IParty are evil if you ask me, yet still like every other sucker I go onto the website-vote and slowly spiral down into the depths of politics and I do just hate being there! You see IParty work from a website, they never do anything face to face, and in fact I’m not really sure they are real people. They don’t exactly make any decisions they just put a pole on the internet and the majority of the world go on there and vote and then the highest opinion wins, simple.
Anyway that is completely going off the point because you don’t even know what Asan is yet. Well you know I said the world died, you probably wondered how I could be telling you this because obviously all of man kind died… well not all of us did in the end.
It was January fifthteenth if I remember rightly; I was going to only my second science meeting, with the ten heads of science. The main topic was planets and new discoveries, now I didn’t really know why they were looking into all this, and naturally at my first meeting I was a bit shy, but this time I managed to summon up the courage to ask.
“Erm sir if you don’t mind me interrupting briefly, I just wondered why all of a sudden we should be interested in planets” I stuttered a bit in saying this.
And he replied “Oh I did wonder when you would ask this” and then briefly turned to the other heads before continuing by saying “we as a group have been appointed to do all we can to save the earth”.
“Save the earth from what!” I said with a fearful tone, I was just a mere nuclear scientist and they seemed to expect me to know about this!
“Oh dear” he replied in a weirdly calm voice.
“Well you see we have studied the core of the earth, well not us personally because it was the previous heads that discovered the problem” stated another head.
“You mean to tell me that you have all known about this for more than a week, without telling the other public!”
“Well it would only cause worry when we think we can sort it”
“Sort what exactly” at this point I still hadn’t been told of the actual problem at hand.
Now at last they proceeded in telling me that the earth was going to implode in no more than 3 weeks, they also told me that they had prepared ships that would ferry one thousand five hundred and fifty eight people (exactly) to a planet recently discovered by NASA, just to the left of Pluto. Isn’t it so original that the only name NASA could come up with for the planet was Asan (NASA spelt backwards?).
There was really nothing that I could do to contribute to the situation seeing as it was all ready to set off and the only bit left to do were pick the passengers. Not as easy as it sounds… you see there were over 6 billion people living on earth at that present time! This makes one thousand five hundred and fifty eight people look measly.
Well as you can imagine half if not more of that was taken up by filthy rich celebrities who bought their way onto the flight, so now it was down to us heads to decide who would be invited to Asan and who would be left on a time bomb earth just ticking away ready for mass destruction.
I read through the terms and conditions that the other heads had written up, a couple of meetings ago and it all seemed fair and fine, people who will be useful in rebuilding a democratic community, no criminals, passenger and partner/family, people under fifty. They all made perfect sense. So we soon set to work filling the six hundred and forty five spaces we had left, leaving ourselves till last (most of the scientists were too old but had decided to send their child). So we contacted the head of Crisis Brigade (all emergency services) and the head of the forces, and lots of other crucial people.
That night I returned to my small detached home, and took down the for sale sign on my way in. when I got in Skylar immediately knew there was something wrong, but that was pretty obvious when I had just brought in the sign and as you can imagine it is hard to hide it when you know the world is going to end next week; regardless of the fact that me and her were to be going.
Nothing on Earth seemed worth the energy any more, it was frustrating when you were trying to concentrate on a task when all you could think about was world death and mass murder! I knew I wasn’t allowed to tell Skylar but nevertheless I did, I don’t know whether it is because she is female and can see a bright side to everything or just because she had just spent her first week at home doing nothing as a house wife, but either way she pretty much told me not to worry! How can a guy not worry when he is one of few that know that the world is going to end and nearly everybody on its face is going to be what can only be described as murdered, and seems to be the only one with a problem with it!
Moving on, I tried my best to act normal and make the most of the last few weeks of earth but Skylar seemed to find it much less difficult.
It was pretty much count down and I went to what would probably be the last official science meeting on earth, it lasted hours. We spent some time talking about what will happen and where all passengers are going to meet, and then spent the other four hours listing everybody who was going on the trip. After trailing through the celebrities and most of the way through the civilians we all went for a tea break. When the meeting resumed we continued wading through the process and finally got onto the best people, us. There were most of the scientist’s sons or daughters and then me and another guy who was only twenty seven, he wasn’t married yet. That was where the list stopped, now I was just happy it was over so it took me a moment to realize that Skylar had not been mentioned!
“Right so where do our wives come on the list” I questioned.
“Well mine is staying on earth with me” replied one head.
And most of them replied in the same manner.
“I’m not married” added the twenty seven year old.
“Everybody is on that list”
“Well no they are not, because, my girlfriend isn’t” I said indignantly.
“Did you expect her to be before hand?” I was asked.
“We made it quite clear that it was married couples and family”
I felt sick. All blood seemed to run from my body and slowly slide, cleanly down a distant drain. Part of me wanted to scream and shout, but I knew that would get me no where, but then again I would be going absolutely no where without her!
