the four-leaf clover

the four-leaf clover
31 march, 2006

On the surface the planet is gray, slate gray. The clouds are pale yellow and there is always wind. The solar system's sun it too far away for brightness, it is the sixteen satellite and moons of the planet which create the heat.

It rains only during the thirteenth month of 43 days, the month of Metis. Torrents of rain fall, tropical storm quantities of water unimaginable for anyone remembering stories of the small rainfalls on the mother planet Earth. The water was cleverly collected by an elaborate system of pipes and drums so that it would last for the rest of the 688 day year. Water was used as a mixing agent for all of the minerals and nutrients naturally found in the rock formations, the heat being such that it dried the rock out leaving clouds of nurturing dust everywhere imaginable.

The year was divided into seven seasons, the last season being that of the second renewal, came at the end of the year, during the months of Pasiphaé, Sinope, and Thèbe.

People ate pills of every color and shape, but even after hundreds of generations of colonization, the human nature still yearned for real food.

The only thing that grows on the planet is the four-leaf clover, an extremely rare plant imported from the mother planet Earth, once the earthlings discovered how to fabricate it from the traditional three leaf version. The extra leaf somehow contained secret chemicals unknown to anyone still living on the planet; the secrets of its genetic remastering had long been forgotten. It was not one of mankind's best inventions, but one that had lasted the longest.

On Jupiter, because nothing can grow on the surface of the planet, the original earthlings found a way to suspend rich growing earth imported the moon Sinope in the middle of the air, at two feet above the ground level, a reincarnation of the hanging gardens of Babylon, which were always supposed to be mythical.

Once a year, reviving the former holiday of April Fools day, the local population had the right to eat real earth food, and the entire southern crops of clover were eaten joyously by the people living there. These festivities took place during the season of the eternal wind fire, the months of Carme and Elara.

Unfortunately, their bodies always had allergic reactions to the clover. There were horrible itching skin rashes, one became incapable of walking without tottering over due to visual problems where everyone saw green, and in the worse cases, people could eat or drink nothing. Remembering that the average temperature on the surface of the planet was 45 degrees Celsius, this meant that many people also died. The symptoms lasted for three days. Three days when the planet fell into agony.

Yet the insatiable thirst to taste real earth food once a year put most people into such a state of excitement that they were willing to undergo these negative side effects at least once every two years or so.

Underground, there were caves where the temperatures were much cooler, and where survival for the sick was easier, but there was never enough space for all of the people to avoid the planet's surface heat. The native rock formations of the planet were impossible to dig, making it impossible to build new caves. After so many generations away from mother Earth, people had forgotten all of the important tools which had been constructed for such unique purposes. On Jupiter, life had been sought for its simplicity and hardiness.

There were, as is the case of every society, important people who, while enjoying the luxury of eating food once a year, couldn't afford to take three days away from their working schedules, loitering in the cooler underground havens, in order to recuperate from the side effects. There were others who simply could not deal with the agony of the side effects and sought healing instead of undergoing the growing pains of understanding why they sought such suffering.

Every four years a new child was born on the 37th day of the last and sixteenth month, Thebes. They were called the Thebolist Children. These children were fed magnesium powder for their entire lives, providing them thus with a natural resistance to the ill effects of the four leaf clover. The only child born on this day to acquire this immunity was the third male born in the third hour. There was a magic in the way the moons and satellites were aligned at that moment which gave him he special resistance which eventually lead to his talent as a four-leaf clover healer. The children were able to heal people until their tears dried up, at the age of twenty-seven, the moment in their lives when they needed to take a partner in order to maximize the chances of reproduction, thus furthering the race.

Healing through the tears was a complicated process. Before the tears could fall into the palms of the left hand of the person seeking healing, several things needed to be accomplished as a sort of ritual cleansing. First of all, he who sought healing needed to believe in the magic. That in itself was not too hard. But he also had to make the sacrifice of a blue yellow-streaked stone coming from Amalthée, the second satellite. Expeditions were made regularly but the stones could not be simply plucked from the rocky cliffs where they were found. The blue yellow-streaked stones chose who was to receive them. These precious stones could sometimes be purchased, though the price was never in currency but through the effort of sharing something rare. It could be purple sand from Adraste, a blue tree from Ananke, or Callisto, sacred triangular stones from Europe, exotic gems from Ganymède, Himalia, or Io, or lastly and the most rare of all, the pink milk form the fat thorny cactus plants found on Léda and Lysithée.

So it was not as easy as it seemed to participate in the April Fool's frenzy of eating four-leaf clover. One had to have character, and determination and a lot of luck, for no one knew in advance who would become the sickest and be in the most need for healing. The people in exchange for being cured, had to promise to do one good deed per week until the next April Fools day, when they would have the next opportunity to choose whether or not to remain under the ill effects for the full three days after eating the clover leaves.

Good deeds. What kind of good deeds did the population have to impose on themselves in order to honor the healing offered by the Thebolist Children? Everyone had enough colored pills to sustain his life, and most people found work to occupy their hours. The colonies had been founded to break away from the materialism that brought the downfall of planet mother Earth.

The gift of love. The gift of honesty. The gift of creativity. The gift of music. The colony of Jupiter was known all over the galaxy for having the highest concentration of creative talent. People came from planets near and far to participate in the joy of the Jupiterians talents. Their gift to the Thebolist Children was to accomplish anything and everything possible in order to make the daily lives of the colony beautiful and memorable.

That's what mankind forgot on mother Earth. How to live simply, enjoy the simple pleasures, for they never came to the realization that possessing things never brought happiness. It brought jealousy and that jealousy turned into wars about people wanting what they could not have. On Jupiter, though most all of the past history of mankind had been forgotten, the souls of men still sought redemption.

Redemption was the gift they offered the Thebolist Children capable of healing them from the wounds of the four-leaf clover consumed on a day basically commemorating stupid childish pranks.