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Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Prime Meridian
Mar. 3rd, 2019 07:47 pmLike the lives of most people without wealth, status or high-tech credentials in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novella Prime Meridian, Amelia’s life is shit. After dropping out of university to cate for a dying mother, she lost her scholarship, and with that, her chance at a life she’s dreamed of forever, a life on Mars. Instead, she lives in her dead mother’s house with her sister and her nieces, and the best job she’s been able to find in months is working as a pretend companion for Friendrr.
In Moreno-Garcia’s future world, there really are colonies on Mars, but a girl like her is never going to get there. Still, the idea of Mars - fresh starts, getting away, escape - pervades her world. One if her clients is a retired actress who constantly reminisces about her one successful film, Conquerer Women of Mars. Another of her clients, a former boyfriend who ghosted her in college, had planned to emigrate with her before his rich father knocked some sense into him. The text is intercut with scenes from a movie that perhaps exists only in Amelia’s mind, a movie about a stalwart adventurer on Mars.
This is the future of today, if we are honest. All the toys of the futures that have been written about, but only for the favoured few. The rest of us will only see the future in small things, in the kinds of apps our cheap smartwatches can offer, while we struggle to find work and security in an Uber-style world. Our dreams will always be that, just dreams, until we lose them altogether. Or unless we are one of the very, very fortunate few who get a second chance, and setting everything else aside, take it.
This story will break your heart for all but the last few pages, and then it will make it soar. May we all find our way to Mars after all.
In Moreno-Garcia’s future world, there really are colonies on Mars, but a girl like her is never going to get there. Still, the idea of Mars - fresh starts, getting away, escape - pervades her world. One if her clients is a retired actress who constantly reminisces about her one successful film, Conquerer Women of Mars. Another of her clients, a former boyfriend who ghosted her in college, had planned to emigrate with her before his rich father knocked some sense into him. The text is intercut with scenes from a movie that perhaps exists only in Amelia’s mind, a movie about a stalwart adventurer on Mars.
This is the future of today, if we are honest. All the toys of the futures that have been written about, but only for the favoured few. The rest of us will only see the future in small things, in the kinds of apps our cheap smartwatches can offer, while we struggle to find work and security in an Uber-style world. Our dreams will always be that, just dreams, until we lose them altogether. Or unless we are one of the very, very fortunate few who get a second chance, and setting everything else aside, take it.
This story will break your heart for all but the last few pages, and then it will make it soar. May we all find our way to Mars after all.
