“ARMS OPEN” by Des Kelly

     At last, we can now open our arms, as we find out that there is water on Mars. To my eLanka readers, who are all in the “higher I.Q.” class, there is absolutely no need for me to tell you how important plain unadulterated WATER is.

     As an example of this importance, let me relate a true story, as told to me, many moons ago (strange, how these celestial subjects intermix), by my own paternal grandfather, Jack Kelly, God rest his soul. This grand-dad loved to drink (anything BUT water). Toddy, Kithul or Coconut, Beer, local or international, Arrack (Mendis Special was his favourite, but ANY arrack would do, in an emergency. Whisky, Brandy, (anything handy), Gin, wasn’t considered a sin, either, in fact, any bloody thing that had alcohol in it, Jack Kelly drank it. 

     To make bad matters worse, my grandfather worked for a time, in a BREWERY in Colombo. At “knock-off”, he would hit the front door, already “half-cut”, as they say, after inhaling the “sweet perfume” of the brewery all day. No, he wasn’t an alcoholic, no WAY, but he obviously loved his job.

So, he would then walk out, rather unsteadily, to where his rickshaw coolie awaited him. In this “regular” rickshaw, whose coolie’s name was Kandasamy, both Jack Kelly and Kandasamy would take a brief pause at every bar & tavern, where my grand-dad would have a drink or three, and, as it was tiring work for Kandasamy, Jack would offer this friend a drink also, which Kandasamy never refused. Halfway home, one day, Kandasamy accidentally hit a car, at the apex of Buller’s Road, Bambalapitiya. (remember, he hit the car, it wasn’t the other way around), and so, both Jack Kelly and Kandasamy-Koolie, ended up in the general hospital, lying only semi-conscious, side by side. My dad, then had to pick up his dad and take him home, and it was many a time that I wondered why my dad, Carlo Kelly was 100% tee-total.

     Anyway, get to the point, Kelly. Why, these frequent digressions?. What has all this to do with Mars & her unadulterated water?. Well folks, I am telling the story, 

     The main points of this interesting true story are these.

If you are uninterested, go, jump into the Kelani river, which is a 100% adulterated, I think. I once asked a severely depressed man, totally undressed, and wishing to commit suicide, standing on a rickety old bridge above this same river, why he didn’t jump in and finish it off, and his reply was, “because I can’t swim”!!. I helped him to cover his nakedness and walked off, thinking to myself, now, that IS a good reason, isn’t it?. 

     My grandfather(the same one), was also a most handsome dude. He had many girlfriends (in those days), and, as he related to me, personally, on a certain weekend, he had gone into some interior suburb, to visit a particularly pretty one. Walking back to Colombo, during the early hours of a Monday morning, to get back to the normal grind of “going to work”, he started to feel very thirsty. He had not thought about carrying any liquid back with him, it was many miles to Colombo, no buses at this early hour, it was hot and humid, as it generally is, in the Colombo of eternal Summer, and my grandfather began to feel as though he would not make it, this time, when he suddenly espied a culvert on a corner of the road. He went to this culvert, cupped his hands and scooped a handful of the dirty bacteria laden, filthy water and drank it. He later went on to tell me something I have never forgotten. “Son”, he said, 

“you could live without food for a week, but not for a day, without water. That muck I drank from the culvert is the reason I am talking to you today”!!

     Now, to get back finally to my “Arms Open” story, if this “Lake” on Mars is suitable for human consumption, it is the best possible news, because of the fact that our World is now becoming over-populated to the extreme, we have a new place to which we can send all criminals, murderers, rapists, & lawbreakers to, instead of wasting tax payers’ money, keeping them in prisons on Earth. Let’s send them all there, to Mars & let the Martians handle them. I am sure that these Martians, antennae & all will welcome our Crims with their “ARMS OPEN”!!!.

     Desmond Kelly.

     Star of eLanka,