Fiction Short Story – Life back on earth
Photo credit: pschubert from morguefile.com
It is 7 am in the morning & the alarm reminds me once again to prepare for the school. It is a beautiful day with clear sky & lot of bright sunshine. But I don’t have time to soak into this because my school vehicle will come sharp at 8 & in case I miss , my parent will give me a thrashing. So better run.
My school bus just took off & zooming past the residential towers. It takes only 5 minutes to reach to the school where each of us will have designated routines to follow & any deviation will be caught on CCTV & reported back to my parents online on their desk. After all, it is year 2300.
Oh yes! We are the 4th generation people living on Europa in a habitable space which has been created specifically for us by men in 22nd century. The earth became dangerous for living due to increasing pollution which our forefathers created & hence mankind had to look to other places for a living. All over the world, a handful of people were selected & my great grandparents traveled all the way to this place to continue a life.
It is 12 pm & lunch time. Today we were served some delicious cream & chocolates. These are made on planet Mars these days & brought here directly. I am feeling little sleepy but my robotic teacher won’t give me a break and also our results will be out today. I am feeling little tensed.
Oh my God! I have come 1st in my class & feeling over the moon (Or, over the Europa). And, you won’t believe me – I have got a chance for visit earth along with others on a day trip. I am so excited about the trip & my parents are equally so. I am carrying my latest camera to catch every moments of the journey.
Finally we are on earth after 4 hours journey & we are in our organo-synthetic suit to protect against the harmful environment where once mankind took their first breath. There are still some colonies of humans spreading across the globe mostly in the triangular land mass (historians say it Africa) & I am very eager to see them closely. May be I get a chance of my race living on an alien planet.
It is noon on earth & the atmosphere is quite hazy. My guide robot says that this is due to blocking of sunrays by particles & earth is much colder these days than 300 years back. I can see a vast canal full of water (it is called river Nile in local language) & lots of sands around. Quite an interesting place, full of natural diversity. I wish we could have grown something like this on our planet. Of course, everything on our planet is recycled & hence we may be don’t need so much water. It is time to find some human beings.
I don’t know what to say about this. Some crazy little children are running around a round object in open ground & shouting ‘goal goal ‘occasionally. My robo guide told me it used to be most popular sport on earth. Of course I can’t understand what’s the fun in meaningless running around & losing precious energy like this. We also play at our home with simulators on alien invasion games, which is much more exciting.
I also watched some four legged species, flying little species & much more. Seem to be much basic forms of life with no purpose in life. In some places people are digging soils & planting small grass like trees. I heard that this is how humans on earth make their food. What a backdated practice! On our planet, food is made in factories by robots from chemicals & we only take them twice a day. Anyway, I keep watching people chatting, laughing & working together. Don’t know why there is so much noise around while on work. Ofosourse, all the humans are covered in some clothes with bruised skin. My guide told me the atmospheric pollution has taken a toll on everyone & there are slim chances that life on earth will continue any longer.
It is getting darker & we have to go back. I didn’t have a great trip ( I thought it would be more fun out here ) especially in the end when these earth humans started shouting & throwing stones at our spaceship when we tried to go close to them. Did we do something wrong to them? I couldn’t quite understand but my heart says there is something which we couldn’t see or didn’t try to see.
It is night & I am going to sleep at my bed. I can see the round object, the different species, trees, rivers, other human beings. The place where we have come from, but left far behind to move on with our life on Europa. Not sure though how long life on earth will move on. But that’s not our headache. I have to go to school tomorrow. Goodnight.
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