This was a short story written for the Stourbridge Writers Group.
Theme: Autumn Colours and Aliens (either or both)
“The transformation England goes through as it moves from its warmest period, Summer, to its coldest period, called Winter, is iconic.” The tour guide had lost count of the times they had said this, but it was still their favourite of England’s seasons. “During this season called Autumn, sometimes called ‘fall’, nature goes through a colourful transformation where leaves change from green to vibrant colours such as oranges, reds and yellows, with many other changes happening in other plants while they prepare for winter.” Zant turned, “This magical transformation was lost for a while, but through hard work and environmental healing, we have managed to restore it to its previous beauty.”
“Why did it stop happening?” A young member of the audience asked.
“Please do raise your tentacle if you have a question.” Zant kindly reminded the crowd, “Well, due to something they called global warming, which we will look at in the next session, the temperatures changed significantly, and the season Winter became much warmer, reducing the requirement for plant-life to shed and renew itself.”
A tentacle shot up, and Zant pointed to the owner. “So how does it happen now? I can see the leaves on the… trees?” Zant nodded to confirm they were using the right word. “The colours in the trees are now so vibrant, like you said they used to be.”
“Good question!” replied Zant, “Well, in Earth year 2047, the Council of Interstellar Parks and Planets decided the humans were not appreciating or respecting their planet and decided to take action. As you know, Planets like Earth are rare; life is abundant there, because the environment is so rich and fertile, but through natural disasters such as comet falls and solar eruptions, these planets often don’t survive to be as mature as the Earth.” Zant took a moment to take a sip of water, and also to keep the audience waiting in anticipation. “So the decision was taken to remove the humans from Earth to maintain this rare and endangered planet type.”
“Were they exterminated?” An excited voice from one of the audience members asked, who then raised their tentacle, realising they had forgotten to. Zant smiled on the inside at the response but still retained a stern exterior.
“Try not to get too excited and do remember to raise that tentacle.” Another tentacle went up, “Hold on, I will answer that question and come to you in a moment.” Zant smiled, revealing rows of perfect teeth; the audience gasped. “This is called a smile; humans use it to show pleasure. Later, we can practice it in the ‘Being Human’ workshops.”
“Ok, so no, the humans were not exterminated. Instead, we placed the entire population on the planet’s moon, in specially constructed habitats, and then randomly sterilised 70% of them, with the remaining females only capable of having 1 child.” The holoimage changed, “This is Moonvil, the human settlement on the Earth’s moon. We’ll visit there later, they are well cared for, far better in fact than many of them cared for each other when they were on the earth.” Zant pointed to the person who had raised their tentacle before.
“Thank you. What was that you put in your mouth, the liquid?” They asked.
“Are, yes, this is water, a fluid on the earth so precious and quite plentiful, essential for all life on the planet. Again, it was often poisoned by the humans, causing massive loss of life and sometimes extinction for other animal and vegetable races on the planet.” Many in the crowd gasped. “Many humans didn’t see the value in things like nature; they preferred to own lots of pointless trophies and engage in wars.” Another gasp from the crowd. “Now don’t be too hard on them, our past and journey to enlightenment wasn’t always what we see today, and they were a relatively immature race.”
Another tentacle went up, and Zant nodded to the owner. “Do we get to taste water?”
“No, I’m afraid not, it’s quite poisonous to us normally. It has taken me many cycles to build up a resistance to the stuff, and that sip I took is as much as I can handle today.” Zant paused; no more tentacles were raised.
“OK, so back to Autumn. Today we will be travelling through the national park called London. It used to be a huge place they called a city, which housed millions of humans. Since they have gone, you can see much of it has returned to forest land, some naturally and some cultivated by the handful of humans who still reside here, who you might get to see later; however, they might choose to keep out of sight, it’s their decision.” Zant began to move towards the path, “This was once a road known as the M4, made for vehicles, and it will be the start of our hike to the park. Now, do stick to the path, and feel free to pick up some leaves if you’d like a souvenir of your trip, please use the bags provided.”
Zant began leading them into the park, dappled light formed patterns on his oily skin and shades of red began filling the sky, “Look, the star is rising, they called it the Sun, this is a Sunrise.” He paused, “Do take a moment to appreciate the beauty of it, of all of this, of this wonderful place called Earth.