Robin's Martian Christmas Voyage

The Christmas morning sun beamed through the stained glass windows in the red Martian sky. The smell of fresh pine and gingerbread wafted through the small house. I stirred in my bed, gently sliding the covers off my body.

My feet touched the cold hardwood floor, crunching on the natural fibers from the rare pine trees that grew outside our settlement. Dressed only in my nightwear and a quilted cape for warmth, I made my way to the window in the kitchen. My wife, who was slicing potatoes for breakfast, tried to stifle a giggle as I peered out from behind her.

I could see the towering red rocks that bordered our little town. They were covered in deep purple mosses and lichen that glowed faintly in the sunlight. The wildflowers that covered our lawns had begun to fade and die, giving their vibrant yellows, purples and pinks to a blanket of snow that fell over them. The snow melted into a river that ran down a ravine between two cliffs, emptying into a vast ocean of dust that sat at our back door.

I looked up at the sky and saw a flock of green birds circling above us. They were probably looking for seeds or insects to eat in this cold weather. We had named these birds robins after me, because they were the color of my hair when I had been alive.

But it wasn't just their color that reminded us of me; these birds were capable of flight like I used to be before I died sailing across the Atlantic with John Smith, who was now sleeping soundly upstairs in our bed.

I turned away from the window as my wife whispered something about breakfast to me, then walked over to her side and gave her a kiss on the cheek, just as she finished dishing up some eggs and potatoes onto our plates. She smiled at me happily while handing me my plate and we both sat down on separate chairs by our table.

I could see steam rising off of my eggs as they cooled next to my pile of potatoes and sliced fruit salad. It smelled so good! Suddenly I couldn't wait to dig into them because I was starving after all this time spent dreaming about home while sailing across the Atlantic Ocean with John Smith! At least that's what we thought it was called since we didn't know any other places besides Europe where humans lived on Earth at that time. But now there are people living in space colonies all over Mars too! Does anyone remember how much trouble those first settlers had trying to get here?

"Do you ever miss being able to fly?" I asked my wife after finishing off my breakfast and washing my hands at our sink. She stared out into space sadly for a second then smiled at me again with a twinkle in her eye as she began cleaning up our dishes and utensils with an old rag from her pocketbook tucked under her arm against her hip bone where it always hung when she carried things around with her everywhere she went inside or outside our settlement. She used it for everything! Scrubbing pots, wiping cream off apples or berries after she picked them from outside or even cleaning mud off shoes if it got on them while walking around outside on rainy days like today or tomorrow since we knew it would most likely rain later this evening during Christmas Eve dinner with friends when we celebrated together. She was always prepared wherever she went just like me!