When the Republicans Return to Mars

Happy Day of the Dead!

Halloween and Samhain are my favorite time of the year. I read about ghosts and the occult all year round, but in October I immerse in it further.

Today is the first day of Novelember. (Yeah, due to scandals we’re no longer participating in the official thing.) I’m starting a new manuscript and attending many local write-ins. At least, I intend to attend many write-ins.

Perhaps it’s weird to end my Substack in the middle of a novella, but I wanted to cancel it by November 3 so paying subscribers don’t get charged for another year. Conveniently, I’m not sharing another chapter today, because the next chapter is rough, and I’m a little stumped on it. On the bright side, I shall self-publish Amaryllis & the Pixie as a print book (probably via Ingram Spark).

I have several reason for canceling Whimsical Words, all of which I’ve previously mentioned. It’s been a fun experiment, but I think I’ll be better at querying magazines, agents, and publishers without working on a Substack. For that matter, I have a lot to self-publish as print books and e-books—particularly books I serially published here—and it will also be easier to focus on those projects without the Substack.

I have published books available on Amazon.com. You can keep up on my updates via my Bluesky account: @sewigget.bsky.social

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The following is just a short story, free to all subscribers. I’m not sure when I wrote it—probably circa 2004. It’s still relevant.

When The Republicans Return to Mars

Roommates:

Hester—painter and embroiderer

Jamal—costume designer

Cherise—singer/songwriter

Guests:

Trudy—band member with purple hair

Speranza—Irish dancer

Maybelle—opera singer

Jas—potter, sculptor

Seth—ballet dancer

Zack—mime (who mimes from time to time)

Hester leaped into the living room of her apartment and closed the door quickly, locked the deadbolt, and leaned her back against the door, as though to prevent a swarm of demons from rushing into the room.

She looked around at the comforts of home: the fireplace covered with little pictures of fairies, the large Alice Paul and Ida B. Wells posters, the row of vintage frames without pictures, the bright and sparkly fabric draped over nearly every surface, the furniture acquired from dumpster dives, the potted plants and her vivid paintings, some unfinished, scattered throughout the room, and the tall bookcases overflowing with books.

A Virginia Woolf shrine covered a wooden knick-knack shelf, with books faced out with a photo of the author and a London-style telephone booth bank. Above it was a small painting Hester had created, with the quote, “The purpose of women novelists is to kill the Angel of the House,” weaving snakelike through the abstract painting.

“May I become a Buddha, so I can save the world from Republicans,” Hester said with her eyes closed. When a furry flank rubbed against her leg, she opened her eyes and followed the purring cat toward the couch. She called, “Hi, honey, I’m home!” She calculated at least one of her two human roommates would be home at this hour on this day.

“Welcome!” Jamal called back in a singsong voice from the kitchen. He was probably concocting some gourmet recipe he invented on the spur of the moment.

Hester dropped her capacious bag and approached the couch draped in quilts made from old saris. She draped herself across it and its many blue, purple, and orange cushions, and grabbed a book from the hardwood floor. It was Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade.

She was about to begin reading, when Jamal entered the room wearing a hot pink apron and said, “So how was the family gathering?” Jamal was tall and svelte and had perfect cheekbones, large eyes, and a waist-length weave.

“A traumatic ordeal, just like family gatherings always all.” Hester covered her eyes. “I think the purpose of relatives is to drive you to suicide. To prevent you from reaching the tiniest portion of your full potential, let alone your full potential. To spitefully bait you into murdering them just so you end up in jail. The possibilities are endless, and all of them are terrible.”

Jamal sank onto the other end of the couch. “Yeah, well, remember my parents kicked me out of the house when I came out of the closet. I’m thinking out of the closet and out of the house all in one week is overkill.”

“Sounds like something my relatives would do. Oh you wouldn’t believe what Uncle NRA said this time. He was going on and on, absolutely fuming about my cousin who has the smarts to be banished out in California. Anyway, he ranted about how she sends e-mails exposing, horrors, the evils of his precious worshipful fascist politicians. Absolutely livid! Of course, it wouldn’t do for him to get news that isn’t from, like, Fox so-called news.”

Jamal shuddered dramatically. As a theater costumer, he was familiar with drama.

“It’s no wonder I never see your local relatives in our apartment,” he said.

