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Cody Restivo

Mr. Neuburger

English Composition 101-132

8 February 2011

Narrative Essay

My Mission to Mars

I was 5 years old when I first realized I wanted to be an astronaut. My mother had taken me to

the movies to watch toy story. While watching this movie and seeing how Buzz Lightyear lit up

the big screen solidified the fact that I wanted to go to space as soon as possible. I spent the next

few years of my life playing with toys as any child does however the inventions I came up with

were beyond that of a toddler. I had Buzz Lightyear action figures along with Woody and other

toys but the vehicles and fortresses I built for the toys were exceptionally outstanding. Buzz

Lightyear did not ride around on RC in my house; he rode around in an actual mini-rocket ship

built by me that actually moved around based on simple coordinates. The coordinates I would

audibly give such as “Buzz to the kitchen counter!” and the rocket would fly him over. The next

invention that I got around to building was a suit that you could put onto an action figure that

would make a toy come to life. I called it the Biomatrix Frankensuit. I had an imagination that

could paint a picture that would put the Sistine Chapel to shame. Now obviously this isn’t what

an average little kid does at all, at least the invention part. Now these inventions and such got an

awful lot of attention from media, schools, everyone in the world pretty much. My mother tried

protecting me from most of it so I could just be a kid and not worry about such grown up drama.

She did her job and I continued with my epic battles for control over for the living room floor

with each toy switching sides every new war. As I grew older the toys turned into action figures
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and the battles turned from idle kids play into epic wars of cosmic conflict. I started getting into

aliens and such when I first watched Invader Zim when I was around the age of 11. That

Nickelodeon television show not only further interested me in space travel, but had me wanting

to be the first man to make contact on Mars or even with alien life its self. Even as a kid I knew

that these were monumental dreams to have. I always wanted something that most people could

not achieve. I wanted to be the person that accomplished their dreams and would always be

remembered in history. I just didn’t know I would only be twelve when my name would go down

in history as the galactic ambassador of earth. As anyone would guess I kept getting attention

and kept getting poked at by schools and the government. It was not until I was the fresh age of

twelve, fresh out of college, in which I knew my mind could challenge space itself. I wanted to

be in space, what better place to get there than working at NASA. They wanted me for a while

but I happened to be far too busy making sure my Predator action figure was holding his own in

my living room. I worked with NASA helping them develop new technology to make travel safer

and more effective. NASA said I would be the first to step on Mars. We agreed on me stepping

onto Mars in exchange for my brain being on their side. Of course all of this was on Defcon 6 G-

4 oath, which is fancy talk for do not tell anyone or else. NASA started putting me on little

missions into space to repair satellites and such just to get a feel for it. No feeling in the world

could possibly describe the feeling you get when you are in space looking back down at earth.

The big guy above has one heck of a paintbrush to be able to create such extraordinary places. I

worked quite a few of these missions before I finally got some good news. I finally got a launch

date to go to mars. It was to be me and a robot I built to step of the shuttle. I named my robot the

most fitting name I could think of, C3PO. I originally wanted the name “The Terminator” but

that turned out to not be a “professional” name so I changed it to be more subtle. The year was
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2005 and the date was set to be April 20 to launch me into space. It would be a 2 day travel to

Mars and I would arrive two days before my 12th birthday. The day of the launch was shown to

the media as just another test launch. For the people that actually knew the truth, they would hold

their breath until their faces turned purple. You could see my mother’s hair literally turning grey

from so much stress. Not many mothers have the delight of having the stress that their eleven

year old boy is getting shot into space to try and accomplish a task no person has ever done

before in history. Personally I do not see any problem with that statement at all. The day of the

launch everyone was tense as usual. The countdown was military style and to pin point precision.

Launch in 5, 4,3,2,1. Those words are something that always makes me smile. Shortly after the

countdown I was hurled into space. The actual trip to Mars was incredibly boring with checking

in every ten minutes. C3PO was not scheduled to turn on till we landed to maximize battery life

span. Needless to say the entire trip I watched television and tried to sleep. As scheduled I landed

on the red planet 2 days before my birthday. Base told me to collect samples and return in a few

days. When I opened the door of my shuttle my lungs crippled as I stood there breathless. I was

the single soul in this endless red vastness. Before I stepped out I turned C3PO on and we both

headed out of the ship. We stood there amazed and did not say one word to each other for a solid

ten minutes. I came to from my speech coma when base called me and asked me to report. The

mission was simple to collect rocks and dirt, but turned into something that would change the

course of earth for the rest of time. Day turned into a red night and C3PO and I returned to the

shuttle for the night. I reported to base and played Go Fish with C3PO for a while before finally

deciding to go to sleep. I awoke around 4 a.m. to flashing lights around the outside of my shuttle.

