Watching and waiting, visitors from the Moon orbit the planet. Their mission: Conquer Earth. Of course, that’s the easy part…
From the Officer’s Lounge Megan Bremer stared out the viewing bubble. Earth rotated below. Soon, the invasion would be underway. Megan was conflicted. You can take the Earthling out of Earth. But you can’t take the Earth out of the Earthling.
Or something like that.
On one hand, Megan would love to see her driving instructor, her former boss at Cinnabon, the entire student body at Maple Grove Senior High School and former U.S. president Donald Trump sent to the mines of Mars. Kicking and screaming preferred.
On the other, she missed Earth. Especially now. Leaves were turning gold and red. The bright, warm, frail days of autumn beckoned. She saw her black Lab, Tark, leaping for a tennis ball.
On the Moon, Megan could take him to the orbiting Dog Dome. They had tennis balls, too. But watching Tark push off glass and sail away was hardly the same.
Commander Kern walked into the lounge and dispensed pineapple juice from a machine. “Greetings, Earthing!” he said.
That joke was getting old.
“I wish you’d drop that, Mr. Kern.” Megan picked up her duty folder. She was supposed to be working.
“I didn’t mean anything. I know you’re more Malthusian than Malthusians.”
Whatever that meant. “Thank you, Mr. Kern.”
“And you’re an officer, sworn in sacred obedience to the Space Corps.”
“Yes I am.”
“Even unto death.”
“Should it come to that, Mr. Kern.”
“Still…” He eyed her suspiciously. “You haven’t got a paramour on Earth, by any chance?”
Kern was a communications expert and wordsmith. He delighted in obscure references, hoping to throw an opponent off their game. It wouldn’t work with Megan. She was bookish in her own right.
“If by paramour you mean love interest, no. That would be back on the Moon.”
Kern, always nosy, couldn’t help himself. “And who would that be?”
“My dog.”
Megan said this with such a straight face the commander could neither laugh nor comment. He didn’t always win. “Well, good then,” he stammered. “Very good. Carry on, Ms. Bremer. But know this: I’m watching you carefully. Very, very carefully.”
He departed.
What an irritating man! If Megan seemed more Malthusian than Earthling, Kern, increasingly, seemed more Earthling than Malthusian.
Too bad he wasn’t down there. Megan regarded Earth once more through the bubble. What a pleasure to send him to Mars!
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com