“You can’t leave her behind, she thinks she’s coming, I thought she was coming; please” and so there you have it, I was reduced to begging. And in my mind if not in person I was a starving man close to death, on my knees begging.
I had to check the list again and again; I just couldn’t believe this was happening to me! And then I noticed an empty column numbered one to ten.
“What is this one for?” I asked, desperately.
“Well we have not yet decided who is going in there and that is what we were going to move onto now” explained one of the heads.
“But what is it going to be used for?” I asked again, thinking that some miracle might have brought a light at the end of my tunnel.
“We are going to be sending, five men and five women to Asan, for the simple job of reconstructing the human race”
Without considering Skylar’s thoughts I put her on the reserve list, hoping that she would want to be with me and would do anything to stay with me. The men and women on that list were picked at random as first decided.
That was just the easy bit though, I was the one that had to go home and tell her that she was only going to ‘mate’ with other strangers, to create a new batch of babies. And explain to her that I would love her whether she was pregnant with somebody else’s baby or not (do you know how weird it is doing that?).
When I got home she was being her normal chirpy self and was busily packing, I almost didn’t tell her and just let her get the surprise of a life time when we got there, but I’m not that heartless
So I said to her that she was going to have to go for some tests first thing tomorrow morning.
“But that’s the day we go” she stated, suspiciously.
“I know, but you just have to, take some fertility tests” as I said that I flinched because I knew that Sky would see right through that.
She stormed off, she knew what was going on, she knew she was a baby factory and was just going to be used, but the worst was yet to come. I had to wait until she had clamed down before I could break it to her that she might not even be going on the flight
“Because if all the other women are fertile then you are not needed” again I flinched and waited for a slow and painful death.
But instead she was silent, for about 2 minutes (I daren’t say anything) and then suddenly.
“I bet you planned this” pause “you knew I wouldn’t be able to get angry with you just in case I never see you again” she kind of deteriorated into tears towards the end of the sentence but I got the gist, she cried all evening and wouldn’t let go of me, not such a bad thing.
The next morning was equally as painful, we drove to the station in complete silence and when we arrived I was whisked away and didn’t get to say anything, but we kissed, that meant the world and the one kiss said a thousand things, and my lips are a thousand memories to this very day. The last time I saw her she was crying but not with sadness or fear but with happiness, it was like all my dreams come true, part of me had given up when I got on the ship, I was already trying to get over her, way too soon, because the last time I saw her I was looking out of the ship window to a long stream of people boarding the second ship and just and we took off I saw the end of the line, and I cried because I hadn’t seen Sky, but as the smoke cleared I just caught a glimpse of her boarding!
We were travelling fast into the sky as I leant back into my chair and took a deep sigh of relief; I had never felt such happiness before. I got up and wandered down to the back of the ship where at the small bar I ordered a drink and peered out of the back window, I could see Sky’s ship. It seemed more like I was standing there in a dream watching Sky fly up behind me; it was like we were having a conversation without seeing or hearing each other, just knowing that we were there.
I heard a quiet creaking sound and the ship seemed to stop moving, like it was hovering. I thought we were waiting for the other ship to catch up or something. Then I started to worry, I knew this wasn’t right; Sky’s ship was hurtling towards mine faster than sound and wasn’t slowing down. The lights in the cabin went dim and flickered like all there power was being used for something else, there was a loud whining sound coming from beneath me. Suddenly Sky’s ship slowed too and then stopped just very gently touching ours, but that was all we needed to push us away. We started flying at speeds unimaginable up into space, and everything was pulled by the positive G’s to the bottom end of the ship pushing me against the window, so I had no choice other than to watch Sky’s ship literally fall out of the sky and get sucked into the most amazing, most heart breaking yet still extraordinary thing I have ever seen. She was pulled back by the force of the world imploding, and was gone forever…
But I swear to this day that I heard her say “goodbye”
“Hello, and welcome to the 2 25 G 56 Adaptor, your voyage today will take you far distances.”
Every morning the same boring computerised voice would ring out at every station as I travel to work. On board a cramped little short hall space jet, with shiny silver walls, plastic windows about 6 inches thick and uncomfortable metal seats made of recycled Grenium. This actually is quite a coincidence seeing as I work for Tistanic (the new Sony) and as you may have imagined I have the worst job in the business, yes you guessed it, I am one of the poor idiots who are sent out into space to collect grenium from passing asteroids and such like, you see you can’t get Grenium on Asan. Other than there being new materials on our new Earth there are also many other changes, Gold is worthless and there are new laws such as, you are not permitted to have children until you are thirty years old! (Birth control systems, not so new). Children these days don’t understand why most of the people 35 plus are depressed, but we all know and share the same disability of looking forward to a future of widowhood.
By Natasha Coleman