This Is The End...

This week, Chuck has us doing a Space Opera.  I'm not sure what that is exactly. So, I looked it up. I still didn't quite get it (damned comprehension problems kicking in at the wrong time!). Anyhoo, I have had this story kicking around in my head all afternoon - thought it would be a fun Space Opera-type story to upload. 

Enjoy.


This is the end… beautiful friend.

How ironic those words were when Jim Morrison wrote them into that brilliantly sung song ‘The End’ in the early 1970’s. This song’s words couldn’t have become more true than now at the untimely end of our home, our planet…

… our beautiful friend.

Today is the last day of my life on planet Earth. I woke this morning to my triple glazed bedroom, which overlooks the Brisbane River (or what’s left of it) and the melting city of where I used to roam quite freely. I have fond memories of the lovely green grass under my feet and the fresh, breezes cooling my skin.

The officials told me that I could pack as much into my module as I wanted – so long I had enough room to move around, make food, have proper sleeping quarters and the place didn’t look messy for inspections.

I really don’t think I did too badly.

I dressed in the NASA suit they let me have (we no longer have to pay for them) and looked at myself in the mirror, ‘Well, Grandma did say I’d be goin’ places…’  I thought to myself as my emotions got the better of me and I started to cry again – just like I did last night.

I cried over the wasted crap of my home planet. She no longer has any resources to support her huge population. The oceans are now dead – so much so that their flat blueness is just a sign of how little life there is below the surface; let alone the abandoned fishing industry. The stark, lonely cries of birds screaming from tree to tree, searching desperately for food is heartbreaking. And those trees’ branches reach up to the bleach blue sky of nothingness – of no clouds overhead – as our world is coming to an apocalyptic wasteland of an ending.

The only thing which keeps going on this place are wars. I can hear the distant gunfire getting closer as the last few gates are destroyed around my safe haven of where I’ve lived in the CBD of Brisbane.

Yes, it’s time to pack the last of my things which I’ll be taking with me, to take off from this godforsaken place and leave this planet for a much richer planet of…

“Billy!” Mum’s voice calls from downstairs, “Billy! It’s time for lunch!”

I sit back on my heels as I look at the world I’ve created in my bedroom. The bed fort is huge, and utter perfection. I had three pillows off my bed, two off my brother’s bed and both our blankets smooshed around them to make it look like the destroyed world of Brisbane… and then, I pulled out a huge blue sheet from the linen closet to show the empty ocean (I’m sure Mum won’t mind her good silk sheet being on the floor of my bedroom with my Play Doh creatures on it!).

The Lego Millennium Falcon I got for Christmas is sitting on the end of the bed, ready and waiting for take-off as I posed my little Lego dude to be about to climb into the driver’s seat with this NASA outfit painted onto him and his helmet shoved onto his yellow pointy head.

“Billy!” Mum’s voice is closer now, showing she’s just down the hall, “Do you need an engraved invitation!”

Maybe I shouldn’t have used her good silk sheet for this… the one of mine would be have been much better… man, I’m gonna get into so much sh…

“Billy!” the door of my room opens and she stands there, “What are you doing?”

“Um… this is the end of the world as we know it.” I smile presenting my idea of what the world would look like to her, hoping she’d understand it.

Sighing she looks around my bedroom, “Space travel again?” then she spots her silk sheet…

… it really is the end, my friend.