The sun had set and the long lunar night started hours ago. Yet the bare lunar landscape was awash with harsh white light; every rock and crevice thrown into sharp focus with equally dark shadows lurking where ever the light could not reach. There was a gigantic wall of mountains to one side, huge cliffs that rose high into the sky forming a formidable rock wall. It was along this wall of rock that Munhib drove his lunar tractor.
The tractor moved along swiftly but soundlessly until it paused at a gap between the cliffs. Munhib took a minute to estimate the width of the gap before driving through and emerging a few minutes later on the other side where he could finally see the source of the light.
It hung in the dark lunar sky, a bright white disk much larger than the moon, reflecting the light from the sun with breath taking brilliance.
"Earth!" whispered Munhib, stopping the tractor and staring sadly at the mother planet, the home of the human race.
He could not help but remember the day he had first come to the observatory of the moon, along with all the other families of the scientists posted there. He remembered how excited he had been, how excited they had all been. None of them had ever guessed that they would never return. Then two months later war had broken out on earth, one of the most destructive ones yet. And in the end, as a result of the hydrogen bomb, the earth had been destroyed.
The planet remained but all life was gone. The atmosphere was too poisonous to support any life except maybe the protists and the bacteria. Maybe even those were gone and all that was left behind was rubble and volcanic rock.
The little community on the moon had survived because of its extreme isolation from the planet. The scientists on the moon considered themselves lucky to have survived. They were lucky to have discovered ways of producing food and oxygen by themselves for if they had not, they too would have perished soon after their fellow humans on earth. It took them a long time but now finally, after five years, they had won the race for survival. And now started the long wait for their planet to become inhabitable again for the radioactive fires to die down but until that happened, they had infinite time on their hands. Unlimited time to explore the universe around them and they hoped to find another home somewhere beyond our solar system.
Munhib was to be a part of that first expedition to the outer planets and he knew that he may not return but that was a risk that had to be taken. And so Munhib sat alone in a tractor on the earth side of the moon staring up at the planet that the humans had destroyed. He knew very well that this would be the last time he saw the earth before venturing off into the unknown.
"Farewell my dear planet," he whispered. "I may not see you again but I will never forget you!"
Then he turned his tractor around and drove back towards the observatory with both sadness and hope in his heart. Humanity had destroyed itself. The violence and desire for power which has always been a major characteristic of the human race had turned out to be its most fatal flaw. But maybe the human race had learnt its lesson this time and would take care not repeat the same mistakes in the future.
