Across the galaxy, in an abandoned solar system, on an abandoned planet, about a hundred or so light years from the planet where the lonely prince sat consoled by the sweet singing of his favourite artist, was the origin of the Old Earthen Empire. Long ago, this now barren planet was the sole home of the human race, who now settle scattered across the known universe. How it came to be that they possessed the technology to not only fare the stars but to conquer it no one could say. One of its trillionaires, who funded the technological and sociopolitical development for this era of space venture, begged the government of Earth to give him and his followers permission to use one of its neighbouring planets as a base of operations, where, like the colonialists of old, they had built huge industrial complexes for economic gain. The request was granted; and half-a-century later, in the centre of the twelve factories which had brought these interplanetary colonialists of adventure, the first of these space colonies came to be. This Martian settlement, existing under the guise of technological advancement in a transparent geodesic bio-dome, but later found to be developing insidious galactic weaponry for the government, which was the ancestor to the now widely common satanic suits, still remains, and is inhabited now by the detestable space lepers, who are automatically exiled to this defunct solar system. For millions of years, this infected population have remained upon these weather-worn planets, on which they have settled like camp labourers, marrying, breeding, dying, without daring to dream of travelling back to their home planet, or preserving their original traditions or religions, but instead resigning to the hypocrisy of the God Mother.
On one of these planets, the year of AVI 20, Earth, now a single desert biome, where the surface is almost as hot as the sun, and underneath its rotten crust is its population, a young and beautiful girl, with hair as dark brown and reddish as chestnut, and skin as pale as the pearled moonlight that flooded the ancient caverns on rare summer nights, was flicking through a dusty tome of ancient philosophy, tracing lightly the braille with her long, slender and delicate fingers, the long, drawn out sentences of which were in another tongue; her eyes, the sleekness of a cat’s, deep blue, and compassionate, and hidden beneath a veil of disinterest as well as light chisel and arched eyebrows, darted over the page with scientific curiosity, and she waggled her tiny and supple foot, so as to radiate the white splendour of her slender and pure leg, in its nakedness underneath its cotton pink dress. At the end of the room, in which its walls were entirely made of abode, and where no natural light, nor fresh and clean air, had penetrated since its construction, sat the remnants of many toys and devices configured in the form of a teddy bear. It was about one foot in height, and it was seated on a wooden handcrafted chair five times its size, leaning against its old worm-eaten armrest, staring emptily at the Vanessa.
“You see, Mr Prince,” said the young girl, “here is my birthday coming round again in three days; tell me, won’t you save me from this comfortable life, and take me with you on an adventure to see the purple fireworks?”
Mr Prince did not say anything.
“Of course, we cannot have my mother find out; she would surely kill us both if she were to find out that I disobeyed her by leaving the compound. But—” she leaned back in her chair and sighed, and looked at the rusted telescope in the corner, which was pointed downwards sadly at the ground, “I have to — I have to see the purple fireworks! Tell me, are not those purple fireworks a sign of something intelligent above? Make me understand the direct contradiction of this sighting with the words of mother in her book, who says with the certainty of an omniscient being that ‘there is nothing above, but black, poisonous gas’? Ah, to experience the truth with my own eyes, so I may at least settle this contradiction, and put to rest this internal fire in my chest, of which I believe was put in me for a reason.”
Vanessa walked over to the telescope, leaving the dense narrative on the chair, and tilted the lens towards a particular crack in the ceiling, but sighed as expected when she saw nothing but the dark interior of the underground. “I assure you, your highness, that I saw something purple and fiery once through the lens. When? I cannot remember, but do not gaslight me: I know what I saw; a colour that I had never seen before. It is my hope to see this strange new light once again. Where did it come from? Where does it reside now? I have so many questions.”
Then the young girl strolled to the centre of the room, her palm slowly grazing against the indents of the wall, and over her paintings, and she said, “Although, it might also be true, if I were to don the hat of a scientist, that what I saw all those years ago was but a figment of my imagination,” and she dropped her shoulders and sighed. She took in her hands the text that she was reading, and held it to the fluorescent light bulb hanging from the ceiling so that the letters in its title were illuminated gold. “This book too corroborates my hypothesis that there exists something else.”
She came to the bed and sat upon it, and, smiling piteously, flicked through its worn pages languidly. “This book — I do not know what to make of it, as it speaks so candidly about things that I cannot fathom being remotely possible; It contradicts many of mother’s teachings, and yet I think that it corroborates my hypothesis of there being more to life than this,” she said, looking around the place she had called home all her life, before settling again on her only friend, the teddy bear prince.
She tossed the book to her side, and picking up a cloth from one of her side drawers, and walked to the middle of the room. She started to wipe the prince’s eyes, and said, smiling, “So, my handsome saviour, will you help this poor girl sneak out of her home and achieve her dream?”
And the girl went to spend the rest of her day as she often did, painting and reading, as calm and joyous as one could hope to be holed up in that cave.
