Part 1: Gaia

I’d never expected to be sent up there alone.

To climb into that big bulky suit, plant that fishbowl on my head, pat the Stars and Brits on my sleeve and clamber into that shaky shuttle and just float… float up there all alone. I suppose the Moon is like my home country, with vast expanses that separate man from woman from child, that seem so immeasurably insurmountable, but alive in itself.

Regardless, I’m twitching in anticipation, despite how much comfort I find in my destination being so familiar there is still a feeling of trespassing on an otherness. The Moon, as it peeks from the veiled curtain, is so close and known, but as well sp unattainable, keeping itself in solitude kilometres away from our searching hands. Now, we stand on stools piled infinitely on top of each other to brush that rough surface, pushing it for our own purpose towards the forever widening, lengthening, expanding, proliferating expanse of the cosmos, and my hand will be the hand that gives the touch. They’re sending me up there alone for this, and I am terrified.

They’ve wanted me to set up a temp colony on the Moon ever since I graduated early as the “best and the brightest” and they heard that I’d been telling anyone who’d listen that I was ready to explore above, to set up great cities for everybody on every planet everywhere, it is not only my dream, my aspiration, it is my destiny, and it will be manifested.

This earth, as well, has rotten, it has soiled itself to blackness, holes like a minefield, fallen armies of trees laying defeated in the dirt, and the oceans bleached white as if witness to a nuclear explosion, it is filthy.

Then I arrive on the scene, “first Australian woman to walk on the Moon, this year!” The prophet, the messiah, the God-maker, alone atop the glaring white eye. It’s really grand.

My family are set up in some hotel somewhere in a suite buried down beneath the ruins, watching the screen showing my rocket that will send their Blaise upwards, I’m sure they’re shaking too as they see me board. As I walk down the runway, climb the ladder, and slip into the monumental skypiercer my only thoughts are on the eyes of the world, watching as my heel disappears through the door and hearing the voice counting down…

10

       9

               8

                      7

                              6

                                      5

                                              4

                                                      3

                                                              2

                                                                      1

                                                                              Lift-off.

Part 2: Deliverance

And then I was completely alone, meandering through space without the heave of the rocket blasting, wandering along with my home behind and my destination before me, and my eyes on both. Inside there was only white, the walls and seats and monitors that were plastered on every surface, gleaming like a sun through a magnifying glass. The atmosphere of the whole thing is simply divine, the popular trend of calling the planets that drift outside our Earth “heavenly bodies” has never seemed so right as they refuse to drift past my window, their immeasurable massiveness sitting fixed like God on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, before that church was a no-go-zone.

They had made the windows convex, and I had brought my telescope, so I could lean out the side of the ship and see the endless abyss of shining stars and galaxies and supernovas raging below me and when I looked to the left, I saw the Earth squatting in its rotation of the Sun, its blues now murky and its greens sickly, diseased, the whole of it squirming seemingly in place. Then to my right there was the Moon in all her magnanimous magnificence, forced to orbit the Earth all its life, now serving to move us from that godforsaken rock. It radiated energy seemingly like a show of love, a tragic love, I reckoned, to the Earth; through everthing it was devoted and, in a way, pious; magnificent. Then…

A tremendous light

Blasting past in an awesome ray

The Earth, it all, gone.

I kept myself still, my body still leaning out past the walls of my ship and watching the Moon, the light that flew past me from behind my head created glimmers on the Moon, reflections or emissions I wasn’t quite sure, but then there came a great shadow on the Moon, constructed of a vast array of multivariate shapes multiplying across its surface, like many ants scrounging in the Moon’s dirt for supplies, foodstuffs to gorge.

I glanced behind slowly. Behind me I saw many ships, much smaller than mine, proliferating across the former sky, backdropped by the world that was now almost a cracked egg; something great, evil maybe, escaped.

I studied the vessels as they began to release their fuel, I estimate they could only hold an immediate family, at most a grandparent or two. The oddity of it, other than their numerousness and occurrence, was that, when I looked at them through my telescope, they were all unmarked. There were no flags on them, yet I could tell by their designs as I examined each in detail that they were each from many places: there was a Japanese fleet of slick, swift shaped ships, an American armada of bulky, bloated barges rocketing forward, a British envoy appearing as a large mix, though special in their colouring off an eggshell white among all the Arabs, Asians, Americas, European, and a few Australians too. None of them had flags though.

BRRRIIIINNGGG…

BRRIINGG…

BRING…  

I rushed to one of the monitors screaming from the wall behind me, the black corners of it reflecting the space behind me, and accepted the call. A voice came through intermittently.

“-an autom- mess-ge.

A cat-trophic eve-t has -curr-d 

Earth evacu-ted.”

It went on to say that I was to make preparations for the arrival of the new colonists, and that the fate of the remnants of humanity rested on my shoulders. Then it recited a short poem I’d heard in school.

“M-n, upon -he beast: mast-r,

Ma-, -on th- l-nd: tak-r,

Man, -n the oc-ans: voy-ger

-an, u-on the cosm-s: god manifest.”

And cut out. The world has ended, everything is gone except for the few rich pricks with the money to secretly hide away their escapes. That message wasn’t from the people that sent me up, them, they’re dead, I was sure their giblets were hurtling into the vacuum already; no, that elite now trailing behind me had sent that, they needed me for this, they are owning me. Fine, no matter what they can’t take this power from me, their money means nothing, they can try throw their tuxes and pearls at me, I’ll throw them out the airlock. I am the leader.

I looked behind me, spied the ships blundering blindly, following me to the Moon, I would be their saviour.

