DECEMBER TENTH
RUBEN KING
PLANET EARTH
YEAR 2075
“Do you think mum would like this?”
Ruben’s son, Gaten, were pushing a tablet with a picture of a necklace into his father’s view.
“I’m sure she would,” Ruben smiled.
He hadn’t dared to tell his children, or even wife, about the fact that they were leaving the earth in four days. He didn’t know what to say, how to tell them.
His children didn’t know they were about to miss christmas.
Ruben was a coward of a man.
“Dad, do you think Santa will read the message I sent him?” Gaten asked, looking rather anxious.
“Santa isn’t re-”
Ruben hushed his daughter, Dana, and turned back to Gaten, reassuring.
“Of course, Gaten, I’m sure he will.”
“Good,” he said. Then held the tablet up again. “Are we gonna buy this for mum, then?”
“Yes, of course.”
Ruben didn’t even dare to check the price of the item. He had this voice in his head, telling him that it was better to save all the money they owned to be sure they would afford the evacuation, but he couldn’t turn Gaten down.
“Now go get Bruna,” Ruben told Gaten, who hurried out the room to get his mother.
“You alright?” Dana asked.
“Yes,” Ruben said, slowly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Dana shrugged, turned back to the VR game she had been playing. Bruna walked into the room.
“Shopping for christmas?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Dana put her game on pause again. “Gaten wants an new Screen, he told me.”
“What’s wrong with the one he’s already got?”
“He says it’s slow.”
“Well then,” Bruna sighed, turned to her own Screen, a model she would hold the palm of her hand. “On.”
The Screen lit up, folded itself up.
“Market. Child Screen.”
The device gave her a few suggestions. She looked through them.
Ruben cleared his throat, seemingly nervous about what he was going to say.
“Aren’t Gaten and you getting a little… old for christmas celebrations?” he tried to walk around the subject carefully.
Dana eyed her suspiciously, while Bruna looked up at him, the light from the Screen dancing in her face.
“What do you mean by that?” Dana asked, her voice almost sharp.
“I don’t know… Maybe we’d all use a bit of change?”
“Ruben, what are you talking about?” Bruna looked almost concerned.
“It-” he interrupted himself, backed out. “Nothing.”
And so, with a few more wondering looks at him, Rubens family continued preparing for a christmas they would - or rather would not - be celebrating on Mars.
