Nostalgia for Earth from the Space

“1000 Days in Space” Writing Competition at UAEU

“Good morning! №0150. Welcome to your 1000th day on the journey to Utopia.”

Fuzzy in mind, I blink my eyes. I attempt to stay in bed for a little bit, but still, jump out of the sleeping capsule immediately. To this moment, the terms like year, month, and day are nonsense, for the astronomical phenomena on the earth defined them. But people still stubbornly stick to them, as if we could live as we used to do.

Twenty-four thousand hours ago, after the nuclear “Final War” tortured the earth into a hell of death, a group of scientists gathered under the leadership of the United Nations who launched the immigration project to a planet far far away. The mission is called Utopia.

I walk outside my chamber, heading to the restoration room. Most people are in deep sleep all day to save precious energy on this journey. As an archaeologist and historian, I must wake up regularly to repair artifacts. This is both an honor and a curse.

Today’s duty is a 1000-year-old carpet antique. I touch the delicate texture through gloves. The pigments faded, recolored, faded, recolored…… If it had feelings, should it lose interest in existence? It can never be used to host food for guests again. It is as simple as a monument of culture, or more precisely, a fossil of traditions. I recall the life in childhood when parents put katab, hummus, halloumi on a similar carpet, which is a memory too good to be realistic at the moment.

When I use a wet tissue to clean the dust on its surface, I hesitate. A crazy idea came up in my mind: What if we throw all the relics away and establish a new civilization from the space plane? Can I rudely throw the carpet away and never wake up for duties until we reach the Utopia? I feel stuck by the idea of move-on. A sense of shame arises deep inside my heart.

The carpet and I are two trees that have left the earth we belong to. We are abandoners, floating aimlessly in a black non-gravity dessert. Our bare roots desperately hug with each other to find a fake self-deceit sense of belonging. I rely on it more than it relies on me — what a fragile mutual emotional support we have.

After work, I backed into my chamber, as usual. Have my daily nutrition puree to keep my body functioning. The toothpaste-like puree is very nutritious except the disgusting taste of artificial flavor.

How ridiculous I feel. We humans at first fought for lands and colonies, then for hegemony and economy, after that for energy. In the end, the Final War was targeted in the food and water. Now we have ended up with nothing except a long-cherished useless peace at this lonely space ship in the universe. We used to take fresh food for granted, but look at what I am eating now.

For simplification, assume there were ten persons. Each of them had an apple. Not satisfied with the only apple, they formed unions and coalitions to plunder others’ apples. To make things complicated, those unions or coalitions were not stable. Betrayals and anti-betrayals filled the history of human beings. In every conflict, they destroyed a portion of apples. And the losers strived to take back their shares by starting new wars. At last, all the apples were gone, not because of normal consumption but because of the accidental hurts of weapons.

All the flourish and prosperities are gone, like dust in the river of time. The pity I feel today will decay, too. Should I regard the next generations a species like me? If not, it will mark the real end of human civilization. Perhaps they will name us the pre-space period? A desire for crying takes the better of me, but I can’t master those muscles to let out a single mumble. A tear finds its way to my eye without breaking the deadly silence of the space.

I return to my bed. I stare into the universe, as I always did on the earth, except the direction is the opposite. The earth is supposed to be the right direction, but far beyond my vision. When I was in the Arab Peninsula, I thought the United Arab Emirates was a state; Now it means as heavy as a civilization haunting in my heart.

This was home. This is home.

I close my eyes. An English song suddenly comes into my mind. “Umm Kulthum and Omar Sharif came floating on the jasmine wind. From the west, from the south, honey in my ears, spice in my mouth……” This should belong to the best musical award winner of the 2010s. But who remembers nor cares?

Tomorrow will be another day.