The Worst Man on Mars

Commander Flint Dugdale was discovering that packing a suitcase in zero gravity is a bit like wrestling a feisty octopus. Each time he placed a new item in the case, many of the previously stuffed items would gently drift out of it. As he caught and replaced the escaping items, others would take their place. It was an activity that did not suit his fragile temper.

“Frack, frack, frack, bollocks!” he yelled as another pair of underpants drifted away, closely followed by a sock and a small face flannel. “Frack!”

With a supreme effort, and lightning movements, he managed to get everything back in, slam the lid shut, clamp his two giant hands on top of it, and press the overfull case down onto his bed. But, as he pushed, his weightless body rotated in the opposite direction and his arms extended further and further. With nothing to get a purchase on, he found himself floating away. All he could do was watch helplessly as the lid opened and the case’s contents vacated it one by one.

But for once his anger did not get the better of him. A sticker on the side of the case caught his eye and sent him careering down Memory Lane to the Club 18-30 Ibiza holiday of many, many years before. Standing on the balcony of his top floor room at Hotel El Paradiso, he had watched open-mouthed as his best mate, Banyard, had flung the contents of the very same suitcase over the edge for a joke. No problem with gravity back then. How they had laughed as they had peered down at the swimming pool far below and spotted a dozing German sun-worshipper festooned with Flint’s grundies. ’Appy days, thought Flint, ’appy days.

But, just as quickly, his thoughts careered back to the present and to the sight of his belongings exploding in super-slow-motion from the case. “Right, yer buggers, I’ll fix yer.”

He propelled himself to Commander Lionheart’s private writing desk and pulled out a roll of sticky tape. Tearing it with his teeth, Dugdale started taping the orbiting items of clothing to the case’s bottom. First, a layer of underpants. Next, his Hawaiian-print T-shirts, a pair of flip-flops, sunglasses and a giant bag of cheese-and-onion crisps. Essential items each and every one. As far as Dugdale was concerned Mars was one vast beach, albeit lacking sea, blue skies and bikini-clad babes. His time would be spent reclining in a deckchair, slurping Martian-brewed beer, and watching sports coverage beamed from Earth, content in the knowledge that his job was done. The rest of them would do his bidding, setting up the first Martian colony; growing food, cooking, cleaning, sewing, having babies and all the rest of that hippy stuff. He would be the famous one and milk the glory of being the First Man on Mars.

Next came his most treasured possessions: a football shirt that had once belonged to Billy Bremner, signed by the whole 1970s Leeds United team, Geoff Boycott’s cricket bat, with an unexplained bloodstain on one edge, a few cans of Newcastle Brown, and twenty packets of Granny Braithwaite’s Yorkshire Pudding mix.

As he packed two hundred Benson & Hedges cigarettes, a pang of homesickness pulled at his heart. Flint cracked the cellophane on a new pack and lit up. He was only an occasional smoker, primarily in moments of reflection. He inhaled a lungful, held it for a second and then, dragon-like, blew a stream of smoke across the cabin. His thoughts turned to his home in Huddersfield. His family. His children and their various mothers. The Muck’n’Shovel pub. Friday night darts and beer.

On the ceiling-mounted screen above his head a CGI-generated avatar was frantically and silently signalling to him. Early in the mission Flint had switched off the annoying voice interface of HarOld, the ship’s computer. Since then, important messages like ‘watch out for that meteor shower’ or ‘the toilet disposal unit is blocked’ or ‘FIRE!’ had been relayed by the silent avatar through the medium of mime. Right now, it was dancing a message of disaster, miming out, as best it could, the consequences of Dugdale’s smoking. But, even when Flint glanced up and caught sight of the avatar through the billowing clouds of smoke, he merely looked straight through it. His thoughts had locked onto the sacrifices he had made and the indignities he had suffered to become the first man on Mars.

And then, in accordance with the frantically mimed warnings, the cabin sprinkler system activated, extinguishing Flint’s cigarette, destroying his magic moment of reflection, and soaking his belongings.

“Chuffin’ bollocks!” he yelled.