Ephemeris

11 : A Primordial Sister

The lovely blue planet was home to millions of species of flora and fauna. The people were her children, given the task of taking care of and cultivating her rich soil and waters. She was exulting whenever she saw their meager work yielded a good harvest, trying to ameliorate their lives with all capacity. However, people got smarter. She did not know they would poison her in exchange for more gifts. But she did not mind it. She gave them more while receiving small in return. She was too kind, though too stupid. Despite that, it was all right for her.

One afternoon, she heard the cry of winds and the roar of thunder breaking off afar, waking her. And at that moment of awakening, a catalyst stunned her. She saw strips of waste and destruction everywhere. Ugliness corroded her beauty. She realized that she was too naïve, believing that humans were good. They were greedy and selfish. "Impertinent!" she bellowed, "Curse them!"

The skies wept, flooding the horizon. Volcanoes screamed, erupting molten rocks and shaking the crust. Even though Mother Nature unleashed a deluge and tremors for over a month to punish the earthlings, she forgave and forgot everything and gave them another chance, a motherly love. Dispersing all the heavy gray clouds, she began painting a curved line of different colors in the sky—a rainbow—reminding them that she would never do it again.

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"Beautiful," a word suavely escaped from Gale's breath, gazing out the window of the garbage vehicle admiring Earth's stunning view from space.

Gale saw a large solid rocket booster floating on the northernmost edge of Greenland's airspace. "Oh, another junk," he whispered, hitting switches and buttons on the control panel. A glow ignited on the space vehicle's rearmost part. The bluish-white compact laser beams propelled the spaceship smoothly. He grabbed the handwheel, pressed the pedal, maneuvered it rightward, and headed for the dreamy northern lights.

Aurora borealis canopied the Arctic region with its luminous streamers and arches of green and pink lights. The lights danced gracefully like flowing pleated and flared skirts, swaying a lovely waltz. It also looked like long drapes tossed by a gentle breeze waving in complete submission. The gleaming phenomenon of the upper magnetic atmosphere, a party of ribbons of illuminations, was trance-like at first glance. However, its superficiality guiles subtle trickery. Beyond the knowledge of the man busily controlling the space garbage vehicle, underneath the deceptive luscious surreal lumens hid a tragedy.

"Uh-huh, there you are!" Gale interjected, stumbling onto the old giant metal he was looking for. He lifted his foot off the pedal, dimming the laser beam behind. Its two long mechanical arms moved and grabbed the floating metal. The ends of the mechanical arms released the intelligent fingers, and they crawled, similar to a limbless scaled reptile constricting the debris securely. His expert fingers tapped and pressed the dashboard gracefully, like playing a grand piano. With one press of a button, the topside opened, and gently the robotic arms deposited the debris inside the compartment. The boogying of his digits continued, skipping and hopping in rhythm. He was so talented, a real virtuoso in fingering the instrument panel. "Done," he luxuriated at the moment. And then, the space vehicle arched away to the vastness of cosmic space, carrying a massive scrap, parting from the party of colored lights of the North Pole.

Covering a considerable distance from the Earth, Gale knew it was enough to toss away the threatening debris. So, he shifted some gears and pressed a sequence of buttons freeing the metallic rubbish. The old rocket part drifted farther, looking smaller and smaller from his perspective, engulfed by the unfathomable blackness we were eager to unfold further.

Out of the blue, an unpleasant itch formed ripples of creases on his left temple. Gale wished he could scratch the mole on the corner of his eye, but he couldn't with the spacesuit and helmet on. Well, he could remove the helmet, but it was protection from the sun's harmful radiation. He was infuriated by the lack of options to remedy the itch, to end it. This simple skin irritation is one of the battles that I cannot win. Nothing is more irritating than an itch you can't scratch, he thought, heaving a deep sigh.