OOh thats a good idea (jupiter) CHeers :-)
Short Story / Restless Planets.
Part 1:
The Earth breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was such a huge sigh, that it created earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, which would have hit a 12 on the Richter scale, had man still been alive.
The demise of all mankind, and all other forms of life on earth, had been the reason for her sigh of relief. Mankind had nearly killed her with pollution.
When mankind killed every other single living organism, including plants, animals, amoebas, germs, bacteria and jellyfish, she had decided she would not mind at all, if man also killed himself too.
The year was 2100 AD in human terms. It had taken them roughly 600 or so years to create enough pollution and hatred for each other in order to accidentally end all life.
Oh sure, there had been warnings for the last 200 years before the end, but as stubborn as mankind were, the leaders among them had opted to ignore the solution, figuring that it would be someone else’s problem in the future.
They had chosen to live in the luxury of their home comforts rather than to preserve the planet for their children and future generations to live or even just survive in.
Most figured that they wouldn’t be around much longer to see the effects of pollution happening, and so did nothing about it. They were wrong, and about three or four generations later, once it was too late, they realised their grave mistake. By this time, however, all they could do was to wait and die.
Part 2:
The last few people alive had spent their last few days wishing they were dead, choking on the smoggy air, which meant they had slowly suffocated and their throats were raw from coughing up blood.
50 years previously, the Americans and a few of the European governments had issued everyone with oxygen masks as a necessity, but this meant using up the world’s oxygen supply, and although plants thrived on carbon dioxide, the heat of the atmosphere and lack of rain and clean water, had killed them all, meaning there was no more oxygen to be converted from the plants.
The earth had become a barren and radioactive wasteland, worse than even the surface of Mars. In fact, Mars was now showing the first few forms of life, of its own, they were only small plants and bacteria, but it was better than nothing, and besides, didn’t life have to begin somewhere?
The earth had warned Mars not to grow humans, and that she was the prime example of why this was. Mars had agreed that if his beings ever turned into anything like humans, that he would make their lives hell.
Earth reminded him that she’d tried this 200 years ago with climate changes, tropical storms, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters of the sort. She’d even had fun with it.
Watching them try to fix everything and help one another. She also laughed knowingly at their prayers. Maybe if they had respected her enough she would play nicely. She now made the decision, that if a new race of humans ever developed upon her surfaces again, she would self destruct.
She had tried to rid herself of humans before, but failed when one small group of them created a boat to sail above the floods. She resolved that next time she would try fire.
Actually, no. on second thoughts, there would be no next time at all. She sped up her rotation so as to get further from the sun, and completely thaw over.
If humans were still around, they would have referred to it as the mother of all ice ages. She never really liked the humans much anyway.
They made her itch and she had no hands to scratch with. She had tried giving them head lice to see how they liked it, but they didn’t take the hint. They just invented a lotion to kill them off. She wished she could have done the same. She arrived next to Pluto, and settled down.
Part 3:
Pluto on the other hand, had always been jealous of Earth, and had wished he could create his own life forms. He had become even more pissed off, when the humans had ruled him out as a planet, and classed him as a moon status because of his size.
He’d kept shouting “size doesn’t matter!” but all it had actually done was to create a tsunami. Neptune’s moons had laughed at him and called him “moon boy.” Pluto had been planning his revenge on the humans for over a century, but had wasted his time because they had killed themselves with pollution.
Pluto decided there and then upon two things:
1. If he ever created his own life forms, they would never progress enough to even invent the wheel.
2. if they did he would kill them all.
He saw the earth settle, and he spun up his rotation system, and settled down in her old place, before Neptune could get there.
Part 4:
Mars heard a great thud, as Pluto plonked himself down next to her. She was so surprised that she quickly spun around, creating the quickest day she’d ever made.
Venus on the otherhand was too busy sunbathing, and was too deeply asleep to notice anything.
Pluto was a very small planet, and he had failed to realise what it would do to his atmosphere if he moved any closer to the sun. A few years later, he’d become very sunburnt, and the ice on his surface had thawed, creating a small ocean planet. After a few hundred years, there was still no sign of life. Not so much as a single bacteria had even formed.
Meanwhile, Earth had not realised how cold it was on the edge of the solar system. She’d quickly frozen, every single ocean, river and lake had frozen into solid ice. This had made her become so heavy that her rotation slowed, and it soon took her 10 years just to rotate once, on her axis.
