Chapter – 31
No one else could have done this.
It was true, because anyone else would have been alone.
My father was the first to die. He was killed by a group of people when he was found scavenging for parts in the Martian junkyards. Cain was next. I saw him die. It was an accident when we were fixing the ship. It wasn’t my fault, but I didn't feel innocent. Dear April starved during a dust storm. She passed unnoticed in her sleep. My mother was last. I didn’t know the disease, but it didn’t affect me. Only Martians were susceptible. I remember her wasting away. I was next to her, holding her hand.
They all taught me so much, and I learned. My mother taught me Martian English and gardening. My father taught me machines and technology. Cain taught me medicine and painting. April taught me computers...and empathy.
I was fully aware none of them were real when I first started seeing them again, when they apparently rose from the dead. My playful mind brought them back to life for me, so I chose to forget they had ever left. I couldn’t have made the journey without them. The lessons they gave me stayed, only because they themselves stayed.
No one else could have done this, because anyone else would have been alone. Now I was alone, after so many years of pretending otherwise. If it weren’t for their teachings, I couldn’t have maintained or directed the ship. If it weren’t for their love, I would have given up long ago. If it weren’t for their strength, I wouldn’t have been able to carry myself to safety, to mend myself, to climb the Mystery Mountains. I owed them everything. At the very least, they deserved to have me succeed.
I stumbled down the mountain by myself, the final stretch of my journey. On my back was my pack containing everything I would need. Held tightly in my right arm was the apple tree, still green and red. Strapped to my hip was the bottle of pills. It didn’t feel right to leave them behind. I wanted them as a reminder of what I had done. Safely in my pocket were the pearls. My body was tired from the journey, but I wouldn’t let it stop. I struggled on for hours, coming to the valley before nightfall.
Once my cloth wrapped feet stepped onto the soft and welcoming soil, I threw off my pack and fell to my knees. Miserably, I set down the apple tree, taking two handfuls of the rich and promising soil. It felt like a healthy powder. My father was right. It would grow the best plants we'd ever known. I let my hands fall, and I collapsed in tears. I didn't restrain them. There was no one left to hide them from. Mary had spoken of facing our fears. I knew why it affected me so powerfully. I was living my fear…the fear of being alone. It had always been true. I just ignored it.
After much time passed, I took a deep breath, looking up at the apple tree. Wiping away the tears, I pulled the tree close, standing up. I had something I needed to do.
Leaving my pack behind, I began walking forward. My steps left the most innocent footprints in the virgin soil. It felt good on my feet. It was a very long walk through the valley, but I reached the lake, kneeling down next to it. Setting the tree down again, I ran a hand through the water. It was so clean. The dirt on my hands created a cloud in its flawless clarity. This place was paradise. There was no other way to describe it. Not even the Great Gardens could have matched this potential for life or beauty.
I looked at my reflection in the water. I was scarred by my years. It was difficult to imagine how I could ever look like I belonged in such a place.
The valley was perfectly silent, a silence only interrupted by my ungraceful movements. There was wind, but I had to strain my ears in order to hear it. This place really was enormous. The mountains seemed to be miles away on all sides. I looked back at my footprints, leading to the edge of the valley, and back up the mountains to my ship. It couldn't be seen from here.
I looked down at my reflection again. The face that stared back at me was thin, covered in dirty and cuts and bruises. The marks of fresh tears in the filth was obvious, and I began to hate myself. This teary stick figure of a human being was all that was left. I'd struggled to reach this place alone, and now what could I do?
I was so very tired. Sleep isn't what I needed. I just needed to be finished. There was so much work that needed to be done, seeds to be planted and life to be nurtured, but I didn't know if I could do it all without my family. This loneliness, this doubt is what I feared most. Without them here, every obstacle seemed insurmountable.
The urge to cry slowly welled in me again, but there were no more tears. All I could do was sit and see the marvelous scenery around me. It taunted me, made me doubt myself. It's enormity was overwhelming, like the dark expanse of space stretching out in front of me, consuming my hopes. Nothing as small as myself could make a difference in a place like this. Maybe I could plant a garden, but it would surely outlive me.
