Global Warming.(Kevin Hughes) The dark sky was threatening, in thunderous echoes, to release its torrents on the parched and newly scorched earth below- and so we waited. And waited. And waited. It took a 100 million years. But we were patient. Our oceans were dying…the new oceans would be our homes- soon. So we waited.

Another 100 million years passed, and another, still we waited. And waited. And waited. Then, just when we were going to go…disaster. One of those Cosmic Accidents that happen all the time. A big rock undid almost 400 million years of patient engineering. No one saw it coming. We all saw it hit.

Another 100 million years went by, and still we waited. Our atmosphere was almost gone. Our water was almost gone. All our rivers had dried up long ago. We evolved, adapted, changed forms several times. And still we waited. And waited. And waited. Now, we have to go. We can’t wait any longer.

The Oxygen levels were too high. The seas were too salty. The project did not have enough time to recover from the two setbacks. Life had formed too early. We had no choice. We had to leave our world behind. It was not dead yet, but soon. The new planet was not ready, it was too early. We had waited so long that time had made the choice for us. We had to go.

Everyone said their goodbyes. To the Planet we had called home for so long. Almost a Billion years. We said our goodbyes to each other, for we knew we couldn’t survive the fifty three million mile journey in our present form. Space, radiation, and the Vacuum would destroy us. So we had to disassemble our beings. We did. And the last fully formed of us, placed our new shapes and forms on the rock- and launched it. A Hero in any sense of the word.

What is it like to watch everyone you knew and loved, being put on a rock in a form that you wouldn’t recognize and couldn’t communicate with? Only to launch them to a new world. A world you could see in the sky, but would never walk yourself? Knowing in just a few more years, you would be dust. Those of us on the rock were no longer self aware. We wouldn’t be - at least for about half a billion years. So they told us.

IF we hit the new planet. IF the resulting collision wipes out the dominant life forms. If our Scientists are right. IF we wait long enough. We will thrive again. Grow again. Live again. Become Aware. IF. We just had to wait and see. We were good at waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

The Hero left behind never saw us land on our new world. That hero was long gone. She was as dead as our planet. When we hit our new home, we hit hard. The life that had grown from that Cosmic Accident was almost completely wiped out. Just like the Scientists had predicted. We made the journey. We were the seeds of the new population. Now all we had to do was wait. And wait. And wait.

We would wait. After all, we Martians knew how to wait. And wait. And wait.

It would be the same on our new planet.

Earth.

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