​Prelude, or Before Anything Important Happens...

Charlie Maidly was a small boy with a BIG imagination, freckles, and sticky out ears.

He had lived on the planet Earth for about ten years, give or take a year.

Tomorrow he would be living on a different planet.

It was almost midnight on the Last Day on the planet Earth.

Charlie stood outside in the little back-yard of his home. Benny the dog stood next to Charlie. The night was cold and the sky was scattered with millions and billions of stars.

Charlie looked up at the stars. Benny looked up at the stars, but, being a dog, and having poor eyesight, all he could see was the inside of Charlie Maidly’s nose.

Charlie wondered where all those stars had come from.

He sat down on a damp log. A brown beetle, which had been snacking on a tiny bug it had found on the top of the log, had to quickly scurry out of the way. It waved its feelers angrily at the boy but Charlie was too day-dreamy to notice the beetle or the dampness beginning to seep through his jeans. Benny tried to get onto the log too but failed, so he sat down next to Charlie’s feet with his bottom on the cold soil. The dog didn’t seem to mind.

A little story came into Charlie’s head. Charlie, as he often did, told the story out loud and his gathered audience (a dog and a grumpy beetle) listened attentively. The story went something like this...

Once, when the Universe was young, all the planets were made of pancake stuff, each one a huge ball of pancake spinning restlessly around the Sun. One day a Huge Hungry Creature appeared and it started eating the pancake planets. But they did not taste good! So the Huge Hungry Creature sprinkled powdery sugar on the planets. But the Huge Hungry Creature was clumsy and the powdery sugar went everywhere, on the planets and in all the spaces in-between. After eating a lot of planets the Huge Hungry Creature got a tummy ache and wandered off into the depths of space. The remaining planets grew hard over time and lands and seas and birds and fishes and animals and people appeared. And they gazed up at the grains of sugar twinkling in space and they called them ‘stars’.

The stars twinkled merrily. And there was something else in the night sky, glowing red like a little spark: the planet Mars.

“Our new home,” whispered Charlie. Benny nodded. The beetle, who had been listening to the story with some interest, shrugged its shoulders and flew off.

The Earth had had enough of people and pollution and wars and all that kerfuffle, and Mars was waiting with a fresh start.

The back door creaked open and Charlie’s mum came out into the little back yard. He felt her hand upon his shoulder and his heart was warmed with love.

Charlie and his mum stood in silence.​​

The planet Earth spoke to them.

It was midnight, midnight but not bedtime, not yet, not on this night, the night of the Last Day. This was a night for listening: a last chance to listen to Old Mother Earth. It was a night for sniffing the air, for feeling the planet spin under your bare feet.

Away in the woods an owl was hoo-hooing. A pile of logs was stacked close to the house ready to make a cosy fire on a chilly evening: but they would not be needed by humans, not now, not ever again. A family of bugs were scritching and scratching at the logs. The grumpy beetle joined them. The logs belonged to them now.

Charlie sniffed and caught the sweet woody smell of pine needles. From much further away the charcoal barbecue smell of smoke drifted over from the Rocketships: their great engines were purring like giant cats, readying themselves for tomorrow, the Big Day.

Charlie’s mum spoke.

“All things happen for a reason,” she whispered to the owl, the woods, the stars, the bugs, the Rocketships and to Charlie.

She leaned over and kissed Charlie’s forehead and then steered him gently back into the house. The back door creaked shut for the last time and the catch fell with its familiar iron clang for the very last time and Charlie Maidly looked up at his mum and said, “Goodnight Mother…and Goodnight Mother Earth!”

His mother smiled but her eyes were filling with tears. Benny knew something wasn’t right and the dog whined softly as they made their way to bed. Charlie cuddled him and Benny was shaking but whether the dog was frightened or excited Charlie could not tell.  

Extract from Charlie Maidly and the Kink-Konk of Mars © Craig Smith 2017