2003-08-21 - 2:22 a.m.

I saw Mars last night.

I got the e-mails about it a month ago, but I kept forgetting to look.

But I was walking home on a clear night, and I looked up, and I noticed that something was a tiny bit off, and then I remembered.

I stared at it like I would a celebrity I had heard good things about but didn�t know. I wanted to make sure, but chimneys, and houses, and trees kept getting in the way.

Cars passed, too, and they always seemed to do so when I got a good look.

I kept moving, 'cause folks in Somerville who stand still on the sidewalk late at night looking up at houses aren't taken kindly to by the folks in Somerville who drive down Highland late at night.

But I tracked it. I knew where it was.

And I knew that it was Mars. Even though I don't know my stars, I know they twinkle.

I walked slow, and found stars despite the city lights, despite the passing cars, drivers observing a lunatic observing the sky, and just itching to do something about it. And I also found that those stars in my sky twinkled. And they were small.

But Mars didn't twinkle. And it wasn't small in my sky.

Mars beamed.

Mars was a glowing iron ball that shouldn't have been there.

But it should be there.

It should always be there. I like it there.

When I got home, I went in the Roommate's (abandoned) room, 'cause I knew I had a good chance of seeing it from one of her windows.

And it was still there. She always gets the best windows.

I must have seemed deranged to her, getting her out of my room and into hers, with the lights out, but I probably didn't seem deranged to her.

She probably thought I was going to show her a fire, or a spider.

But I showed her Mars instead, on her real birthday, and it glowed like a distant iron bullet would.