Can We Run Away?

• Fariha Mahjabine, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2019

The beginning of a new world was overshadowing the debris humans had left in Earth. No one looked back to the the once blue green planet since Mars was our future. It had everything we needed, except a thick atmosphere. We were heartbroken to know that our skinny jeans and t shirts had to be replaced with the Gucci priced thrift store equivalent, the space suits. Once the suit of a spaceman, now the burden of us all. But fashion won’t betray us. Our greed will.

When moving from Earth to Mars, Mother Nature pulled its children back and so animals nor plants could be taken to Mars. Unfortunately, Icarus tries to fly to the sun and so, the rebelling birds took flight and joined the humans. Little did they know, they had become the apple of greeds eye.

Mars had no animals to poach. Where would we get our expensive commodities? All heads turned to the birds. The birds that couldn’t live in the harsh conditions of Mars. The birds that were just like us. The birds that were isolated. The non humans. The ‘them’. Poaching humans was too animalistic, but birds...ahh yes...I see now, birds were an excellent tool. The blood going under feathers were no longer of the winged animals, they were of humans. Feathers were now on spacesuits and the Achilles heel, bird feet necklaces and our personal favourite, the bird tongue boot sole. The majestic animals now limped, featherless, legless, tongueless. Unable to escape.

There’s a child playing on the corpse like ground. Eyes filled with possible intelligence, but naivety to the fact that the pure air flowing through his body was not of this planet. Unknown to him, his feet were like a penguin’s. Small and waddling. The boy’s gleeful face is suddenly replaced by a dumbfounded one. A lone bird, head turned away from him, stands ahead. As seen by the boom boom box, birds were kept in the labs so, how is this one outside?

Arms outstretched, he runs to it. It doesn’t move.
‘Good bird! Let me touch you!’ the boy squeals, assuming that the bird was an unintellectual. But the bird knows what is to come. It knows the horrible future of the little boy. It sharply turns its head to the right, just in time to see its fellow lab mates leap onto the child. They squawk and laugh maniacally. Their cut tongues wobble. The boy is a statue. Dead. unmoving. Terrified.

A beak penetrates his space suit. Pure oxygen leaks outside. The child is gasping. Choking, wheezing. While he is being stolen of his life, the birds bathe in air and store it for future use. They remember their mother. Inhuman creatures feel human as they feel emotions that humans haven’t felt in a long time. But once again, the birds and the humans are the same. The beginning of a new world was simply a copy of the debris humans had left in Earth.