Left without any recourse I set out over the far reaching plain. It’s red hot appearance, under the scorching sun, intimidated some, lured others. Me, well it kind of reminded me of Georgia. It reminded me of the hard baked clay of home during a blistering, rainless summer. Cracked and lifeless the ground stretched before me. Just like home. Home then, and just like home now. Barren. The young would never have any such memories to make comparisons.

We are a war like race. No one ever really wanted to admit that. But there you have it. We raped and pillaged through thousands of years. Probably more if there’d been more history told. We called ourselves civilized because we could build monuments that reached toward the sky. While our predecessors lived in lightless caves. I think they used to say, “score one.” Well, score one for the
assholes. The stupid assholes.

Weapons of mass destruction. Ha! Each step, from a cave dweller raising a rock over the body of their neighbor, until the very end of the world as I had known it, devastation was the only possible conclusion. Mutual annihilation. Not logical, but forgone. Breathing creatures are not logical. No matter how many legs they walk on. No matter how high or low they are on the food chain.

I ruminate, yes? Sometimes now that is all there is to chew on. Your thoughts. However it’s my mind. No one else is listening. I have a ways to go and thinking keeps me occupied. The scenery sure is no great shakes. No one is even within sight. Not like the old days. Packs, lines, structured. We liked structure. We craved it. We made it by design. It didn’t seem to exist much in nature, so by creating it, in our small way gave us the illusion we had some control, some choice. Ha!

You know they had the food chain thing wrong. They had it backwards. You do not want to be at the top of the food chain. You want to be at the bottom. Creatures at the bottom of a food chain can eat anything, and survive; exist. The further up in the pyramid you are the scarcer things that you can use for nourishment become. When that happens, well, they should have realized they were dying out. The body adapts. It would have adapted to eating dirt. And there was plenty of dirt. At one time all manner of good things came from the dirt back home. The earth was full. Full of plants; full of water; full of minerals. Everything to keep a being alive. The only weapons of mass destruction existing in the beginning were weather related. Or the world itself when it cracked open spewing fire. Letting us know, reminding us, we have no control at all. We never listen.

Food became a great point of contention. Supply chains, and all. We should have noticed. (Well, some did.) When they made 16oz. servings 12oz. And a gallon into 7 pints. It was a fast slide downhill from there.

They poisoned the water. They made us think it was for our own good. Some additives killed naturally occurring organisms that could be deadly. But so were the artificial chemicals, usually. The additives were just slower acting in most cases. I guess our ancestors preferred crystallizing their circulatory system for some seven possible decades of life, to shitting their life force out their ass in a matter of weeks. You can die slow or you can die fast. Either way we are dying.

Man’s afraid to die. Nope, man’s afraid to live. We don’t know why we’re here. We don’t know what we’re meant to do. We don’t know who we are. Most importantly we don’t know who you are. So, we might need to dominate and/or kill you before you do those things to us. What a freak show. A carnival. Another thing offspring will never understand as a reference. What a circus. What a side-show. What a stage production, song and dance. A dramedy. These generations will remember war. Hate. Genocide. All forms of entertainment may have faded or changed. But not that one.

Not war. No wonder that the ancient ones believed War a god. Maybe it is. Maybe that’s why no matter how hard we tried, war was always there, here, everywhere. The poor will always be with you, said so many philosophers. Well, I say so will war. Greed, hate, fear. You can call it anything you like, but it all boils down to. . . fear.

We’re scared from the egg. Maybe we’re scared in the egg. We’re feed on fear; we’re fed fear. We should have adapted to feed off dirt. Well, we were fed dirt in a way. They spoon fed us the dirt they wanted us to have, laced with sweetener to make it palatable in small sound bites, becoming increasingly larger doses until we exploded. Only a few noticed it was really laced with bullshit. If they’d learned to eat real soil, they would have known. Bullshit is almost as sweet as honey. Both are deadly if stuffed down your gullet until you choke.

Weapons of mass destruction come in all shapes and sizes. Most of them were not guns, bullets, lasers, or other projectiles that guns deployed. The destroyer has always been the creature, of course. Creatures pick up the rock, swing the sword, pull the bowstring, cock the hammer, squeeze the trigger, push the button. You can continue ‘til the end of time to remove yourself further from the noise but weapons of mass slaughter are operated by creatures. These weapons are built for one purpose. So the user can be the last one standing. That means you just might be. . . alone.

Red, black, white, yellow. What should I think of that other fellow? He’s not like me. That I can see. I don’t care what’s in his heart. My first instinct is to tear him apart!

If you look close enough we’re all the same. Okay. There are small differences. Length of one thing. Height of another. A placement of an internal organ. Maybe more than one of some things, less of others. So what. I think color was the main one. The main one that set creatures against each other. You shouldn’t be a different color than me. You shouldn’t live in a different region. You shouldn’t communicate differently then I do. Hum. Maybe I want something you have. The list goes on.

If some being stuck all these atoms together, I bet they thought we were going to find all the little, small, tiny differences interesting. We’d see the beauty. The diversity would have kept away the boredom. But it polarized us into kingdoms. Factions. And factions seem to create. They create all manner of things. But in the end they create war. And war never ends until it wrecks everything.

Well I made it. I made it across to the next colony. And I made it through the last conflict. I intended to make it to the colony. I really didn’t want or intend to make it through the final battle on the old planet. I always said I’d just sit and watch the fireworks enjoying my vices, old and new. And I did. And then I woke up here. Don’t recollect how. Don’t know why. Don’t much care.

I enter the first decompression chamber. In the second chamber I remove the footwear needed to walk outside. I place the six boots on the floor. Next off is the helmet. Nice. I can wiggle my antenna freely now and I do. I can see out of all my eyes. Seeing in only the forward direction available in the headgear is like having blinders on. Restricting. Then off comes the suit, needed even with my strong exoskeleton. I can now breathe without the tanks on my back. But I know even this air is manufactured to support life.

Welcome to the future. Maybe we won’t destroy everything this time.

Written by Cheryl Ellis