Exiled to Martian

The spacecraft landed safely on the barren, dusty red-planet. Mars. It was rocky-hot, but quickly it became our new home, a permanent residence. 

We explored the arid and parched topography. 

For the first few years, it was such an exquisite and exuberant feeling being there. It was like falling in love for the first time. We wondered and worked in unison. We put our hearts and minds together, and endeavored to reinvent the wheels of life we’d had on Earth. 

It’s been twenty-five years since our arrival. We’ve tried whatever humanly possible. Unsuccessful we remained, replicating anything that was on Earth, the green planet we’d ignored and ruined; we were unable to grow a single breath of fresh life on Maritan.  

It’s inevitable that eventually, everything dies—so did our hopes. 

Like the late Blues legend B.B King, beautifully sung it,  “The Thrill Is Gone.” 

Our hopes and dreams silently began to fade away into the scorching, grimy air. 

Doomsday was coming at us again quicker than expected.

Many made peace with it, dying in silence, alone or with their loved ones in outer space. 

After a while, I suppose you’d become immune to numbness and dealing with the unpleasant lifestyle, even if the cost of waiting for your own demise takes forever.

Resources were slowly depleting. We had to start rationing out the food. And the future was becoming bleak, and unpredictable. 

Fear and terror reigned on our new home as we started fighting over the unsustainable future. Suddenly, all the chaos amongst us seemed familiar like looking your old-self picture in front of you, much clearer this time.

I remembered how we had also quarreled before the destruction. We shed blood like stream of water, killing every living thing on it. Then, we watched everything crumbling and dying beneath our naked eyes. We annihilated what once used to be such a vivacious and green land full of existence. 

Overnight, everything on it withered away; destruction of our own doing changed our mortality. Vanity was our downfall. 

Nothing changed on Maritan either. We went back to our natural survival instincts to harness it.

The killing started as the weak wished they had stayed behind. 

It was too late, longing for the home we’d abandoned. We had to wait for another judgment day on the new red planet while crying rosy tears we couldn’t afford to squander.

They say that death is precious and is a natural cycle that knocks at your door in the darkness. That way, it’s easy to fall asleep forever while you’re dreaming at night when the stars and moon are glistening in the sky. 

I grew weary of losing hope and dreadfully staring in the eyes of a silent killer. I knew returning to Earth was impossible. Perhaps some might call it a suicide mission. But, I couldn’t allow myself to perish while I’m standing; there was still a raging fire and breath left in me.

I started the long journey back to Earth; I might salvage whatever left of it, anything from the wreckage because there is no place like home.

It was time to rebuild a new domicile on new Earth from a scratch.

I’d rather lay my frail dreams and corpse on the same ashes I was made from, and return to dust one day than dying in a place of nowhere too far away from home.

midnightink 8-13-2020