Chicken Scratch

The Teenage Writing Site

It happened very suddenly like few things ever do. Richard was loath to call it instantaneous because he of course knew that to be impossibility. Things don’t just happen with no time elapsing. His skepticism did nothing to change the facts. One moment there had been empty space, the next a planet.

Upon the discovery scientists everywhere became immediately befuddled. As Richard sat down to discuss the matter with his peers in physics it began as all such discussions inevitably did. Ignoring the matter of how a planet found itself in a spot where no such body of matter had previously existed, there was still the issue of how they were all still alive. After all gravity is the force of attraction that exists between bodies of mass so with bodies of mass as colossal as the Earth and its new neighbor there ought to be enough of an imbalance in the universe as to disrupt the Earth’s orbit, throw nature into chaos, and spell destruction for the humans. Yet no such havoc ensued.

So focused on the why were they on the why that they neglected to see the what. After a few days of complete disbelief then intense effort to understand they finally looked at the new planet, and much to their horror it was not a particularly lovely sight to behold. The land scorched, the oceans dead, the skies filled with soot to such a degree that it was a miracle . Once they began looking Richard managed to find his answer. Someone very clever had established a series of devices around the planet and where projecting some kind of stasis holding it in place without affecting the space around them. A very clever rigging indeed.

Naturally they fixed telescopes on constant watch and waited to try and once again understand they why. Four days after its arrival something, while perhaps much more subtle than the arrival yet equally as immensely huge, happened. An opening in the clouds of gaunt appeared and through that opening came a shuttle, its voyage the longest six hours in all of human history. As it escaped the hell it came from energy glowed between the satellites then pulsed into the planet destroying it in its entirety.

When it landed and humanity let out a collectively held breath and were immediately let down. They had expected answers. Answers to what exactly varied. Some saw it as an opportunity to explore new technology. Others were looking for conformation of long held faith that life does exist elsewhere and we not solitary in the massive universe. Richard wasn’t interested in any of those audaciously large ideas, only the man he saw coming out of the shuttle. Like all the passengers he was very simply put, old. They exchanged one long glance and when they locked eyes Richard was shaken to his core. Those eyes held an understanding that Richard had been seeking for years and begun to fear he would never find.

Of course then there was the issue of what to do about them. Despite humanity’s desperate cry for answers none were given. There was no reply to where they had come from, what they had left behind, who they were, and how they did it. The questions were directed in a massive deluge but the arrivers stayed silent in all but talk of settlement. They insisted to meet with people of authority who would let them settle. Richard, desperate to cross his path with that of the man once again, was very insistent and persuasive as to why he should be included in the meetings. He knew physics and engineering. He could help them with the logistics and so they let him sit in.

Upon arrival he realized he was useless. The arrivals knew exactly what they wanted needing only someone authorized to give it to them. They demanded they be given space in a desert needing nothing else but their shuttle to be returned. There was no talk of sharing resources or establishing a place for them in the political order of the world. They brought with them all the technology required to build their settlement and had no desire to interact with their adopted world only to be left alone in solitude. The committee only reluctantly accepted the solitude part after being warned that the arrivers were more than capable of keeping out unwanted visitors. Realizing this would be the last time he would see the man Richard pulled him off to the side.

Wasting not a moment he got straight to the point. “Who are you?”

“An old man who has seen too much.”

“Damn it, you storm into my planet and then can’t even find the decency to explain anything. You may have gotten the rest of them to back down but you know what? There is one thing that just hasn’t sat right with me. You all came here roughly the same age being far beyond your primes.”

“Is there a point to this?”

“Why did you come here only to refuse to live among the rest of us? You have no future. What happens when you all die? What then?”

“You let us die. You have presumably seen what we did to our planet? The same goes for our settlement. You let us die, you let our settlement implode into dust, and you let all of your questions die with us.”

“But why?”

“You said it yourself. We have no future. Let a group of old souls live out the last of their days in peace.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way. I can help you; I can help you build a future. Why wont you let me help you?”

“Your help would be lost on us. There are those out there that need it so much more than a bunch beyond salvation or redemption such as my companions and I. Do that for me. Help those you can and those who still deserve it.”

“Fine then. Just run away and die.”

So then the years went on and the arrivers died. True to their word their settlement was died with them and humans forgot the questions that had seemed so desperate at the time. Richard did his best to help those he could, switching his focus from the numbers to the machines with which he could really help people.

All the while things got worse. So much worse than anyone ever imagined they could get. The land became scorched, the oceans dead, and the skies filled with smog. Richard could only delay the inevitable and what was left of humanity had to fight to secure a future after it became abundantly clear that the Earth was now dead to them. The most terrible part of it was that people had long given up hope of things getting better. They stopped having kids because nobody wanted to bring children into that forsaken planet they once called home. Everybody gave up, except for dear old Richard. He continued to build and so he sent into orbit a grid of satellites, the ultimate combination of engineering and physics. He could now transport the dying Earth through space and time. His finger hovered over the button to initiate the process when his wife Susan confronted him.

“Richard don’t you dare hit that button.”

“My dear Susan this is how it happens. Don’t you see it? I am just continuing the cycle that we already saw finish.”

“Why Richard why? Why do you need to continue it? You know that it still ends with out death just as us staying put does.”

“I’m not even sure I have a choice. The timeline might be fixed. There might not be an option to change what happens. The cycle might continue indefinitely.”

“Richard you are the strongest willed man I have ever met. If anyone can break what happens, if anyone can change time itself it is you and that is why I love you and married you.”

“Don’t you see Susan? If I change our future I change our past. The man you love, the man I am, never exists. I have become so much. I have done so much and you are asking me to wipe that all away. I don’t want to be erased; I don’t want some imposter to take my place in time.”

“Don’t you hear how selfish you sound? Don’t involve people who never asked for our involvement. It can only bring them anguish from questions we refuse to answer.”

“You know just as well as I do that we get over our un-answered questions. We move on and become who we are now. Look around. If these are to be the last of our days then I want them to be in the sunlight and on the Earth as we used to love it, not in this wasteland.”

“I suppose there is not much convincing you at this point.”

“No my dear Susan there is not. I have already seen how this ends.”

“Well then the end together is better than the end alone I suppose.”

With that Richard and Susan hit the button together and take what’s left of humanity so many years back instantaneously. In an ultimate twist of universal irony Richard proves himself wrong.