The Wandering Planet

I walked on the back of the Universe.

This universe was aged, it was old and weary. I stood on its shoulders, on a planet that should not exist and yet does. It limps along when everything else had already died, when all planets that had ever existed were torn apart by gravity or incinerated by magnificently brutal supernovas. Life was gone, everything was gone, except for this one, small planet that orbited no sun, no galaxy.

I have been waiting for you…

I found myself beside a towering monolith, a tribute to a civilization long gone. It stretched as far as I could see, a grey monstrosity that hummed contently like a sleeping beast. It belched gravity itself, intermingled with quarks and protons as it propelled the entire planet to a destination unknown, into the murky blackness as it had done so for the past millennia. How I knew this I did not know.

We built this and another engine on the other side of our planet in order to escape the clutches of our exploding star.

But how does it work? I wanted to ask.

I felt a cold chill race through me. It was then I noticed the land itself. It was bare. Barren. Stripped clean until only an unnaturally clean, polished surface remained. Not a single weed or worm lived. They were long since gone, such life forgotten completely by this planet.

Come, I wish to show you the price of our arrogance.

I felt myself moving again, as if a treadmill had started underneath me. I was propelled forward, increasing speed until…

I looked up. It was night, but the sky was not black. It was bullet grey, and no stars twinkled. They had all died long ago, their brilliant explosions locked like a photograph in this planet’s sky as their light had yet to wrap its fingers around this corner of the Universe.

I stopped moving. I was standing in a room full of people, alien people. I had never seen such creatures before, and yet they seemed so… familiar. So real. The room seemed to be a laboratory of sorts, with these creatures going about their research in long white garments and oversized glasses. They talked animatedly. They seemed excited about something, although I did not understand what.

Suddenly a door burst open. Other creatures, these ones wielding weapons swarmed in, their weapons pointed at the researchers, whose hands were bared in plea.

The creatures began to fire their weapons. The white-robed aliens fell, and the room flickered and faded, before I saw no more. What did I just see?

We had discovered it! We had it in our grasp. The concept of…of immortality! It was ours!

In the blink of an eye I found myself in another room, filled once more with those alien creatures in white coats. Once again I saw militaristic aliens barging in, opening fire and slaughtering everyone. Like a series of films, I was whisked away to more and more rooms, each with different layouts but with the same plot, always researchers, always soldiers murdering them.

Then it stopped. No room surrounded me; I was standing on the barren landscape once more, with nothing in sight.

Immortality… wars erupted. We killed each other in order to discover the secret. We exterminated ourselves so we could achieve everlasting life. We were such an ironic race.

The voice that spoke to me, it was…alone. Every word it spoke seemed to carry a little piece of its heart with it, until eventually nothing would be left.

We killed everything. We left absolutely nothing alive. We figured that since we could be immortal, who cares what our planet becomes? How foolish we were…

What happened?

We used every single trick, every weapon we could muster against our perceived enemy. It was war at its most primal, most brutal. The kind where there are no attempted peace talks, no negotiations, nothing. There were alliances, but they never lasted long. If only we had listened…

It was our undoing. In our quest for immortality, we killed ourselves and our families.

I shivered once more. The ground I walked on was a graveyard. The whole planet was one big graveyard, the resting place of those who desired to live forever.

Not everyone died, though. Some of us survived, and some even managed to obtain this magical elixir, this potion of immortality.

The voice tried to chuckle. It sounded more like a sob.

It didn’t work. Or at least, not in the conventional sense. And it wasn’t some kind of potion, either. It was a machine, designed to duplicate our consciousness into an android body.

It wasn’t true immortality. I smiled grimly. They fought and killed each other all in the name of something that didn’t even do what it said it did.

I’m the only one left. Out of the three thousand who managed to undergo this procedure, after seven hundred billion years of life, I am the only one left. As a final curse, I am left to witness the death of our universe as it slowly tears apart. I am left to tend for the engines that have propelled us throughout the entire universe for an age.

I felt myself move again, this time at a much faster pace. I sped across the surface of this planet-wide desert until finally coming to a stop in front of a small mound of dirt. It looked fresh, clean. I sat down and continued to gaze at the mound, transfixed for a reason I did not know.

Another chill. A tremor whipped through my body. The whole planet throbbed. It pulsed, like a heart that had not yet witnessed its last beat. It stubbornly refused to quit, and as I watched the mound with increasing trepidation, I saw something astonishing.

A small, green stalk emerged from its centre, growing in size and unfolding its leaves. It continued to grow, the stalk becoming brown and hard as it towered over me. More leaves grew from its branches, unfurling in a magnificent display of luscious greens and browns. The vibrant colours were a joy to behold, and where there was once despair in my heart I now felt hope and happiness.

And yet, even with a dying universe, this planet refuses to give up. Even after we stripped it bare, turned it into a radioactive wasteland, it still refuses to accept defeat. Who were we to assume we had control over it?

From one small seed, the tree had grown. It was majestic. I continued to watch the tree as time was constantly sped forwards. The tree grew old, and dropped more seeds to populate the desert. Their roots reached deep, deeply to the caverns below which still ran wet with the water this planet held. More trees grew, and from them, more and more, until I was standing in the middle of a sprawling forest.

It was no longer night on this planet. The engines that had been used to propel it across the universe seemed to have finally found a place to rest. A sun, not unlike our own shone brightly and provided nutrients for this planet.

This Universe is in its twilight years. Its old.

And yet…

Its dying, and I am the only one left of our race to witness it.

…this planet…

After so many years, I have finally found a place to rest.

…still breathes, still beats.

My race is over. Tell that to your people, and warn them. Do not chase a dream that will destroy you. Tell them that this is a last wish from a dying man, a dying species. Tell them to not follow the path we did, the path of war.

Learn from Mankind’s mistake.

Mankind…

I’m so… tired…

I was moving again, this time away from the planet. From planet Earth.

Earth, the Wandering Planet.

Farewell.