Again, I felt the urge to cry. I closed my eyes and sunk to the soft dirt. It rubbed against my clothes and got in my hair as I curled up in it. There were sobs, the soft gentle crying that came from the deepest place in the human soul. I felt it, each burning heave in my chest, the lack of all joy.
But it wasn't me who was crying.
I opened my eyes, and focused on the sound. Sure enough, someone else was crying. I sat up, concentrating on the sound. I honestly couldn't tell if this noise was real, or if I were imagining it. I looked down at the pills, attached to my hip. Could they have worn off so quickly?
I looked around frantically, trying to find someone near me. Perhaps I was looking around too wildly, but I was flooded with hope.
"April?!" I cried. "April, is that you?! Can you hear me?!"
I stood up, turning this way and that. The cries were still there. I was starting to grow frantic when my eyes finally fell on her. A short distance away, there was a woman, curled up on the ground, sobbing quietly to herself. There was no way she had been there a moment ago. After a few seconds of blinking in disbelief, I looked down at the bottle of pills again, then back at the woman.
Leaving the apple tree where it was, I slowly walked towards her, realizing she was naked. I came within a few steps, and she still didn’t appear to notice me. This women was not April. It couldn't be. I could see this woman was a healthy weight, with beautiful tanned skin and full hair.
It was the strangest thing listening to her cry. I felt every sting of emotion she did. Every sob stung my throat. Her pain was my pain.
“Hello?” I asked.
The cries stopped immediately. The woman looked up in surprise. Starring at me a moment, disbelief on her face. After seeing myself in the water, I knew myself to be a pathetic excuse for a man, but the way she looked at me in those moment was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. It was like a mother seeing a long lost child. Before I could think of what to do, she jumped to her feet and threw her arms around me, squeezing very tight.
“You’re okay,” she choked, crying into my shoulder. “You’re okay. Thank goodness you’re okay…”
I was frozen for a few moments in her embrace. After some time, I decided to hug her back. Her skin was amazingly smooth and warm. Her hair smelled intoxicatingly sweet. I scorned myself internally for focusing on such things. She was still crying, and I wanted nothing more than to make her feel better. Still, her pain was my pain. I squeezed back, gaining the oddest form of relief from the embrace.
She pulled back, which I didn’t want to happen. She looked up at me with a shaky smile, her eyes glistening with tears.
“I’ve waited…so long for someone to come back. I thought…I thought no one was left, after all this time.” She smiled again, looking around me. “Where are the others?”
“Others?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “The other survivors…”
I didn't know this woman, if she was real or in my playful mind was working defiantly against the drugs in my body, but the look in her eyes and the hope in her voice took me to a whole new depth of sorrow. Slowly, with her watching, I shook my head, doing my absolute best not to collapse into sadness. My family was no longer with me
. There were no more survivors.
She watched my head move back and forth, the reality slowly dawned on her.
“But,” she began. “There has to be others. There…” She trailed off, seeing the truth in my eyes. “You’re…” she stammered, “You’re all that’s left…”
I nodded weakly. “Yes…”
She watched me a moment longer, then sank to her knees, placing both hands over her face, crying softly again. There was nothing I could say to comfort her. Why it meant so much to her was beyond me, but I could hardly bear the absence of my family. What could I possibly say to make her feel any better about it?
As I stood there, watching her cry, I heard her muffled words. They were not meant for me, but I heard them all the same.
“My children,” she sobbed. “All…gone.”
My children...
I'd heard something like that before, a faint memory, like a dream from my distant past. Except it wasn't my past. It was Jenna's past, and Jenna's memory. Jenna had many children, scattered across the Earth, while some escaped into space. She felt empathy with the old growth tree, because it too had many children, not all of which would survive.
My children...I understood.
Kneeling down next to her, I placed a hand on her shoulder.
“You’re…this planet…aren’t you?”
She looked up at me with her tear stained face.
“You’re Earth…”
She nodded, holding my stare.
