(Prompt was to include any of the following words: Yellow, Branch, Potato, Mountain, Spoon)
I sat, surrounded by the flapping tarp walls of our glorified grow tent, going wild. The sky was angry and yellowed as the reddish granules were kicked into the air in suffocating clouds. Not like it was the clouds that would kill me out there, being there was none of this air stuff my fragile body relied on. With a grumble, I shoved my small spoonful of half-eaten potato into my mouth, mashing the bland substance between my teeth and wishing more than anything that I had some ketchup to slather the thing in. But on Mars, we weren’t growing tomatoes; we were growing potatoes. So I had to suck it up and long for the artificial red-hued sauce that I may never taste again.
What I wouldn’t do for that little zing it would give my tongue. Or the little bit of moisture it would add so that the potato wouldn’t stick like taffy to the back of my throat. I’d even take some salt. Anything to make the damn vegetable more appealing after having eaten it for the last 365 days. While today marked a year of being on this planet, and I had spent the better part of the morning dragging my sorry ass up the side of the mountain—that was more like a glorified hill—that rose up behind our settlement. Planting a flag as if I were Neil fucking Armstrong, because I’ve lasted here an entire Earth year. Not a Martian year. That’d come though, just hopefully not with 322 days more of fucking potatoes.
(Inspired by the Martian, one of my favorite movies)