He checks the watch at his wrist. The brown leather band worn from the constant sand-filled wind that sweeps across the red rock planet. Its grimy surface somehow still reflects off the hot desert sun. He hesitates - just barely - as he goes to continue, licking his lips to try and somehow mend their ever dry state.

" 12, 11, 10..."

You hold your breath as you and the others look on, unable to speak, for fear that a single word might break apart this new reality into irremediable ripples, like a stone silently slipping into a stream. Your vision is fixed on the blue orb in the distance, floating in an inky black pool of nothing. The same void of empty space that you travelled mere months ago, although it feels like years have passed since that verison of yourself and now.

" ...9, 8, 7 ..." His counts are now in pace with the beating of your heart, the blood rushing to your head, a tidal wave poised to crash among a barren shore. The gravity of the situation overwhelms you; your breath more ragged than usual.

"..6, 5, 4..." The anticipation is agony. You find yourself leaning back as the others strain forward, all of you somehow believieng that this miniscule of a change will make a monumental difference in what happens to each of you. You reconcentrate your gaze back on your home planet. The reason why you were here. The reason you entered the lottery in the first place. The planet that was now destined for destruction.

"...3, 2..."

You feel the world go into slow motion as the man's lips part one final time, as if the entire universe was holding its breath, so as not to miss one single moment.

"1"

You expected anything but what happens. The sound so loud its deafening. It has to be. For all that surrounds your ears is the unmistakeable swell of silence. And the blue planet, completely unaware of any human predicament, stays there, utterly still.

Suspended in time.

″There will be a new heaven and a new earth.” The pastor begins his sermon with the same repeated quote of bible verse and applies it to our life here on Mars, praising the fulfillment of scripture.

I sit among our gathered few, our small congregation of believers, nodding in unison, listening to the same Sunday sermon we’ve heard from our youth on Earth. Five years ago, we all made the grand journey, the trip of faith, following the brave , God-appointed entrepreneurs and scientists who left for life on new frontiers, for life on Mars. For five, long , hard years , we have tried to turn this dusty desert into our own utopia, our own promised paradise in the heavens but it’s taking longer than anyone could have envisioned.

The Earth is doomed the pastor continues, judgement day is sure to arrive!

We respond with well-timed and obligatory amens.

War, crime, violence, hatred.....the pastor denounces earthly sins, but life on Mars will be different he says as we are the blessed few.

I gaze out of the small cubed window our of church cubicle, into the inky blackness of our planet and I remember a different Earth. I think of the turquoise of the sea , the lush green of the forests, I remember lazy days on the beach, the beach parties, the sunsets,the music, the art, the aromas

of wonderful foods, the varied cultures, the celebrations. I remember it all ;the good and the bad.

My heart pulls deep inside me, a swell of deep-tissue yearning and I gasp for breath to suppress it.

Every day I look out from the observation deck and every day Earth remains a serene globe of swirling colours fixed in the black void of space.

We’ve all heard rumours, whispered talk in dark corridors, that the war to end all wars on Earth was actually averted. Peace talks prevailed and now all countries around the

world are signing new peace accords, new pledges with a bright outlook on future relations. A new era, they say, a new era of cooperation and global change.

I want to raise my hand and ask the pastor about it but of course there is no Q & A portion to this sermon. We take what we are given.

He drones on with dire warnings of doom and destruction and we nod and we amen.

Suddenly another scripture flashes to my mind, a verse from Psalms. ”The meek shall inherit the Earth. ” And as I watch the pastor talk himself into a red-faced fury of divine vindication , I wonder....what have we inherited ?

It was yet another sleepless night as I stared up at the ceiling in silence. My mind whirled with sentences in foreign languages, and information about our Founding Fathers. I knew then that no sleep would come to soothe my pounding head and burning eyes, but that was no different than usual; I slid out from under the thin sheets I was buried under, finding them much colder than they should have been. Quietly, I padded across my room and sat down beside the radiator that was ticking and banging, but creating a comforting warmth as I looked up and out at the darkened sky outside. I started to think about how worthless my troubles were, and how that one day millions of years from now my stress, and my hard work would all have been for nothing. I started to think about why all this worthless struggle had any meaning at all, and almost like the lights of a car piercing the night air, I finally realized.

I was created out of the same dust, and debris that created the stars, the moon, and the planets. I was created out of the same materials as the universe itself. I breathe the same air as the trees, and the hibernating squirrels, and the birds that sing outside my window at four o’clock in the morning. The universe is the most important creation that has ever been; it was the creation that created all other creation. Without it, nothing would be here; we wouldn’t be here. I started to realize that since we are a part of such an important piece of creation, we must be important too. What would the universe be without the creation it brought with it? I am a part of something much bigger, much more important than anything else that could ever exist. I am part of the universe; we are made of the universe. If that doesn’t make us significant, I don’t know what will.

There are so many people that see humans as being above nature, beyond nature’s laws. If they would take the time to look out their windows and think about the world, they would realize that we aren’t above nature, we are what defines nature. If one believes in such things, we were once something else. Humans were primates, and before that we were reptiles, and if we could trace our heritage back billions of years, we would find ourselves to be plants. We were the basis of what nature developed from. We are the product of development, and evolution, and without us there wouldn’t be anything we have today. The universe would not contain the assets of creation it brought with it. I am a pawn, a key piece in the game of evolution, of development. I am continuing the process of change, and so is everyone else in this universe. We are all products and agents of change, whether we desire to be or not. Each and every one of us are important to the cause of change; without diversity, we would forever be humans, identical, and unchanging. We have grown from plants to insects, from insects to reptiles, and so on, and now we’re part of a new adventure; a new revolution that may take billions of years to complete.

As I sit under the window near the comforting warmth of the radiator, I finally saw why my struggles, and fears were no longer worthless. I am creating a story, a special story that will never be recreated. I am leaving my own unique mark on the universe because I am a part of it. I am made of it. We are changing the universe by making mistakes, and taking chances, and shedding tears, and laughing until we wet ourselves. Each struggle changes the universe because we are the universe. Call me a Modern-Transcendentalist, but if this gives me hope, then it might provide the same feeling for someone else. We are made of the same dust as the Earth, and if one person changes…doesn’t that mean they changed the world? If that’s not something worth living for, I don’t know what is.