The Survivors – #WRITEPHOTO
Captain Hetmeyer Rockefeller glanced through the viewfinder of his spaceship ‘The Voyager XV” at the distant planet he could see to his left. He was among the last of human beings from the planet earth who were fortunate to be alive. The planet earth had gone on a self destructive mode since the middle of the 21st century. War after war and ruthless exploitation of mother earth’s resources has slowly and steadily eroded her habitability. World leaders had held summits through the 21st and 22nd centuries and several pacts had been signed.
But true to form, after an initial flurry of serious activity no country had made sincere efforts to control the slow erosion of the earth’s resources. Human beings had conquered everything around them but could not learn the art of self discipline and self governance. World leaders had spent millions of dollars in space exploration and right from the middle of the 22nd century efforts were on to find a habitable planet for human beings to conquer.
None of these succeeded. Thanks to ground breaking scientific breakthroughs human beings had made numerous advances in space exploration and human beings had sent astronauts to the far corners of the universe. Captain Hetmeyer and his crew of 400 men and women were the last of these human beings. All the human beings on earth had perished just the day after ‘The Voyager XV’ had left the earth.
The 400 men and women on Voyager XV had watched the cataclysm that had overtaken earth through the view finder of their spaceship from a distance of 2.5 billion light years. Captain Hetmeyer and his crew were devastated. They now knew that there was no way they could ever return to earth. The only thing they could do was to hope they could find another habitable planet. Something human beings had not succeeded in doing for more than a hundred years.
Greta, captain Hetmeyer’s wife who was a moral science educator cum astronaut by profession walked into the cabin. Hetmeyer motioned to her to take a look through the view finder at the planet he had just seen. What they saw looked promising. There was a bright sunlight shining at them. That was probably from the planet’s Sun.
They could see what looked like water and a lovely little island. The place seemed to be devoid of life. The news spread through the crew of 400 men and women on the spaceship and immediately everyone was on the alert. Captain Hetmeyer and the landing in-charge immediately swung into action. They gradually performed the spaceship inversion procedure so that the space ship was aligned correctly for landing.
At the same time they also shifted the Voyager from the ’Faster than Light’ drive to normal acceptable speeds. The spaceship gradually entered the new planet’s atmosphere. With the help of the Oxygenometer the men were able to detect that the atmosphere contained Oxygen and their joy knew no bounds. Slowly Voyager XV came to rest on the island they had seen.
Captain Hetmeyer and Greta Hetmeyer put on their space suits and the crew put the retractable ladder in place. Slowly husband and wife descended down the ladder and stepped on the surface of the planet. Gradually they took a few steps. Then both of them removed their space helmets. They found they could breathe as normally as on earth. Slowly all the men in the spaceship descended to the ground and Captain Hetmeyer was just about to give instructions when Greta stopped him.
‘Wait a minute. I want all of us to take an oath before we embark on our jobs.’ She said.
Hetmeyer looked at his wife in surprise. Greta rapidly set up the public address system and spoke to the men and women.
‘Attention my dear fellow survivors from our wonderful planet earth which is now a thing of the past. I am going to give you a small speech. Over the past millions of years we lived on mother earth. We conquered every corner of planet earth. We connected every part of earth through planes and trains and buses and cars. We invented factories. We found manifold ways to improve our personal comfort levels. We pampered ourselves endlessly. We crossed new boundaries of science in each century.
We made rapid advances in technology. We created machines for everything. We created robots to do our work in factories. We manufactured micro and nano-chips and invented computers. We developed cutting edge technology. But the one thing we failed to do was to respect mother nature. She kept helping us and we kept ignoring her need for nurture and care. We overheated our planet. We fought wars and bombed each other.
We allowed our greed and depravity to conquer us and in the process we destroyed the life sustaining oxygen and water resources of mother earth. The polar ice caps melted and the 400 of us here are the only surviving members who have been witnesses of the results of our actions. We men and women have had a bird’s eye view of how our entire planet has perished.
For some reason fate has spared us the same fate. And today we stand in a rich oxygenated planet that seems to have the capacity to sustain life. I want the 400 of us here to take an oath.’
She looked at the men and women and said, ‘I want you to repeat the following words after me.’
Every man and woman was looking at Greta with rapt attention.
Greta intoned in a solemn voice. ‘Oh God, I am fortunate to be alive today. I sincerely swear in your name that I will respect mother nature’s greatness and give her the love and care she deserves. I will also instill the same respect for nature in my progeny and pass on this love and respect for nature to future generations to come.’
Each man and woman in the group repeated her words and swore sincerely.
Author’s Note: This post has been written in response to Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt.
A prayer we all need to speak from the heart, Jai.
Though fiction this is heart touching , it’s high time now for us to understand what mistakes we are doing.
That was a story I wrote a long time back Ghazala. Thanks for reading it.