Seventeen Crimes

Twenty-Two

Next to the rules on writing prologues in writing are the rules on writing epilogues, and the gist of both is: don't do it.

However, I needed to write my own epilogue.

My name, as it appears on my birth certificate, is Brielynn Rowan Hodges, and about four hours ago, I launched into space aboard a Martian built spacecraft piloted by my kid-brother with about twenty-five other people (flight crew included).

I am a political refugee for asking what became a series of questions that challenged the status quo of the planet Earth.

One year ago, I was not who I am today; five years ago, and I can't even recognize the person I was. Nor am I any more prepared for the next year, or five years, or however long I live.

Like my father before me, I have had to come to the realization that this is a one way trip.

I am dead to Earth, and I cannot ever go back.

Unlike my father, I leave no one behind that I love so dearly that I would want them to follow me. Yet I love them and I do the unthinkable in trying to forgive them for the pain and suffering they caused in my life.

My brother, Trey Hodges of Mars, will rest and recuperate and return to Earth, if only to stay on the grounds of the Martian Embassy, because the reality is that politically it is becoming too dangerous even for him.

One by one, my fellow passengers deplane, with the red of Mars being but glimpses from where I am in the line. There are murmurs, cries, laughter, words I can't decipher as people leave this shuttle, wave and jump.

I never thought I'd be this light.

I knew the statistics of it; how weight differs on Mars, and so on. I knew of the light, or at least, how it seems to my brother that the sunlight is brighter on Earth then it is here on Mars. But he has lived here for eleven Martian years, and until he made that first solo jump out past the Kuiper Belt to the orbit of Jupiter and then Saturn. He says that its still as bright as day there.

He's better than half my age, and his experiences are something that I have come to desire for myself. Maybe it is true envy in the sense that he has had the childhood and the life experiences that set him free and it feels like now that I am just emerging from the cage that held me.

I held back, determined that I would be last, because in all honesty I don't know who would be waiting for me outside this ship.

I know my father is here, and he speaks with excitement to see me; I know of his daughters, his other son, his wife – I have family that I have only seen from photographs and recordings.

"Ah, yes," Trey said, opening the cabin door. "He who shall be last shall be first."

"You can go on ahead of me," I said, motioning for him to pass.

"As amazing as it is that I am coming home, they aren't exactly here waiting for me," Trey said.

"Of course they are," I said. "Who am I?"

Trey only smiled and insisted that I go first. I did, following slowly having to deal with people stopping at the top of the stairs to wave and jump.

And then I stepped into the light and saw what made them really stop – after the dim lighting of the cabin, the sun was bright in the eyes and the gold lining of the my helmet only dimmed it.

"Brie! Brie! Down here!" a chorus of voices called.

Before me, down the twenty or so steps, was a sea of people as the newcomers to Mars were greeted by their family and loved ones.