“Oh, they wouldn’t dare set foot in this apartment! I’ve mentioned you to some of them, and the very idea that I have a roommate who’s black, male, and gay is enough for them to go into convulsions!” She thought of their other roommate, Cherise. “As for someone who’s nonbinary—I can’t see them even trying to wrap their heads around that. So please, don’t ever move out!”

They both chuckled.

Jamal untied and pulled off his apron and wiped his hands on it, as if it were a towel. “Well, you’ll be happy to know they’re all being blasted off to Mars next week.” Snapping his fingers three times, he hopped up from the couch.

Hester widened her eyes. “Who what?”

“All the Republicans! We’ve got a fleet of spaceships built to go to Mars, and they’re taking them back to their home planet! Of course they don’t know—they think it’s a pleasure cruise.”

Hester snorted. “I’ve never known you to read tabloids.”

“No, this ain’t a tabloid!” Jamal waved his hand and walked to the unlit fireplace. He leaned his back against it before explaining animatedly with many hand gestures. “You see, scientists have discovered former life on Mars, and what we now called Republicans are the direct descendants of that life form!”

Hester sat back. Her book fell out of her hands. She recalled overhearing a couple relatives saying something about Mars, but she hadn’t paid much attention. “Really? Sure, I never thought of them as particularly human-like, but….”

“You tell me. Anyway, they’re to be blasted off next Friday at six in the evening. It’ll be on TV—I heard a group of nonpartisan and very non-Republican newscasters who are competent—”

“You mean, they know how to cite their sources instead of pretending like they have sources for a bunch of made-up shit?”

“Ooh, you shady, girl! Yeah, that’s what I mean. They’ll go to the mainstream TV news studios, which are gonna be deserted without Republicans there, and they’ll be keeping the public updated. That’s also when the whole thing will be disclosed.”

“Then how do you know about it already?”

“Well, you know Jimmy, the scene designer I’ve been scening—I mean seeing—he has an uncle who’s an aeronaut and knows all about it. It’s mostly hush-hush, of course, since nobody wants the Republicans to know what’s really happening.”

“So, like, the scientists have lied to the Republicans?”

“Yeah, figure why not? It’s nothing compared to how much they’ve been lying all these years.”

Hester exhaled and sat back. She gazed off into space. “Just think: no more family reunions! No more homophobic relatives accusing me of being gay just because I’m not married to some butch creep and I’m not a white male supremacist—”

“—not to mention because you’re asexual,” Jamal added.

Hester shrugged. “Not like they’ve heard of my orientation.”

Jamal crossed his arms. “Not like you’d ever try to explain it to them.”

Hester scoffed at the absurd idea. She had enough of a sense of safety to know better. “Anyway… no more nasty relatives making snide ignorant comments about everything I say and do and about my entire lifestyle! No more biting my head off completely out of the blue!”

“Yeah, I’m hearing you!”

“No more invasions! No more scapegoating everyone—”

Jamal scoffed. “—except cis het white male Christians.”

“—No more making enemies of the rest of the world! No more chipping away at what rights we’ve acquired so far! No more destroying the environment!”

“Yeah, we won’t be living in the Evil Empire anymore! And it won’t be long before we even have universal health care, just like a first world country!”

Hester raised her eyebrows and leans forward. “We have so got to throw a party next week.”

#

The following Friday, Hester scanned the living room trying to think of last-minute decorating before the party. Jamal had picked up books and magazines that previously lay scattered on the floor and table. He’d swept the hardwood floor and dusted the mantle, which a long strip of patchwork Indian fabric now covered. On top of the cloth was a row of candles in various sizes and colors, and a stick of incense burns. Cherise, their other roommate, had strung fairy lights around the room. Hester couldn’t remember a time when the apartment looked so good, as long as nobody peeked into her messy bedroom. She jumped when she heard a knock at the door.

Hester rose and threw the door open. On the landing stood several friends she and her roommates had invited. “Hey, glad you could come!” she said, stepping out of the way and waving the guests into the room. As if they had planned to show up at the same time, ten people came through the door and gushed warm greetings. Several hugged Hester, those who carried their potluck items in bags instead of in their two hands.

Hester closed the door and sensed someone standing in the doorway between the dining room and the living room. She looked, and it turned out to be her roommate Cherise, a stout blonde individual in her late twenties wearing a vivid orange kaftan trimmed with beads and conch shells. They was barefoot, and Hester suspected the kaftan was all they wore.

