Writer Unblocked

By Rachel H Grant

A new Planet Earth. This was it. They had found it. Sapphire seas hissed under a powerful sun, emerald land purring in between, the taste of untainted nature.

Lawrence smirked. This trip had been a good choice. His career as a travel writer had hit a lull, but then this assignment had seized him with the lure of fame. A space voyage to find a new inhabitable planet, one that would act as an outpost for Planet Earth, a new dawn of twinned planets and sister societies. His piece was going to make him very rich.

Captain Jenny was preparing to land. Her shining brown locks and deep grey eyes glinted in the soft light of the control panel. “There are buildings below!” she cried excitedly. “This planet is inhabited! We need to go very carefully on this one. Let me leave the spaceship on my own first, to show we come in peace.”

Jenny discovered a welcome party on disembarking. An elderly man with long white hair, dressed in flowing robes of gold, stood next to a young woman with silver hair and amber eyes.

The man was holding a strange, humming metallic device. “We know you come in peace.” He spoke slowly. “We’ve been watching you approach. Our priests confirmed your peaceful intent. Please ignore this gadget I am holding. It is an intergalactic translator. It is why you understand what I say. I am Toski, leader of this planet, and this is my daughter, Princess Zeta.”

“We come from Planet Earth,” intoned Jenny slowly, slightly mesmerised by the old man’s still stare.

“Show me.”

Zeta brought forward a globe of light. Jenny peered in to it. It was a map of the stars. This she could do, she knew this galaxy like her own address book. She used a lever to move around, then stopped, puzzled. Earth was not where it should be.

“No, it can’t be,” Toski muttered, shaking. “You can not be from that planet, the missing planet? Planet Eternal Light, destroyed two thousand years ago. That is why our people came here. We are the survivors, and we built a new civilisation.  But you think you are from there? It must be space crunch. That is what we call it when space travel shifts you between dimensions, or in to other realities. You can’t go back now. You will find nothing there. Or worse … some very alien civilisation on what you think of as your planet.”

Jenny was stupefied. When she briefed her team, they voted to abort their mission and return home directly.

But on their return, there was no Earth. They circled Mars, and Venus, but Earth did not reappear.

“It’s true,” whispered Jenny sadly. “We are in another reality. Earth is no more.”

Lawrence was fizzing with fury. There would be no one to sell his story to now.

“We must return,” declared Jenny decisively. “To New Earth. I’m sure Toski will let us live with them.”

Lawrence was almost dancing with rage. His career was assuredly over now. “I want to try again,” he whined. “I want to circle space until Earth, our Earth, returns. Eventually we must cross this space crunch thing to our own reality? That’s what I want to do.” And then publish the story of a lifetime, he thought with satisfaction.

“It’s your choice,” said Jenny simply, “although I would recommend you stick with us. You know how to drive the pod, yes? I will program some flights for you, one around the solar system, returning to Earth. You can put that one on repeat. The other flight will be to New Earth. That is your rescue flight. The space pod will have enough fuel for another month.”

And so Lawrence circled the solar system, day in and day out. Earth did not reappear. At one point Venus looked verdant, like an Earth, however on the next circle of the solar system, when he planned to land there, it had reverted to its usual self.

Eventually, furiously, he knew he had to give in. Earth was gone.

The flight to New Earth was non-eventful. Jenny had programmed the pod to land at exactly the same place as before. They would be there, he mused with what was finally relief, to welcome him to the new planet. Perhaps his career wasn’t over, after all. He could start his own media outfit, if one did not already exist. His own newspaper. Did they have television? He could be at the forefront, a communications pioneer.

He was landing. But something was wrong. There were no buildings.

There was nothing but luscious green grass, towering trees, a shimmering stream, dancing in the soft sunlight.

He walked and walked. Nothing. Nature had consumed this planet. There were no people.

Slowly he sat down. The space pod was running short of fuel. He could not leave.

Lawrence would have to make it on his own. So much for a glorious media career here.

Overhead a bird soared, a lone companion in the silence. He would wait. One day, he knew, a spaceship would come. From Old Earth, from another New Earth. Somewhere out there was intelligent life. They would find him.

He hoped.

In the distance a bird cawed, and then all was quiet once more. Lawrence slowly lay down and tried to sleep. When he woke up, perhaps this would all be a dream, and another dimension would claim him.

The sound of his snoring merged with the song of the stream.  The trees danced in the wind, as the sun slid down a pink and violet sky. The planet slept in silence, as it had done for a thousand years.

Lawrence turned over restlessly, and then was still. Night had claimed the land.