Dear Mom and Dad,

I am writing you this letter so you won't need to worry about me when you finally notice that I'm gone. I can just see you, so scared that your little girl will wind up another underage prostitute on the streets of the city. Don't worry, though, I'm not going off to the big city. There's no chance of the police embarrassing you by showing up to tell you your daughter has overdosed in some alleyway. No, I'm going somewhere much farther away. I'd say not to try to find me, but you wouldn't be able to, even if you wanted to try. By the time you read this, I'll probably already be on Mars, and I doubt you'd be able to follow me there- not without Dezuz's help.

Dezuz first contacted me a week ago. I was huddled in my bed, covers up over my head, scrunched right up into a little ball when I felt something touch me. At first I was scared, but once he pulled the blanket off of me I realized he wasn't there to hurt me.

He spoke directly into my head. He told me he'd come to protect me. We did some sort of ritual, a bonding ritual in which he put all the knowledge of the Martian history and culture directly into my memory, and it became clear. Mars is where I belong.

Dezuz knew it as well. They have a machine there, a psychoscope, with which they search the universe for people like me, people who belong with them. That's their primary means of keeping Mars growing, in fact- Mars is merely a colony, you see.

It was founded by a Mr. & Mrs. Gull from England in 1896. They were scientists, visionaries… geniuses, really, but they were shunned in their contemporary society. To continue their work in privacy, they attached a large hot-air balloon to their home, a large ancestral manse in the English countryside, and moved it to the surface of Mars. There their research could go on undisturbed.

Once there, the psychoscope was one of their very first new inventions, at least, as soon as they had developed the revolutionary agricultural techniques making it possible for them to grow food in the red Martian soil. The psychoscope was like a mental telescope, designed to see the minds of the planet it looked at. When they looked through the psychoscope at Earth, they saw that a few people seemed so much larger than the others- they towered over them, seeming to be behemoths, standing enormous on the surface of the planet. The Gulls knew that these select few were their mental kindred, their true peers. They knew that these people belonged on Mars with them, and soon voyaged back to Earth to offer them sanctuary in their new home.

Eventually, the Gulls and company discovered other planets with life on them, places like Dezuz's home planet. The psychoscope revealed that there were people like them all over the entire universe, not just on Earth. Mars is now made up of many different races and breeds, all together, living in harmony, united in the fact that though they were once called unusual, called outcasts, they were truly all alike.

Dezuz told me that he had discovered me himself while he was on psychoscope watch. He saw me at the dinner table, gigantic, dwarfing my entire family. He had brought the information to Mr. Gull, whose youth tonic has kept him fit well into his second century of life, and was ordered to extend an invitation as soon as possible.

I might have just gone with him that moment, but Dezuz told me to take a week to consider his offer. He said they do that customarily nowadays, since once you make the choice to go to Mars, you can never return- you must leave everything behind for good. I considered it long and hard, but found that, really, nothing held me to this world. Dezuz has stayed in close contact with me since then, especially during the nights when I am in bed. Tonight, he asked me if I had made my choice, and I told him I was ready to leave.

The preparations have all been made. I'll be using one of their newer travel techniques, a combustion engine that operates purely on paper. With its help, and Dezuz to guide me, I shall endeavor to fly the entire shed in our back yard to Mars. I've already made the preparations- taken the lawn mower and rakes out of the shed, installed the rocketry system that will allow us to breach the Earth's gravitational pull, etc.

I wish both well. If you speak to Denise, tell her I love her. I want you to know that though I will be living very far away in a community of my peers, I'm sure some part of me will miss you all. You will never see me again.

Your Daughter,

Jeannie

PS - I am taking Nessie with me. They don't have very many dogs on Mars, but those they do have seem to really enjoy life there, running through the vast canals with their masters, exploring the surface. I know he will be happy there.