My Life So Far

My Life So Far
by Joshua Duroux
Series 1, Volume 1, Part 1, Chapter 1A,


Even though my spawn certificate lists Mars, strictly speaking I was not born on the planet's surface, but rather in an orbiting hospistation. To begin my story properly, one must go back before the beginning.

My father, mother and dutha were members of the Time Travelling Kidnap And Impregnate Future Generation Terran Human Beings Program, or BLXR for short. The Jovian Council, knowing that some future catastrophe would wipe out the settlements of several planets in the not too distant future, but unable to discover what the calamity would be, decided to experiment with the primitive life forms existing in the future on Earth, mixing Terran genes with those of various other Solar organisms.

I never discovered the entire story, as the information was classified, but apparently with my spawning something went horribly wrong. While I was raised by my father and mother, I never found out who my real duthar was. When my early travels had finished, I had hoped to find the information available under the 500 Light Year Law, but my home planet had already undergone the great extinction by my return. But that's for volume 48.

My earliest memories are of the vast red vistas seen from my nursery window, in the lee side of our house in the fashionable upper slopes of Olympus Mons. I remember asking my father about the bright bluish white star I could often see in the heavens that didn't twinkle, didn't behave like other stars. I will never forget what he said to me. "Plmmxmxblppy, mzlllmozmlpxxrxyyps, nkstoonip blmmmrpdd." For those reading this who do not speak Martian, it roughly translates as, "not now, I'm busy."

I persisted with my questioning and he finally relented and gave me an answer.

"Son, that is the planet Terra, which its future inhabitants will call Earth. Your destiny lies in her course, as some of your genetic code will be taken from those indigenes long after we are all gone. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, flooxr to flooxr."

These words engraved themselves into my psyche. For many light years after I would often recall them, and my father's sturdy voices, through my musical training at the Institute of Shpleez, through all the long millennia of my travels, and to this very day.

Learning to walk was harder for me than the other spawnlings of my age, being a biped and all. Some of the kids used to make fun of my disadvantaged vision, painting signs in ultraviolet on my face and so on. But I had one advantage over them that I had inherited from my yet to develop human ancestors - the capacity for violence.

Ah, the satisfying crunch as I kicked a bully in the vmoomvsf, or the enjoyable splosh when I planted my knuckles between their grbbls. I soon earned respect from my fellow brood mates.

I have fond memories of a kindly old Jovian teacher, whose name I cannot translate into this crude language lest the reader's head explodes. He it was that recognised my natural musical abilities, and encouraged me to apply for a place at the universally famous Institute of Shpleez. I would go on to become their youngest ever student, accepted at the tender age of 417. He it was also who encouraged my love of knowledge. It was with him that I created my very first dimension. Sadly, he was to die from an unfortunate accidental overdose of antimatter. This was the first loss in my life, and I wrote a short concerto for him, which I still consider one of my best works, all 9700 hours of it. (I know, the length is a bit short for a proper concerto, but the structure is still very concertual.)

The next few centuries of my life are unremarkable. I grew up as every seminormal Martian spawnling did in those days, shooting wglmmms with my ddnnnk, scraping my knees on the zfrrrs, stealing my first kiss behind the toooomoonoollps with my first steady vinfriend. The nest part of my life truly began on my first day at Shpleez, as I shall describe in chapter 1B.