Past Mistakes Repeated

We knew our world was ending. The desire to have a more satisfying existence had damaged our planet in the process. Pollutants filled the air, making the quality of life harder for everyone and everything. Our selfishness had turned cold climates warm and warm climates unbearably hot. Every time we turned around there was another disaster stealing people’s lives as easily as the wind takes a leaf from a tree. Colossal hurricanes, immense earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, landslides, flooding, tsunamis…there were times when we wondered if we were already too late to save ourselves.

Hope for our kind lay in the cosmos above. Our wondrous solar system had given birth to two planets with life sustaining capabilities. Scientists had spent decades studying the planet so remarkably similar to ours in size and characteristics. First, there were probes sent just to get initial readings and then as we discovered the presence of oxygen, vegetation and other forms of life our hopes began to soar. All we needed to do was reach out and it could be ours.

I remember the day the call went out saying ‘now is the time’. Our future was finally at hand and we looked at it with heart-swelling optimism. No longer was there the threat of ‘the end’ on our backs. We had found a new beginning, relishing in self-satisfaction for cheating death and staving off extinction. Of course, in the heat of the moment one doesn’t think of those unfortunate souls who never quite met society’s standards; the poor, the weak, and the uneducated.

Several nations had failed to come up with the finances needed to save their people. The shuttles designed to transport hundreds within cost millions of dollars, a price tag too steep for poor economies. Even those who lived in the well-to-do countries had to prove they were worth saving. Rigorous physical and intellectual exams were given before anyone could be put on a list and even then it wasn’t a guarantee. The ones who were cleared to go became known as the Blessed.

As I stood among the crowd waiting for the signal to enter the massive metallic beast, I contemplated the notion of homesickness for a place I would never see again. I was, after all, leaving behind the familiar landscapes, aromas, and sensations I assumed would be there all my life.

“Don’t worry. Just think of all the wondrous things there will be to explore,” a man beside me said and patted my arm. I wondered if my face had a look of concern.

When I finally settled down in my seat, surrounded by the low level buzz of excitement from the other passengers, I had a moment of panic. Did I remember everything? Were there enough photos and sentimental treasures to represent all that came before this moment? I breathed in deeply and told myself that I had all I could possibly take with me and it was pointless to get worked up over something that could not be changed. I closed my eyes and listened to the rumblings of the beast’s inner workings. Shortly after, I had drifted off as the sleep stasis controls kicked in, reducing our conscious experience of the long flight towards our new home.

The first step on soil was filled with trepidation and surrealism like walking into a photo scene of a place you didn’t think actually existed. My senses blazed and nearly overwhelmed me as I stared at a sky much bluer than our tinted violet atmosphere, tasted the air with its myriad of flavours, and absorbed the exotic colours of the vegetation around me. It felt so undeniably foreign that I wondered if I would ever think of this place as home.

The next few years flew with such pace that my mind reeled every time I stopped to make sense of it all. Thousands of hours were spent studying animals that could live in one habitat but not another. Water breathers and air breathers coexisting, forming a symbiosis that neither realized. When we stumbled upon a bipedal creature with the capabilities of learning, a wave of elation swept over us. Like a mother wanting to teach their child everything they knew, we eagerly pulled them into our lives.

Soon, we found that although it was possible to teach them at almost any point in their life-cycle, they flourished the most when they were young. Their rudimentary communication skills were replaced with our languages. They began to build and create, seeking our knowledge like a sponge and we gave it slowly and patiently, understanding that it would take a long time for them to know what we knew.

We found one problem with our new home that none of us had considered. Our bodies had been accustomed to our home planet with its variety of life forms right down to the tiniest microbial organism. We had mastered any sickness that had come our way… until now. No matter how brilliant our minds were, we could not find the solution to a virus that attacked our bodies with vicious precision. There were those of us that believed it was the universe stating its displeasure over our attempt to cheat death. As I lay in the sunlight one last time, my body no longer able to fight the disease that ravaged without mercy, I considered the idea that perhaps they were right.

“Never forget what we have taught you,” I whispered to a student of mine. “You must learn from the mistakes of our kind. We should never have left our home planet. We should have nurtured it like it tried to do so for us. This is your home, human. Never take for granted what the Earth has given you.”

I could hear the crumblings of our city of Atlantis in the distance, sent to the depths of the sea where humans could not go. They weren’t ready for the knowledge contained inside.

As the sun drooped down towards the edges of the horizon, the human gazed at the sky on one particular point. He wondered if they would ever rise to the greatness of these beings and soar into that endless space. Perhaps even go to their home. In the dying light, he said one word, “Venus.”