DECEMBER FOURTEEN
RUBEN KING
PLANET EARTH
YEAR 2075
Ruben hadn’t slept. He got up in the early hours, didn’t make a sound as he woke up first Bruna, then Gaten, and last Dana.
Bruna was upset, angry, scared. But Ruben knew that she understood why he had made the decision he had.
Dana couldn’t manage to stop crying. She didn’t talk, just stood in the middle of the house, tears running down her face. She was in shock, Ruben could tell, she hadn’t yet understood that it was real, that it was really happening.
Gaten hadn’t understood what was really happening around him. He was sad, but couldn’t grasp the idea of leaving a planet for good.
None of them ate breakfast.
None of then said a word to one other. It was like they were all scared of what could happen if anyone broke the delicate silence.
Gaten had packed a rucksack full of toys he planned to bring.
“Honey,” Bruna was the one to break the silence. She leaned down, so they were eye to eye. “You cannot bring those, it’s not allowed.”
His chin began to tremble.
“B-but I can’t leave Teddy alone!”
“Teddy will he just fine, I promise you.”
Hot tears ran down Gaten’s cheeks as Bruna carefully forced his fists - closed around the backpack - open.
Bruna carried him to the drone taxi while he cried, desperately banging his fists against her shoulder. Dana, already sitting in the taxi with an empty face, hugged him tightly.
Ruben was still in the kitchen. Just like the night Bruna had found him sitting at the table in the middle of the night.
“Ruben,” Bruna said, standing in the doorway. And it felt so much like that night six days ago. And he closed his eyes. And he wished he had told her right then. Told her everything.
He knew he had to tell her now. It was his last chance. The last chance to be honest with her before he left the planet Earth.
He wanted to back out again. Be a coward, again.
“Ruben?”
He knew he had no choice.
“Bruna,” he said. “I haven’t been honest with you.”
He could see in her face that he had hurt her, over and over with his lies. His hundred lies.
He closed his eyes.
“There had been another woman.”
Ruben King was a coward of a man.
Gaten had stopped crying as they got to the drone taxi.
He had commanded the radio on.
All I Want For Christmas played as they left their house for the last time, and saw it become smaller, smaller, smaller.
The drone taxi landed before NASA’s gates.
They got out.
His family wouldn’t look at him. Just got into the building, leaving him behind.
Ruben stopped at the gates. Took a last look of everything he had ever known. Snow, buildings, people. Snow.
Ruben would miss the snow.
He took a last deep breath.
His family hated him.
He had forced them to go to Mars.
He too was going to Mars.
He closed his eyes, walked through the gates.
It was December fourteen.
Ruben Brian King was a coward of a man.
It was the last day the city of London saw snow.
