By Tim Murray
Illustration by Mark
I look back at Earth as we speed away from it at an unimaginable velocity. The once vibrant blue planet is now a murky ball of grey. Shrouded in constant cover of cloud. A graveyard.
I'm not sure how many other ships got away when we did. We left so quickly. The ship's engine is rumbling, sending uneasy vibrations throughout the entire vessel. This must have been the oldest rocket in the neighbourhood but it was the only one that would work at such short notice. It's paintwork is peeled back, revealing rusty brown bodywork underneath. Let's hope its screws and rivets hold out for the journey.
If you listen really carefully, you can hear the ship's computer working overtime. A series of bleeps and crackles as it's navigation software tries to manoeuvre between cosmic debris and space rubbish.
The Earth is tiny now. The size of a five-pence-piece and as I stare at it intently, I'm sure I see a break in the blanket of deadly cloud. A clean vein. A lifeline. Have we left too abruptly? The slit grows before my eyes, fracturing the dull surface of the planet like the windscreen of a crashed car.
Maybe the sky is falling down like the story we were told as kids about the chicken. The end of the world. Or maybe the planet is healing itself now that the last of us have gone.
I call the others over, telling them to hurry as in a minute or so the earth will be too small to see, and we watch in amazement as the cloud curtain draws itself back to reveal the blues and greens of Mother Nature. A final farewell to us, the players who used her stage for so long, so destructively.
We stand there, staring out of that small round window, long after the blue dot faded into the speckled backdrop of everything. We are alone, rushing through the cosmos in a rusty, rattling spaceship with no clue as to where we'll end up. Hoping it's as beautiful as the place we've just left.
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