Part 3: Minerva

Only an hour or so of soundless flight later where I sat in the space in the window, roving my eyes over the murderers, I landed on the surface. During the flight I still looked to the Moon and felt wonder and hope, I can make something better than that flaming hunk. In that time the rest of the hunk had essentially collapsed into itself, forming a deformed imitation of the Earth, still stagnating there behind the Greedies.

The shuttle rocked like a cradle as it landed, I felt myself sway as I felt real ground beneath me once more. I stepped back into my suit and stepped out into the void of the Moon.

I am transcended by it all, the cleanliness with which the sun graces through my visor and plays upon my face is like a child in an idyllic meadow, on the day where there are no flaws. I feel for the first time in my life an absolute perfection. No matter the pre-set camp to my right, the shuttle behind me, and the bombardment of the colonisers approaching from the left; to me there was only me, my shadow laying behind me, the Sun embracing me, and the Moon resting peacefully beneath my feet, I have never felt such glory, such attainment.

Nevertheless, I had a duty, to myself or the bleeding rest of humanity, and so I lumbered into the station. Taking my helmet and suit off and again I was met with large swathes of white, with no colour or culture, truly this place was the newest in the universe.

I realise that though I remember seeing the ships flying towards me from the left I took no note of how long I stood, and they seemed pretty close when I last measured them. This place is so empty too, as I rush toward a pristine monitor sitting alone on a chrome desk bolted to the floor, there is no sound besides the padding of my footsteps and the air inside filtrating through my nostrils and coming back as carbon dioxide. The monitor switched on and I flicked to the cameras fixed atop the station’s sprawling rooves. I witnessed as the mass of ships plunged towards me, not even having to use the zoom for a good estimate of their number; they would be here any moment.

Right now though, it is high time to place the flag. Although it feels kind of meaningless now, the Stars and Brits flowing purposelessly, it is still important to me. It will be the only one to grace the Moon.

I stepped out of the shuttle and began walking to the shuttle, noting the ships as they approached, they could arrive any second. I retrieved the flag from a compartment in the wall of the shuttle, walked in front of the Sun and thrust the pole into the earth. There was a great cracking, a great shuddering, and then

A CRASH

A crash.

Somewhere I heard a crash.

A crash that sounded like glass crashing on a brick floor.

What could that crash be?

Running back towards the station I busted through the airlock as quickly as possible, threw off the suit and sprinted through the hallways of the station. I glimpsed rooms upon rooms of emptiness, there was nothing but whiteness, packs of food and bunk beds that constructed these rooms and there was absolutely nothing that was made from glass, absolutely nothing, and nothing was broken. I ran through each storage unit, canteen, admin room, the crash kept playing and playing and now I could not even know whether I was playing it over and over again in my own head to try and find and stop this crashing or if it is really real.

Where are the crashes coming from?!

I can’t see it; all I can do is hear it! Tears well in my eyes as I dash from here to there screaming at inanimate objects,

“WHERE IS The CRASHING? WHERE? WHY? WHERE IS THE CRASHING?!”

I had never been prepared for a crashing, I was prepared for silence, for solitude, for isolation, there would be no sound. Where is the crashing?!

…

I know it, it lurks here and there, the colonists will come to know it too. In the hours passed I expected them to come and ask me about it, we’d find the crashing, I’d even accept their money, stop the crashing. They hadn’t landed yet though, I know it, for every round I do of the station spanning so far (I am so tired) I stare out a window and see them almost motionless, hanging in space. I’m so tired now, and I’m back to the beginning, I see the door which would lead me out to my shuttle, empty of fuel, can’t escape.

I spy the camera in the corner of the room, and I freeze, I can be everywhere, the crash is somewhere, I will find the crash, and I will stop that infernal glass breaking. The camera when I opened it was still fixed on the falling Greedies, the colonisers, and I noticed that they hadn’t moved since the first time I saw them. As the crashing went on around me, I tried to remotely move the camera.

It worked.

I turned it to the ground, and I saw the crashing.

         They were                      the Moon             Men. I watched as

     They walked alon     ng the white surface, extending and pulling in their legs like springs as they bounded across the whit e flatlands and the holes in the ground. There was a nat ion of them as I saw it. They stood like us, people on two legs and they kept their arms at their sides as if wait ing. Just standing, waiting fo r me, sullenly stan ding, waiting for me

            to                                     watch                              them.

            T                                        heir                                 hea

           d                                      s tho                                ugh, they were like invisible glob es filled with ever turnin g water, waves of it splashed across the invisible barrier s of their craniums and t hough there were no eyes in there I felt their intense gla res. They noticed me, I fe lt, and then their water beg an to thrash as if in a storm . Behind them materialis ed many more, they were all alike in appearance and man nerisms, moving with eff ortless grace it seemed like they flowed into one another like separated embodim ents of one singular, godlike force. Minerva, the Moon. I fe lt her presence in these s trange men. I saw them begin to act. I saw them rape e ach other and bash each o ther, and as they did I saw the one’s who’s globes were pu lverised flew up into the s ky, joining the rest of their dead in the cosmo s. Each lifel ess, bla ck bo dy see mingly  return ing f rom wh ence th ey came back un to the n othing ness  of the ete rn al cos mos. Th eir hea ds fore ver gon e, the in visible gl ass stain ing the moon forever more. As   I sat tra nsfixed w atching t he scen e play ou t before m e, the mu rder and  violation o f each o ther I felt a great Grief, Great Sorro w, Great G uilt, Great P ain, Great all that I’ve _________________________brought on______________________

The                                      Moon                                           Men