Earth

• Frosia Gorskikh, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2019

Deserted. Abandoned. Mistreated. Wires, tiles and broken branches hanging from trees. Trees. Broken trees. Painted trees. Dirty, demolished black old buildings. Bricks. Just laying there. Trashed with cans and plastic bags. Remains. Remains of dead birds. Old skeletons of forgotten friends. Grey clouds. Grey atmosphere. Grey mingling smoke. Grey everything. Grey core of the earth. Grey soul of those who used to inhabit this land, those who now have fled. The Earth. Hanging in there on a small string. If broken, it is gone. If mended, it is free. But nothing's there to help it. Now or never was years ago. A missed chance. Fogged memory of beautiful sunshine days and nesting birds when the clouds were not black like coal, and poles were not bended and left between cracked roads. That memory, gone. Buried under garbage and scraps. Buried under words of hate. Words. Not a word has been said since thousands of years. Not a chance left. Not one small chance.

“The Vessel”. A huge spaceship, landed in a field of grey. Through windows and doors. Through holes the Blue people looked. They were afraid. Out stepped their king. Horrified. Bewildered. Disgusted. Disgusted that one, or many humans could treat such a paradise that they were gifted, with ungratefulness. He was shocked. The Blue people proceeded out the Vessel, out to the Earth and the barren, dry dirt.
Crack, crack.
As they stepped. Open mouths. Not a single living thing. Except them, of course. The sun, covered by a thick smoke. It can’t be seen. Can’t be sensed. Can’t be dug out. Misery. That’s what the Blue people felt that day. Was there a war? Or a bomb? What happened? Where were its people?
Dark. Smell of cement and burnt meat. Eyes stinging. Post-Apocalyptic world. But where were they, when entrusted a mission to keep this world safe, jumped with joy and took the honour. They who now have fled. They who were us. Generations away from us. Our ancestors, our sons and daughters, have left the memories created on this now deserted, black planet.
The’ve fled. Left.
But where? Away? Above? Around us…?
Not a single strand of grass. Not a single glowing dandelion whisking in the wind. All of it. Destroyed.

As i’m sitting staring out my window, just like the Blue people, who have come to make peace. Who have come to help. To help. I am wondering. Why? When? When did the chance to save ourselves fly by and how? How did we miss it? Why was it like this? We trust the hands of the government, but we forget we have our own hands.
We trust computers to be our brains, but we forget we have our own brains. That doesn’t matter anymore, life is gone. It’s missed. It’s far away now.

And as the Blue people stroll back up their Vessel, eyes glued to the floor. The dirty, grey concrete floor, they think.
Just as I am thinking now. They think.

Why?