I woke up C3PO and we watched as the lights ran around in a circle then dissipated into the

ground about thirty yards from the ship outside. Being on mars itself for the first time in history
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was enough itself without having to add this supernatural activity. Base was not expecting me to

get up and report for another few hours so as any eleven year old boy would do, I put my suit on

and told C3PO “Let’s go.” We stepped out of the ship incredibly weary. I could not tell if

everything was real for a while. We slowly crept toward the spot we had seen the lights

disappear into. I patted the ground with my foot to see if it was safe to step on. It seemed alright.

C3PO and I stood there whispering about what it possibly could have been that we saw. Just as

we stopped whispering the ground starting shaking, and before we knew it, we were in the mouth

of the face of Mars. Being surrounded by walls of red, naturally fear should have set in. For

some reason adrenaline did not flow through my veins. I marveled at how cool everything looked

to me. C3PO and I both stood there, awaiting something shocking to happen. We went from a

mission to being thrown into a Science-Fiction movie that didn’t end well for the cast. As we

stood surrounded by walls of rock a doorway opened up in front of us. I took a look at C3PO to

make sure that he saw what I saw. When the situation is looking grim but for some reason a

person has that calm feeling is the way I would describe this. The only way I hadn’t had a heart

attack already was that this is exactly what I dreamt about as a kid. This is what I wanted,

something that people could only imagine in movies happening in real life. As I made my way to

the doorway C3PO gives me a statistic that the chances of something good coming out of this

situation was “bleak”, which was more than enough motivation for my feet to start shuffling

faster. As we made our way into the doorway we came into a circular room with a table of some

sort in the middle. The room was lit with the lights we saw earlier going in circles. As we stood

there I could swear I heard whispers and light nudges to go towards the table. Shortly after I

made it in that direction the room emits a huge spectacle of light everywhere and it went from

being C3PO and I to us and about 10 other beings. The way to describe these people were tall,
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lanky, big piercing black eyes, three elongated fingers, small mouths, and all superseded by an

enormous cranium. The voices I heard turned into just one deep calming voice assuring me that I

was not going to be harmed and that there was a reason I had come to their planet. My heart was

racing faster than it could beat. I felt that I could not move my body and looked at C3PO only to

find he was shut off and I was alone experiencing all this. The deep soothing voice made me

look at what appeared to be the leader of the beings. He started talking to me telling me all the

things that I am going to go back and tell my people. None of the things he told me were harmful

or sinister in any manner. He said to me that since I was the first to meet another planetary

species I alone was to be the spokes person of my race. Again my age played a huge factor in me

being ok with all of this. My immature mentality did not let me realize the pressure that would be

put on me, just the fact that it was awesome and cool. The beings sat me down at this table and

showed me three dimensional figures of where they were actually from and told me about a

galactic United Nations if you will. They had been waiting for earth to reach Mars for some time

now and Earth could finally be accepted into the galactic confederation. There was so much

going on it seemed like I was there for hours. I was to take this information back with me and

share it. However, I could not share it till the year I turned twenty two. At this moment I could

not understand why but I easily said “no problem” and went along with everything. The beings

said I should call them Anunnaki. They were extremely peaceful and you could feel what they

felt which was just as much anxiety as I was having. Having them tell me I could not tell anyone

until I was twenty two meant to me that everyone would think I was completely crazy. As

quickly as it happened it was over and before I knew it I was back in my ship and C3PO was

rebooting. I asked if he remembered what had happened and he actually remembered everything

up until he got turned off. I reported back to base and told them that I was going to collect a few
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more rocks and I was coming home as soon as possible. When I reached back home NASA

greeted me with a birthday festivity which turned out to be really fun. Little did these people

know just exactly what kind of birthday a twelve year old boy could have. I am now twenty

going on with my life repairing satellites when NASA needs me to and just waiting for the year

2012. I can then relinquish my secret to someone who will listen to me and tell me how crazy I

am. Until then I just ponder to myself if what happened turns out to be a figment of my

gargantuan imagination. How in the world did I go from being a kid with a crazy dream into a

teenager shattering history? I evolved into a walking example of absolutely anything being a

possibility. I guess I will wait to see the surprises in 2012. I can only imagine the possibilities

that year will bring.