“Then,” I continued, “you caused the earthquakes…the mountains. That was you?”
More tears came streaming down her cheeks, but she held my stare, nodding at the question.
In spite of everything, I remained very calm.
“Why?” I asked.
She needed a few seconds to collect herself, using my shirt to dry her eyes.
“I had no choice,” she said. “They wouldn’t stop. They…just kept going, destroying. They…they forced me to do it. I didn’t want to, but I did it…” She sunk down again, so I held her. She had more to say once the wave of pain passed. “I…I made a mistake. Some of them were…good people. Many of them were…but it was too late. I was just so angry. I had to do something if I was going to save any life. When it was all over though…nothing would grow…nothing at all. Everything was dead.”
“So you created this place, for when we came back.”
She nodded weakly, shivering a little.
“But they didn’t,” she said. “They thought I hated them…but I didn’t.”
She started crying again, and again I held her close. I had done nothing to this beautiful woman, to this planet, but somehow I had. My body was a far cry from the strength of humanity. My mind was malformed and insane. I was the lowest possible form of human being that could exist, but still, I was human. I was the product of the human legacy, intentional or not. I was humanity, and as I held this woman, I felt guilt. It welled in me more powerfully than sorrow. I started to shake, so she held me still more tightly
“I’m sorry,” I said. I thought there couldn't be any more tears coming from my own eyes. “I’m so sorry for what we did to you.”
She didn’t answer. Instead she just continued to hold me, seeking the small comfort I could offer. We stayed like that for a very long time. The sun’s light was fading quickly. It was extraordinary, the feeling that was coursing through my body. I felt forgiven for a very old sin, one I had never been able to understand. I was, in a very real way, being cleansed. It cannot be described
“You’re young,” she said finally, pulling away once we'd both calmed down. “You couldn’t have seen what happened here, the day humanity left.”
I smiled to her. “I did, actually.” She looked at me for the answer, as if judging the age of my face. We both knew no human could have survived that long. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the pearls, holding them out to her. She looked awestruck upon seeing them. Once the shock had worn off, she reached out and touched them gently.
“Impossible,” she whispered.
“You gave these to Jenna Grisham, one of the only people who could have appreciated what you were being forced to do. They’ve been to Mars and back.”
“I can’t believe you have them,” she said. “I didn’t think I would ever see them again.”
“I’d like to know,” I said to her. “Why did you give them to us? What were they supposed to do?”
She looked up at me. “They were so you could learn from your mistakes, by seeing them through the eyes of others. If none of you survived in the end, it was so there would be something left of you besides fading cities and junkyards.”
I nodded, looking down at the pearls in my hand. It was only then I noticed…that the final blue pearl had turned a shimmering silver. I looked at it in surprise, but the young woman only smiled at me.
“Now you will be remembered, along with the others. It’s fitting, I think.”
I stared at the pearls for a long time, then a thought came to me. I held out my hand, offering the pearls to her. They were hers, after all.
She smiled to me again, this time sadly.
“No,” she said. “You can’t give them back like this. I don’t think it’s possible anymore.”
“But why not?” I asked. She didn’t answer. She only shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter,” she assured me. “It can’t be done.”
I looked at her in disbelief. “There must be a w…” and then it hit me. It was so obvious, but I hadn’t realized it until now. I was so relieved that I had to laugh.
I'd misunderstood!
Earth looked at me in confusion, wondering how I could be laughing at a time like this.
I looked at her happily.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I misunderstood,” I answered, my laughter dying. “I completely misunderstood.”
“Misunderstood what?”
“Your first question,” I explained. I took a deep breath. Resting a hand on each of her shoulders, I spoke calmly.
“You asked where the other survivors were…” I then moved aside and gestured to the lake behind me. Set on the bank was the apple tree, alive and beautiful. The expression on Earth’s face was of unbelievable joy. Finally, there were tears of untainted happiness in her eyes. A tree...the only way to return the pearls to Earth.
“I have thousands of seeds with me,” I finished.
She shouted with glee and threw her arms around me again.