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LexiLane reviewed Version 2 -
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-’if man also killed himself too.’ Using also and too in the same sentence in reference to the same thing is quite repetitive.
-’clean water, had killed them all, meaning..’ ’of life, of its own, they..’ There are a few times you have unnecessary comma use. It is not only incorrect These are a couple of examples.
-I think that you are right about this being best made into a children’s book. I think kids would really enjoy it, and there are so many great visuals that could turn into illustrations for a children’s book.
-Although I do not necessarily agree with the message of the story, I liked it a lot. :)
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Harvest reviewed Version 1 -
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It’s an interesting idea. Fatalistic an controvertial in some places. The content is obvously only fantacy. But the story stops being significant after you introduce other planets.
Again, I repeat that the concept is creative and significant, but unfortunately, this is not a story. I’m aware that you said it wasn’t finished, but even so, this doesn’t have a plot. It lacks structure. The sory in itself is very complicted because you are not dealing with humans, but with planets that are personalized as humans, who hate humans for their recklessness. Remember that all stories are about people even. These planets are people.
Having said that, you need plot, scene, conflict, conflict, conflict. Make everything important that happens, happen in scene – for example, make a scene of the destruction… narrow down these concepts, and focus on only a group of people. Narrate the struggle of one family in the times of the destruction of earth… etc.
Here are some technical things I saw
hit a 12 on the Richter scale – write out numbers
Most figured that they wouldn’t be around much longer to see the effects of pollution happening, and so did nothing about it. They were wrong, – were they wrong? they did outlive the disaster.
wasteland, worse than even the surface of Mar – undermine the authority of the writer
Mars was now showing the first few forms of life – unrealistic. this will never happen (set the fantasy tone earlier because when it gets to this point I’m still in my realistic set of mind, and this is wrong information).
but all it had actually done was to create a tsunami. – this is confusing
1. If he ever created his own life forms, they would never progress enough to even invent the wheel.
2. if they did he would kill them all. – don’t make lists.
Hope this helps. Keep writing,
E
MARCH reviewed Version 1 -
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Awesome. I really liked this a lot. First I thought it was just another after armageddon survival story. I liked how you gave Earth personality and made me see just hates us. My favorite part was how she tried to flood the earth.I just thought this was something very different and I enjoyed it.
ilegalimex reviewed Version 1 -
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I really like this subject matter. It reminds me of the book Planets. I love Earth’s fermenting hatred for mankind. Personification is very difficult, however.
I am kind of confused/worried about the way this story will unfold. Will all of the action take place in the cosmos? Will Pluto fling himself into Earth’s atmosphere, destroying it? Is that even scientifically possible? In the world of your story, does it matter whether or nor it’s scientifically possible? Are these deities with physical bodies, or just planets? Is this a metaphor? Is this all in an astro-physicist’s insane mind?
I think you have a LOT places to go with this one, and I think with more dialogue and line breaks, it would be an easier read.
Where will you be going with this? Longer short story? Novel? I’d definitely want to see more!
JamesDominic reviewed Version 1 -
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i have always been a fan of the cosmic theme.
i enjoyed your personificaiton of the planets, but you seemed to trivialize their personas in a way that didnt really jive with me. of course, ive always been more of a romantic.
SnwAng reviewed Version 1 -
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You have an interesting idea here, but I want to know what the other planets thought of this mess. I like the idea of the planets have there own opinions and thoughts. those it is throughly depressing that there are no other people on our planet. I was really hoping we’d get it together!
Mars as a girl was an interesting choice, I always thought as mars as a guy planet.
I would try to carry on telling about the other planets ideas. Try taking Jupiter and explaining the big red spot!
MrEff reviewed Version 1 -
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This story would be better off left to die. The idea of the planets being sentient is thought-provoking, but the tone is too moralistic. If you’re going to speak out against pollution in a fictional story, you’ll need some plot and well-developed characters. This reads more like an essay in which you’ve attributed your views to a planet.
ArthurXOrion reviewed Version 1 -
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Absolutely hysterical. I love this story, and also I can’t ignore the subtle, (ok, maybe not subtle) social commentary directed at us, the humans, scourge of Planet Earth. Especially love the last line, the reference to Pluto getting into position before Neptune has the chance to beat him to it, and the almost sad symbolism of Earth settling down in the outer reaches of the solar system where she can’t be blighted by the plague of humans ever again.
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