high collar with a red star pin on the right and a silver crescent moon on the left. We wore gray matching trousers, with a red stripe down the outside of each leg, and had on gray dress shoes.

Once the last graduate was called and took position, we were to march into wedge formation in front of the crowd, yell as one, "For the glory of Mars!" and fire our pulse beams three times into the air above the crowd. Every five student had been given a special data chip in his arm to release a red colored pulse beam instead of the usual yellow. It was to be a light-show depicting our everlasting dedication to the protection of Mars. We were excited to show the people of Mars what we could do.

I, named Aaron Aadi, was first in line. Balthasar was behind me, Cadmus was next. Not since my first day at the orphanage had I given a thought to the reason behind my name. I had seen teachers, movies, and educational data films of people. My human interaction was limited to students and teachers and every once in a while a visit from the government sector. The last person not involved in a hospital or the orphanage was my mother. I was terrified. I never wanted this name, Aaron Aadi. And now, the world in its lunatic way had given me the great honor, through a glitch in a computer naming system, of being the first of our class of defenders to see the outside world. I was the first impression. I, who was nowhere near as fervent as Edwin, or self-composed as Hector, was responsible for being the first ambassador for the defenders to the people of Mars. I discovered early in my stay at the orphanage that it was merely a computer generating system that produced our names. The woman at the counter responsible for our names just had to pick the next name on the list. They could track us that way, have an easy system to identify us and where we were, and to what class we belonged. The first class, my class, was the A class. The next class, B, and so on. And for some reason, for some human whim, the woman at the counter had decided to choose from the beginning of the list for me, though I was neither the first or the best student to arrive at the orphanage. And here I was.

I had been briefed by our principal on how to act. "Keep your shoulders straight. Don't look directly at anyone in the crowd. Stick to your training cadence. Pause at the beginning for 5 seconds before you begin your walk toward the podium. Make sure your arm is set correctly for the magnetic field conductor, you don't want to start this ceremony by dropping your diploma. Shake my hand firmly. Turn, and walk with your same training cadence to your designated spot. When the next person stands beside you, do not congratulate them. Stay in formation and exhibit the same self control that we have come to expect out of all our graduate students. Aaron, it is an honor to be in your position. Treat it as such. If you understand theprivilege, you will excel at the task you have been given. Make us proud, son."
"Yes sir."

Of course. Yes. An honor. To stand in front of a bunch of curio seekers like a novelty. What a privilege. But that was not how I was trained to think. I remember being frightened by my lack of control. Frightened at how easy it was to entertain thoughts unhealthy to me when fear and anticipation were added. This was why we were trained so extensively in self control in any environment the teachers could think of. But the real thing, the goal to which the tests were a preparation for, caused much more temptation to think freely than I imagined. I focused on how I was trained for the last 12 years to protect these people in whatever circumstance imaginable. That I was charged to save lives and prevent needless death. I was trained to control the uncontrollable.

And to waiver now under the threat of social judgment, would be a grave dissapointment. The time drew nearer. We were in line. People were talking around me, the stewards and teachers responsible for making sure we were in position were a dull drone in my ears. I moved and thought as if detached from the reality of time. As if time moved too fast for me, and I could not keep up to the seconds. I kept checking my arm to make sure it was on the right setting. Which was absurd, because that setting was not just second nature, it was nature. It was the most fundamental setting, the one which controlled the mundane aspects of everyday living. The one we had been trained to use from the first day of training. Yet I continued to check it.

How strange it was for me to feel such nervousness. It was as if, somehow, the vast and terrifying world had coalesced into one stadium and was staring in anticipation, waiting to devour me when my name was called and I appeared from behind the curtains. Yet it was just a crowd of people. I was innocent to Mars. The only memory I had was of the farm. There was no terrible expectation of what life could do to me. I knew I had dealt with the worst already. This crowd of people should not have elicited such an emotion from me.

I laughed and promptly looked around me. All the graduates seemed lost inside of their heads. It was a false comfort. They were scared too.

We were all very excited. This would be the first time we came in contact with the world outside of the orphanage since we had been accepted inside. It was scary and exhilirating. Many dreamt the night before about the praise and adulation and the cheering they would recieve. I dreamt about my mother's eyes.

