Item Biography
"The Story of... Dejah Thoris"
"I dream of Dejah Thoris. All of the time, lately. Especially when the Opium starts to hit home and work its malignant wonder. Darling Dejah Thoris. Now there was a swanky dame. Legs up to here! Trim little waist, compact bust, long slender neck, moist inviting lips, cobalt blue eyes and crowned by raven-dark hair. What a total doll. Intoxicating, incomparable, and a load of other ten-cent words I can't think of right now.
Since I came back to Earth, things've changed a whole heap. Abe Lincoln got shot a year before I was whisked away to Mars that first time. I didn't fight a Civil War to see all the Negro slaves get freed and each given 40 acres of land and a mule to tend it. Still, that never quite came to pass. God saw fit to make the black Diaspora better Jazz musicians and entertainers, than farmers.
Speaking of entertainers.... Josephine Baker is the only danged woman I've met on Earth that reminded me of Dejah, and her near-naked hedonistic abandon, when I caught her act at the Folies Bergère, over in Paris. Who am I to talk? I must've looked pretty embarrassing, running around in barely more than a loincloth..... but still, when on Mars, do as the Martians do.
We thank God for these newfangled things called automobiles. They're both a blessing and a curse. Henry Ford and Herb Pratt can both eat my spit! Can't even afford the price of gas these days. We got airplanes in the sky here, but not as sophisticated as the Martian skyships of my days. Wonder how much farther they've advanced out there since I've been gone?
Another thing that always bothered me about the native Martian creatures.... too many legs AND arms, and God knows whatever else. Hard enough to cope with the fact they were green to begin with, but then I also found them to be red; when I met Dejah for the first time, albino white, black as opaque and even egg-yolk yellow.
Dejah was in chains the first time I ever laid eyes on her, enslaved by the Tharks. But still she carried a dignity about her I had never seen in the Southern ladies I'd known before. On Earth, you'd slap a dame to the dirt and you'd expect her to have the good manners to stay down - Not get back right up and sock you smack, dab in the jaw.
She could be stubborn as a mule sometimes. Shortly after we first met, she refused to speak to me for a whole month. Like I'd said something wrong. I felt I owed her my pledge to free her from captivity.
Given that Dejah Thoris was a woman you'd die for and kill to be with, let's just say I did ice a few Tharks along the way. We rode off into the Martian sunset together with Sola - who'd always been alright with me, in tow. It wasn't a fairytale ending, though. A hundred Green Men pursued me on their Thoat steeds.
When I look up to the stars, I always think of old Mars and getting back to that dry red ball of dust. I know she'll still be waiting there for me. She'll live for thousands of years. So might I. Picture it, J.C. and D.T. together forever."