Originally Published 3rd September 2015 on goodnewsgeorge.com
“Goodbye, my lover. Goodbye, my friend.”
“How fitting,” I thought to myself. James Blunt music while I’m in a pod miles and miles away from home. I guess it must’ve been some M2M employee’s sorry excuse for a joke. I turned the volume knob on the control panel all the way down to zero, enveloping myself in silence.
This is good. It felt like I hadn’t treated myself to a round of silence for some time. The silence helped me clear my mind. To think about everything. To think about nothing.
***
“You’ll get to start a new life. Forget all your worries. Just leave them all behind!” said the salesman pitching me what he called a vacation to remember.
I was skeptical. I mean, who wouldn’t be of a trip to another planet, all expenses paid, no strings attached. I went over the fine print multiple times. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing I had to be worried about. All I had to do was give them my name and contact number. They said they would call me if I was selected.
I received the call two days later.
***
I was travelling at high speeds, but this ship and suit I wore kept all my innards in place. They told it was safe, not that I was concerned in the first place. I was about ready to kill myself before the trip if I didn’t agree to be a passenger.
I hated my life. I hated my family. I had no friends – if I did, I would have probably hated them too.
From the frying pan into the fire – that idiom basically defined my life. Except that it was a never-ending series of pans and stoves. I kept going from one shitty situation to another. Nothing was going my way. I had lost my job. My country’s economy was shit. I had no savings. My dog had left me. I was being evicted from my home in a few days. I had nobody to borrow money from. There was nobody for me to turn to.
Nothing short of me finding a huge bag of money on the floor could have dug me out of my financial situation. Assuming I didn’t get robbed after finding that money.
So when I was approached by a stranger working for some company called M2M (Mission 2 Mars) and he promised me a better life away from home, I signed up on the spot.
After all, I was on the way to a drug store to steal some medication to kill myself with. I was ready to end it all.
***
“You always know how to make me smile,” I told Sparks. I had just come home from work – to be more accurate, after being fired from work. The mutt ran away that very night.
***
I was on a one way trip to Mars. And I regret nothing. I stared out the window as Earth gradually became smaller and smaller. Gosh, Earth does look as beautiful as it does in the books and movies I’ve seen. Especially from up here.
Then I noticed from a distance, what I thought was merely piece of space debris, an asteroid flying towards Earth. I guess it was pretty far away when I first saw it, because right now it looked to be about half the size of Earth.
It was hurtling towards the planet at an extremely high speed, drenched in flames, like a big fucking fireball.
***
“You’ll never amount to anything! Look at yourself! You’re a piece of shit! I regret not having the abortion!” were the very last words my mother told me before she left with dad after their weekend visit to the shanty side of town a.k.a. my home. Dad was quiet as usual. But I knew his silence was consent.
***
I watched the asteroid – the big fucking fireball – crash into Earth. It blew the planet to smithereens. And as quickly as it happened, it was over.
Earth was no more. And I was on a ship to its neighboring planet.
***
“Forty hours till your destination.” said the voice over the PA system.
***
I never really cared about that place anyway.
I never cared about that place anyway.
I never cared about that place.
I never cared.
Good riddance.
As I stared into the space which was taken up by Earth, I could feel the side of my mouth turning upwards, slowly creeping into a smile.
Writing Prompt from Reddit – You are one of the people sent to mars in 2020. Everyone thinks you volunteered for a suicide mission. You watch from a biosphere as Earth gets demolished by a large asteroid.