The day was hot and clear and brilliant. We were lead out to the large park that served as an entrance to the Orphanage. We were riding in cars, the ones I told you about, and we were shielded by any chance contact with gawkers or reporters by the thick and stately trees lining the road toward our ceremony. These thick trees had grown with me. In 12 years they had doubled their size. Their trunks like giant elephant legs, their canopy spread out like the night sky, vast and streaked with light. I could feel their size like a weight on my soul. Their weight announced them as the elders of Mars. With their height they announced their eternity. It was as if time slowed down underneath their limbs. As if they drank from time like men drink water. They sucked out sound and replaced it with awe. My soul felt them, and desired their peace.

In moments we were behind the stadium that would hold our graduation.

There are things I learned after graduation from the Orphanage. The dog attacks garnered more and more news from the Free Martian Press, and subsequently all of the Martian media. The attacks did not stop, but they did not increase tremendously. The Martian government had put into place the siren alarms and first alert teams and dog deterrents and had promised the more deployed forces around the perimeter of the outlays. It was not clear, however, if that meant more troops inbound from Earth. That was the assumption. Debates continued for years whether troops from Earth would fully understand the significance of the problem on Mars. Nevertheless if they'd be ready for that sort of surveillance fresh of the airships. As it were, each new wave of terrafarmers that arrived never understood the severe psychological impact that a dog attack had on the minds of the laborers working to subdue the Martian land until they had witnessed one, or had a chance to meet families affected by an attack. They asked questions, why can't you just tame them like normal dogs? Are they really that bad? Just draw them away with a large steak. Can you pet them? Can you ride them?

Two years before our graduation, the government revealed a portion of what their plan was. They told the citizens of mars about young men dedicated to guarding and fighting against the dogs. Young men who would fight tirelessly for the protection of the good people ravaged by the fear of dog attacks. These were men who had witnessed first hand the devastation that the dogs could unleash. They were men who had lost families to dogs. They knew what Mars needed because they were Martians. They would protect with their very lives every last man and woman alive on Mars from any threat to their lives. With such dedication and selflessness, the government assured Mars, they only had to be trained to fight. And the first graduates of the Mars Freedom Militia were two years away from graduation.

This eased the tension slightly. The people were not told about our arms, or for how long we had been training, or even about the orphanage. They only knew that a significant number trained soldiers from Mars were going to protect the Outlays. We were briefed before graduation about all of this. Three groups at a time were told by the Board of Elders about the reaction we would receive at graduation. It was a public event, every media outlet that could spare a body would have a reporter on hand. Thousands of curious citizens would be waiting to see who their protectors would be. It would be imperative to use all of our training to remain calm and stoic. There will be much noise and excitement, and you must show the people of Mars how you can remain calm in the face of much confusion.
"Teacher, will they like us?"
"Of course, Franklin. You are going to protect them. But you must understand that they will be confused at first. We have saved you as a surprise for the people of Mars. They don't know fully your extraordinary abilities and weapons. They might be shocked to see how incredible you really are. After graduation we will have a press conference. They will ask a lot of questions. Any question that comes to mind. When people have something new in front of them that they've never seen before, they will ask whatever question comes to mind. We will handle all of the questions during the press conference, but we will provide you with the information you need to answer these questions when you are deployed in the field.

"All of you, listen. Mars is on the verge of receiving a great gift. The likes of which will eradicate all fears and worries. No longer will they have to be afraid to subdue the land! We will return Mars to what it should have been in the first years of terraforming. A prosperous land. A land that will yield great rewards from hard work. A bounty and safe haven for mankind. Not a world filled with uncertainty and terror because of beings out of our control. You will eradicate them. You will bring Mars back to what the founders came here for in the beginning. That, my children, will bring you praise and goodwill from every reasonable citizen of Mars. You will be heroes."

