Birthdays in Paradiso

Birthdays are … treated like they are now, I guess?

But for people like Dee Manzen, they can be difficult. For starters, she doesn’t know when – or where – she was born originally, so she just goes by the date she remembers waking up for the first time: in the middle of the Martian summer (Martian years are nearly twice as long as Earth years). It’s a very solitary affair for her, one that she celebrates usually by going on a solo trip somewhere she’s never been before. The previous year, she went to a casino in the asteroid belt, and the year before that, she hiked the Olympus Mons on Mars with a very taciturn guide that only went by Sam.

They didn’t keep in touch.

With her birthday fast approaching, Dee hasn’t quite decided what she is going to do. She’s saved up enough to go to pretty much any location on Earth, but she has this feeling she is going to be otherwise occupied.