The rain hasn’t stopped since the machines took control.&nbsp;It wasn’t a hard rain, but it was enough that I was glad the old car still had old fashioned windshield wipers. This was calm rain that reminded me of old dramatic movies where some young protagonist girl would lean her head against the side of the car door and trace their finger along a slowly falling raindrop. I think I actually did that once or twice in my youth. With a sigh, I placed my hand against the head rest of the passenger seat and looked over my left shoulder of the used 2095 Zinian Frouge's blind spot. The windshield wipers beat a rhythmic pattern not too unlike the tempo of my heartbeat. Newer cars whizzed and whined past their windshields clear as day from the drenching rain as if they were equal sides of a magnet repelling each other. A ten-year-old voice piped up. “Why do you do that, Mom?” I looked back at the front window. Controls and gadgets to rival the most high-tech jet clustered on the dashboard, only about a third of which still had the green glow of a working instrument. Most of the bells and whistles on the old vehicle had been tarnished and rusted years before; however, the screen showing the 360-degree view around the vehicle was stuck on and therefore this automobile technically had no true ‘blind spot’. I flexed my fingers slowly peeling them off and loosening my grip on the three spoked wheel reminiscent of when vehicles called ships would travel the waters of Earth. There were no vessels any longer. No water either. The earth had dried up almost over two centuries ago, and that was before the “accident “where almost the entire heavenly body was decimated. Since people had left so many years prior no one really knew why or how it happened. Just that it did like the comets we sometimes hear about or things like bombs or other horrible things. We have no surface water on Mars, but the auto atmosphere was meant to keep weather and oxygen and all the little micro necessities in check. We didn’t know why but when the machines took over, they kept the rain on perpetually. Maybe they in their circuits and algorithms decided humans hated rain. It was dreary and somewhat depressing as water in some amounts, or another was always falling on our heads within our atmospheric hyper dome in an attempt to keep us downtrodden; if you’re depressed how much would you want to riot or revolt or rally? It turned out, we still wanted to, rain or no rain. I glanced at my preteen daughter who had gone back her arm-phone, She was watching a news reel. I gritted my teeth until my jaw hurt but said nothing as a troupe of camo wearing young people marched across the screen embedded in her arm. Taking a chance during a stop light I looked at her, taking all of her in. The shared dark hair, our light skin - almost no one had melanin any longer at least none living on Mars did. We shared green eyes and a small nose. Long delicate fingers played with the edge of her camouflaged button-down shirt taken from my closet four months ago, about the same time her room wall started getting camouflaged posters and her arm-phone almost always had troops of teens and older children marching and yelling in unison. I reached up and tucked in the dog tags jangling against my chest, and took a deep breath letting it out as our car moved forward, I had been trying to decide what to tell her, but what else could I say: “Because old habits are hard to break”

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Old Habits

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Old Habits

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Elizabeth Alkula

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