More orphans arrived every year. Five or 10, never too many, always enough to keep the orphanage full of voices. Soon there were Bradley's, Clark's, Holmberg's. We had been the largest class, a roundup of the most recent attacks. We grew up in the knowledge of our skill and weapons. We were assigned the new boys to train. At first it was the rudimentaries. Then in consecutive years we were assigned more and more responsibility to train. When we reached 16 we were teaching tactics of Mars guerrilla combat to the new boys. In our group, Cadmus taught weapon specs, I taught geography, and Balthasar taught formations and points of attack. Our supervisors, our teachers began to run mock drills pitting groups against one another. We were graded on how well our team of young boys performed in their mock battles. In our spare time we were taught ways in which to improvise our weapons.

This technology, our bodies, were an ever evolving experiment in physics and biology. You could tell who was experimenting by the size and duration of their bruises and wounds. Some of the kids in our age group began to experiment with their pulse beams. They were able to set it on low grade frequency and charge it fully to propel them skyward when they shot it at the ground. It created little damage to the dirt, and shot over 10 feet in the air. Soon they were able to time their pulse beams to create a sort of wave shaped air dance. It was as if they were yoyo's. The boys who discovered these innovations were rewarded with more authority and leverage in their groups and their age brackets. Soon it became a competition to see who could come up with the newest innovations. One of the kids, Dimitris Audland discovered the frequency setting of his arm could emit a pulse wave with no discernable evidence that it existed except for a small gust of wind. He used this successfully in mock drills, diverting the other group with a false movement meters away from him, then drawing them into his sight range. Dimitris was pale and pimpled and avoided conversation with kids his own age. He garnered a large group of devotees in the younger classes with his discovery. My own Balthasar discovered a way to set the frequency of his laser mode to correspond with any angle off of any metalic structure to create a web of laser beams. The physics were the same as billiards. The scope and breadth of the discoveries were wide and deep. When one was successfully accomplished, we spent months perfecting and practicing them. They became required coursework at the orphanage's school.

For me, I learned what they taught. I was never the best or the worst. I made due and I learned. I could complete all of the training necessary but I never excelled at any. I was able to lead a team, and with the aid of Cadmus and Balthasar we were one of the top ranked teams within our age group. I could never delve deep enough into the mechanics or the theories behind what our arms could do. I never had the patience. But I knew intrinsically that it was my arm. That I controlled it, and it did what I wanted. Beyond that was boring and confusing. I didn't care for the math of it, or the theoretically possibilities. I only cared that I could use it and it was a part of me. That was enough.

I don't care to tell you about what we talked about during that time. What does any child talk about growing up? What it is they say at any moment is not important at all. Whether they passed a class or switched allegience with friends. Whether I made fun of Cadmus, or Balthasar scolded me for not studying, this didn't matter. Talking about girls, movies, books, comics--none of this mattered. What mattered is the sum of all the words all the smells, and the sounds; these are the memories that catch inside of me as if stuck in web, that rattle and shake to break loose at the strangest moments. They say to me, listen, listen, do you hear how Balthasar's laugh explodes out of him like a spirit trying to escape? Do you still feel how your arm slides along the dirt like a shining snake, feel it--with no sounds--see it alone, moving, hugging the red dirt and welcoming its warm cradle? Can you taste the tang in your mouth, the hot prickles in your stomach, as if you swallowed a hot sponge the first time you were hit by the pulse beam? Can you smell that? That sweetness, that sweetness! That passes through the air and vanishes, that smell that told your soul to rejoice for 10 seconds while Mars released its grasp and opened its arms and it was vast, and the air was alive and and if you could keep the arms from grabbing you again you would, but rejoice for the moment it let go! See the top of the flame trees shaking, shaking, trembling, as if in supplication to the stark and terribly hard blue sky not falling out of grace from the sun! The steps down the hallway. The owl out your window. The sunbeam that lingered on your floor during April from 2 to 3pm. The ants in the tree and the sparrows.

These, these tiny mirrors, broken and tossed inside of us, these million mirrors make up the sum of a man.

The three of us were at the orphanage for 12 years. We were in the first class of graduates. There were 50 of us.

For Those of You Aping for More, A Poem.

A dog with a soul, you've got that? You apes
with heads of Socrates, false priests' altar boys,
retired professors of evil! I imagine cities so I can
get lost in them. I meet other dogs with souls when
I'm not lighting firecrackers in heads that are about
to doze off.
Blood-and-guts firecrackers. In the dark to see,
you ass-scratchers! In the dark to see.

~Charles Simic