Today I saw an asteroid in the sky. Or at least I thought it was. I remember sitting by the fireplace with a fortress of books around me. I sat on the floor and spotted a flicker in the room coming from outside. Through the window a dense white ball cut the atmosphere and glistened as it fell hard through the sky. All of a sudden it hit Mars's crust. Only a few football fields away from the hut.

I sat silently for a moment. Thinking about how long it'd been since this occurred. Was it even my jurisdiction to fulfill the duties I had long ago done in this situation? This place of course is where good men go to die. It was my job to put them in the ground. I stood wearily and walked to my bedroom. I opened the closet door and spread my clothes to find a drab black and red uniform. My spacesuit. I cannot recall how long it was since I had gone outside. Nonetheless I pulled the suit from the hook. It was lighter than I remembered. A notch higher than past spacesuits of history like the ones first used to reach the moon. I stripped my pajamas and stepped into my spacesuit. It was comfortable, perfectly fitted, and my skin could breathe. I could jog ten miles and the sweat could protrude out the one-way holes of the spacesuit and roll right off. I thought it was an interesting material. I looked at myself in the mirror. A wave of unfamiliar emotion swept over me and I could not pinpoint the feeling. The suit was drab and filthy. I hadn't washed it in ages. Who was this other person in the mirror. The suit made me look well-built even though I wasn't. I felt strong.

I left to the toolshed and grabbed my shovel. I went to the garage and pressed the buttons green, yellow, green, yellow, red. This way the first garage door opened and I stepped through it, then the second door, I stepped through it, then the first and second doors closed back again, before the red one opened up to the Martian wasteland. My helmet had a filter and augmented screen, so my vision was crisp and Mars looked more beautiful than the normal eyesight could reveal. I stood for a moment taking in the mountains and breathing in the oxygen tank, and then stepped around the garage to find the dusty green tarp hanging over a hidden steed. I pulled the tarp and there it was, the old hover cycle. Holy shit did it look old. I stepped over and straddled it. The cushioned seat was flat and it took a strong punch on the touch screen to finally get the hover cycle to lift off the ground for standby. Finally, all functions were a go. I looked over the horizon where the asteroid had fallen and with the shovel on my back, my hovercycle jostled forward, gained momentum, and shot like floating racehorse for five football fields until reaching the end of the slope.

The fallen asteroid it turned out was actually a space pod with three chambers. Each opened up when sensors on the pod caught sight of me stepping off my hovercycle. Upon opening, the doors of the chambers let out three plain hexagonal cases. Coffins.

I pulled the shovel out from over my shoulder. I thought for a moment. I couldn't believe I was still doing this. It had been so long. Was anyone even going to pay me for burying these coffins? Did the service just assume I hadn't killed myself yet on Mars and expected I would run over to bury their dirty work for them like old times? I thought I was your regular Walden. But now it seems I'm still a functioning part of society. Even though no one receives my radio signals. It's a one-way street.

I looked up to the sky and noticed the sun was already going down. Mars days are longer than Earth days by roughly an hour. I better bury these guys and hurry back to the hut before it gets dark. I dug up three holes which took me a record time of one hour. Twenty minutes per hole. Not bad if I do say so myself. I then dropped my shovel and walked to the first coffin to pull it out of the first chamber of the pod and dragged to the first hole and shoved it in. I grabbed my shovel again and buried the coffin so there'd be a nice flat mound. I wondered as I was doing this if anyone in the future would actually go through the trouble of visiting this burial site. Why did these rich guys pay so much to have themselves buried in a desert on Mars where no one would make the trouble to visit and leave flowers. Granted, the flowers would die without the proper oxygen Mars lacks in the air. But still, what's a shriveled up rose when it's the thought that counts.

I walked over to the second coffin and pulled over to the second hole. I pushed it in and picked up my shovel again to bury the guy. Winston Palmer. I wonder what this guy did to make so much damn money. He definitely didn't bury the dead on Mars, that's for sure. I made a nice neat mound for the dead guy and then made my way over to the final coffin. This one had to be the nicest coffin I'd ever laid eyes on. Instead of a plane aluminum exterior, a second layer of finely carved oak gave the coffin a gorgeous shell. Again, a lot of money for no practical purpose. How many people did this guy kill to make the money he made? I laughed. "Man, don't I wish I had your money, pal."

All of a sudden the coffin kicked! The coffin grew animated as though there were a live animal inside that went rabbid and was trying desperately to get free. I dropped my hands from the coffin and fell backward. My heart was beating a thousand beats per second. I jumped to my feet and watched as the coffin struggled to break free of itself. At that moment I realized there must be a live person in there. What the hell? How could this have happened?! Why would someone send a live person in a coffin to Mars to be buried forever?! This was not a part of my job description!

Suddenly I heard muffled shouting from inside the coffin. Pure anger pervaded the cracks of the coffin's oakwood shell. My body shook and my knees wabbled as I feared for my life. I had been alone on Mars for God knows how long now. And the mere thought of a live creature made me more afraid than I had ever been in my life. I was so filled with emotion that I started to tear up and recoil like a child. The shovel in my hand quaked to the point I had no use for it. My hands were no longer under my control. The shouting voice in the coffin seemed to be calling out to me, but I didn't seem to have the power to speak back to it. The corpse begged for an answer. I gave none.

The only thing I thought to do was throw my shovel at the coffin in a heated frenzy and then run to my hovercycle and drive quickly back to my hut as the sun was setting. It was growing dark and I jumped off my hovercycle before it even slowed to park and I fell on my hands and knees before jetting to the garage. I hit the buttons and ran inside to the living room where I grabbed for the radio.

"Hello? Hello? Can anyone here me!?" My voice was frantic and I wished intensely for there to be someone to hear me from the other side of the radio. Someone on Earth. "Please, somebody help! There's a live man in one of the coffins! I repeat a live man in the coffin! I don't know if he's dangerous or if he'll kill me if I let him out!" I waited but of course no one was listening. But I talked on. "If I let him out I am afraid he will kill me. Please I haven't seen another human being since the day you left me here." I was in tears now. "Please." I was pathetically weaping. "Please, somebody. Can anybody hear me? Anybody. Anyone? Please help me." I found myself losing grasp of the table and dripping to the floor. I wept and buried my face in my hands. What was I to do? I was scared more than a young child is of the dark to return to that coffin. But no one was listening.

So I stood to my feet. Forced myself back to the garage. Grabbed a space rifle for my protection. Pressed green, yellow, green, yellow, red and hopped back on the hovercycle and jetted to the burial site. The sun was nearly fully gone. The hovercycle was my only source of light now as the headlight brightened the hole, the coffin, and the delivery pod. My shovel was off to the side but what I wielded instead was my space rifle and I pointed it shakily at the coffin from afar. I was afraid of a caged human being.

"Who are you?" I was shouting which only revealed my fear.

The undead corpse shouted back in a muffled perversion I couldn't quite understand. It might have been pleading. But my paranoia made me think he was threatening. Threatening to kill me.