Teh Cezar Posted:

Title: A Day at the Church

Word: clowns

The airlock opened and Captain Miller gently descended the steps of the shuttlepod, coming to a bouncing stop on the dusty red, Martian surface. He looked out from the helmet of his space suit at the area he would be surveying today: an unusual formation of rocks he had started calling “the church.”

Four long, smooth flat rocks in two rows formed the “pews” in front of a large, rectangular, altar-like stone. A former Catholic, Miller found the arrangement both disconcerting and fascinating.

As he walked forward, he began the audio recording. “Survey log: Friday, June 4, 2085. Beginning examination of the upper fourth quadrant of the church region. Similar to yesterday, the ground appears to have been disturbed overnight. Have not been able to find what is causing this — possibly a localized weather occurrence.”

As he reached the uppermost pews, something caught his eye. A small object was resting on the flat rock. It was his grandfather’s Purple Heart he had received during the Great Nuclear Holocaust, the event that had finally sent humans into space, for good. The last time he had seen the medal, he was eight years old. It was, as far as he knew, jettisoned into space with his grandfather’s remains. The medal was clean and free of dust, carefully and almost lovingly placed on the stone surface. It couldn’t have been there long.

“All right,” Miller said, into his communicator. “Which one of you clowns brought an unauthorized shuttlepod down here?”

“Uh, negative on that, Captain,” said the young lieutenant monitoring his progress from the space station. “The only off-station travel in the last 30 days has been you.”

Miller picked up the medal with his gloved hand and hesitating, put it into his specimen bag.

“What’s going on, Captain?” the lieutenant asked. “Nothing, Lieutenant,” said Miller. “As you were.”