After the initial greetings, most of the crowd trooped into the dining room and placed their potluck dishes on the table, which was now covered with an orange and purple tablecloth.

“OK, I’ve come up with a fabulous name for the band,” Cherise said.

“What is it?” Trudy, a young woman with purple spiked hair, asked.

“Witchy Fat Grrrls,” Cherise said.

“Cool!” five people said simultaneously.

Jamal stepped out of the kitchen and hugged nearly everyone. Guests and roommates filled plates with homemade food. Soon everyone settled in the living room, on couch, chairs, and floor, with heaping plates and full glasses, cups, and mugs, everyone chattering away. Hester sensed buzzing anticipation of something wonderful.

Jamal wiped his mouth and chin. “I think we should turn on the TV, so we can keep updated on the news. I mean, about the transportation to Mars and all that.”

Hester rose from the couch. “Good idea.”

“Where’s the TV?” someone asked. “I didn’t know you had one.” Without answering, Hester went to a table in a far corner and lifted the scrap of fabric from a box on the table. She revealed a fifteen-inch TV.

“Unveil the monument!” Trudy said. People chuckled.

Hester leaned over and, after looking at the TV and trying to ground herself and remember how it worked, she pushed the “on” button and found a station with a news program.

“This is the first time I’ve turned on the TV in years,” Hester said. “I’d forgotten where the dial was.”

“It’s not a dial anymore, it’s a button,” Cherise said.

“Oh, yeah.” Hester returned to the couch.

On the TV, everyone saw a fleet of flying saucers in midair, gradually shrinking in the blue sky. A disembodied female voice was speaking.

“According to IASA authorities, the Mars Mission is so far going smoothly,” the woman’s voice said. She proceeded to say how far up in the air the spaceships had reached. The news cut to a newsroom with three reporters in front of a counter. The speaker was a dark woman in her forties. She continued, “According to the scientists who arranged this expedition, the Republicans think they’re going on a pleasure cruise, They don’t realize the spaceships are not designed to return to planet Earth.”

The living room filled with cheers. The tv news cut back to the blue sky, and the spaceships had become the tiniest of dots.

Cherise stood, tapped her glass with a spoon, and broke the glass. “I think we should have some speeches!”

“And a poetry reading!” Speranza said.

“No microphone, so you have to speak loudly!” Somebody muted the TV, and everyone forgot about it for the time being.

Jamal chuckled. “Like this living room is a stadium.”

Cherise walked up to the fireplace and stood centered in front of it, melodramatically wiping false tears from their eyes. “I am so happy to be here with you all today,” they said, sniffing. “This is a great honor and a privilege. The reason we decided to have a party today is because we are at last freed of the Republicans who have been terrorizing our country and the entire world, the Republicans who have turned the United States into an international laughingstock and disgrace, the Republicans who have attempted to ruin the world. They ruined Mars long ago, and they’ve been trying to do it here, and nearly succeeded. But that dark horrible age is over, and we are FREE AT LAST!”

Everyone cheered and clapped. People set down their plates and jumped up. They laughed and danced and whistled and called for an encore. Much merriment was made. Cherise returned to their place and cleaned up the broken glass, while everyone munched and drank and chatted excitedly.

“OK, who wants to go next?” Jamal asked.

“Hester does!” a couple of people said.

“Er, not really?” Hester took a sip from her wine glass. Her voice shakes slightly at the prospect of being the center of attention. “Because you know I’m such a great speaker.” She nonetheless placed her plate and glass on an end table. She strolled to the fireplace, where she stood as Cherise had but with less confidence. She leaned against the mantle, jumped slightly as she felt a candle falling over, and righted it. She stood up and clasped her hands together behind her back. Then she began her impromptu speech.

“I believe we have great potentials just around the corner,” Hester said. “We will begin seriously working on disarmament and the dismantling of nuclear weapons, and perhaps the Pentagon itself will be out of business soon. The nation will no longer spend more than half its income on the military, but will instead embark on a new, beautiful era in which we celebrate diversity and work toward peace, compassionate discussion, and diplomacy. We will discuss things with other countries and strive to understand differences, rather than try to blow them up like a bunch of fascist, patriarchal assholes.”

Cheers and whistles followed this, even though Hester didn’t think it was a great speech.

