Science fiction. Star colonists

Science fiction. Star colonists

Our species has been on this planet for more than 20 million years now. A very long span of time. But our time on this planet is running out, because it has entered its dark and cold stage.

The star it depended on for its light and heat is dying, and tomorrow it will fade away forever. Leaving behind just a huge ball of black dust, that will spread across the space in a few months. And then there will be no trace of it left anywhere. It will be reduced to just a memory that will illuminate often whenever we think of the bright and sunny days. A memory of 20 million years of progress and scientific excellence. It is a lot to deal with.

However, our species has acquired many skills, and our knowledge of the universe is sufficient to help us survive without any planet to embark on- For nearly a million years.

We are beginning to evacuate the now sterile planet, and tomorrow before the sun emits its last flash of light, we will have left this planet behind by nearly a million miles. And we better hurry, because the non-existence of the sun will cause the planets, including our planet, to enter new orbits and many of them may even crash into one another. Our planet is destined to collide with a neighbouring giant planet, and three moons. When that happens only chance and factors of probability shall define whether they will combine to form a mega planet or they will disintegrate and drift endlessly in space.

It is an unavoidable fate of our planet and that of other planets and moons as well.

Our spaceships are ready, and we have designed them particularly for this event. But, we will have to leave behind many members of our species, and right now our computers are randomly picking the citizens who will join us on the new planet. As for those left behind we know their fate and they know it too. Which is not going to be any different from either the dying star or the cold and dead planet.

But there is a community of planet guardians who do not undergo this moment of extreme anxiety by letting chance define their fate and their every moment there onwards. They have already traveled to the predefined location where we will join them tomorrow. Leaving behind a dying planet and our friends and relatives too. It is a tough choice to make, but sometimes, before fate chooses for us, we have to make a choice and seek new hopes and new dreams. Only if they are worth the risk. And in our case it is worth the risk.

So, I am here to meet my friend who will not be joining me because chance proposed otherwise for him. We sat on the bench, we stood there silent, looking at the dying sun, while the birds flew in all directions. As if they knew DoomsDay was approaching, and for them there was no sky left to fly anymore.

Many of them have been falling from the sky, like a sudden shower of hailstorm on a sunny day. Our experts say it was due to their loss of sense of orientation and their confused body clocks, which largely depend on the Sun to determine direction and a sense of time. And I am sure my friend felt just like these falling birds- Directionless and more than anything else, purposeless and meaningless.

In his case fate has been too cruel and deeply insensitive, right from his birth. But he has always shown extreme courage and resistance in times of adversity. And right now too he was silent, falling like a bird, but he was thinking something crazy, something daring, something unexpectedly wild, because that is who he is at the core of his personality!

But right now, beside me, on the bench, he is just my friend, who will be left on this dying planet forever.

We did not say anything, I got up, looked at him, he looked at me, we shook hands, then with Japanese like humbleness I bowed my head, and I left him on the bench, with the dying birds, and obviously, the dying planet.