Hester continued, “Well, so much for the academic tone I was aiming at. Anyway, I see World Peace coming, the end of Patriarchy, a beautiful egalitarian world that values art and love and happiness and says farewell to dominance and violence.”

“Here, here!” Trudy clapped.

Everyone else clapped, cheered, and whistled.

“You go, girl!” Jas, the sculptor, raised their fork in salute.

Hester curtseyed and sat back down.

“Any more pretzels?” Seth, the ballet dancer, asked.

Zack, the mime, shrugged gracefully, raising his hands with palms up.

Someone banged on the front door three times, so loudly that Hester jumped. The party became silent for a second, while Hester stared at the door with a clear case of bad vibes coming on.

“Did we invite anyone else?” Jamal asked.

Hester stared at the door. “Yeah, Wendy and Michael, but they couldn’t make it.”

“I usually work Friday nights, too, but I couldn’t miss this party,” Trudy said.

“Who says they were working? I think they went to Neverland,” Cherise said.

Hester sighed, got up, and opened the door. The neighbor who lived directly below stood in the doorway wearing an ugly pink terrycloth robe and with curlers in her brown hair. She was tall and skinny and seemed to loom over Hester. She had a horrible scowl on her homely, horse-like face.

Hester’s calico cat approached the neighbor and sniffed at her feet. The cat rubbed against her legs, but the neighbor stood still and kept her feet together, as if she didn’t want contact with the friendly cat. She yelled and screamed something incomprehensive to Hester, something about noise. Hester’s interpretation was that this neighbor—who screamed loudly—was complaining about their party noise. She continued for several minutes.

Everyone in the living room stared at the neighbor.

Hester stood holding the doorknob and staring with her mouth wide open in shock. She didn’t understand what was happening. She shook uncontrollably and felt utter aversion. However, during this tirade, she felt vaguely aware of someone coming up behind her and gently pushing her aside. It was Cherise, who walked up to this neighbor and gave her a hard slap across the face.

“Bugger off!” Cherise said.

The neighbor huffed and huffed but couldn’t blow the apartment down. She scowled again and marched off down the stairs. Hester slammed the door shut as loudly as she could and clicked the bolt.

“What was that?” Hester asked in almost a whisper.

“A singing telegram?” suggested Maybelle, the opera singer.

“Oh, I thought it was a ritual dance,” suggested Speranza, the Irish dancer.

“Um, that would be our wonderful neighbor,” Cherise said.

“Wow,” Hester said. She still trembled all over from shock. “She’s lucky I’m slow to process.”

“It’s—what? Eight thirty? She’s screaming about our noise level at eight thirty on a Friday evening,” Trudy said.

“Jamal,” Cherise said, “has this neighbor ever mentioned to you that she has weird hours?”

“Nope.”

“Me neither,” Hester said. “What a weirdo.”

Jamal stood beside the couch holding a tray of party mix. “Yeah, that reminds me. I figured out why Ginger has been locked in the basement a few times.”

“Ginger?” Trudy asked.

“That’s the cat.” Cherise explained. They gestured toward a large, fluffy orange and white cat who strolled into the room, summoned by her name.

“That shady-ass neighbor’s been locking Ginger up,” Jamal said. “She’s a cat hater and seems to have a vendetta against us. Think we’d better stop letting Ginger wander the back steps.”

“Insane.” Hester emitted a slow and shaky breath. She felt glad this happened in front of witnesses. Though part of her believed she had to do everything herself, another part of her was comforted by the support of friends. She thought of the Republicans on their way to Mars, and then thought of the neighbor, and a new idea occurred to her. “Do you think this psycho neighbor is a—”

Jamal raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t know about her politics.”

Hester sank back onto the couch. She grabbed her glass of wine.

Cherise shook her head. She pushed food around on her plate. “You know, it’s amazing how many white women are actually stupid white men trapped in women’s bodies. In other words, not all Republicans are male.”

Hester recalled the family reunion she endured last week. “Yeah, just look at some of my nasty relatives.”

“Most people have a few, but you got the prize.” Cherise patted Hester’s shoulder.

Hester raised her eyebrows and nodded. Her relatives convinced her that personality disorders came with conservatism. “Yeah, but about this neighbor. Do you think they could have, er, missed a few?” Hester conjured in her mind’s eye the image of the spaceships in the bright blue sky. Dead silent, everyone stared at her.