by Thomas Bennett of John Kyrle sixth form. This was one of two stories shortlisted from our schools’ competition, July 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Commander\nJeffrey Noble collapsed to the ground. He\u2019d manually prised open the enormous\nweight of the shuttle door, designed to be moved by powerful\u2014now broken\u2014motors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His hand instinctively came to\nhover over his eyes. So long had Noble stared into the emptiness of space that\nthe explosion of colour and light that stretched before him was completely\noverwhelming. He staggered to his feet. Squinting through the gaps between his\nfingers, he caught a glimpse of a tall narrow structure, spreading out as it\ngot higher. He\u2019d only seen pictures of trees. And he was equally confident that\nthe flying parade soaring high above the canopy in the distance was a flock of\nbirds, although he was clueless as to the species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other than the aerobatics\ndisplay, however, the landscape was eerily silent and still. The trees stood to\nattention row after row, tall and proud, defending whatever mysteries lay\nbeyond their fortification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His moment of tranquil reflection\nwas disturbed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018It\u2019s, it\u2019s\u2026 beautiful.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was Officer Christopher Tate. He\nhad stumbled out of the shuttle next, followed by Engineer Emma Taylor and Medical\nOfficer Dr. Lucy Jackson. Noble and the other three coughed as their lungs got\nused to the high oxygen content .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Ahhhhhhhhhh.\u2019 Jackson breathed a\ndeep sigh of relief. \u2018Clean air! Better than that recycled crap we\u2019ve been\ninhaling for the past fortnight.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officer Taylor gave her a stare.\n\u2018You don\u2019t like my air, you don\u2019t have to breathe it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Jackson\u2019s turned to Commander\nNoble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Sir, I need to take a look at\nyour arm. It took the full brunt of the-\u2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noble raised the arm casually to\ndismiss her concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018It\u2019s nothing. Where are we?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Well,\u2019 Taylor answered, \u2018the\npod\u2019s burned up badly. All the systems are fried. No communication, navigation,\nlife support. From the glimpse I caught of the computer before we entered the\natmosphere, we were headed for somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere. God knows\nwhere we actually ended up, though. And until I can make repairs,\u2019 she continued,\n\u2018we won\u2019t be able to send a message to the station.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tate pulled a small tablet device\nthat he and Taylor had hastily assembled for basic data analysis out of his\nbag. The date \u201901.05.2123\u2019 flickered at the top of the screen as he scrolled\nacross the screen to produce a map. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Here.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tate showed the Commander the\nmap, pointing towards a flashing red blip on the lower left hand-side of the\nscreen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From his own bag\u2014a tired leather\nconcoction\u2014Noble pulled a relic of a journal, an inch thick. He handled it with\nan unusual delicacy, flicking through\u2014he knew every page \u2013 until he reached\nroughly midway. He examined the double spread closely. His eyes flicked between\nthe page and the scene in front of him. The description was a near perfect\nmatch to the reality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018It\u2019s exactly how he described it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Sir?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018My grandfather. This is the\nAmazon Rainforest. My grandfather wrote about it. It\u2019s exactly as he described.\u2019\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noble handed Tate the journal,\nhis eyes fixed on the rainforest\u2019s hypnotising majesty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tate, with Taylor and Jackson\npeering over his shoulders, scanned the book. Their eyes moved between it and\nthe rainforest, exactly as the Commander\u2019s had. They too found it undeniable\nthat what Noble\u2019s grandfather had observed and scribbled down in impressively\nrich detail was indeed what they were now observing themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Jackson shortly broke the\nstunned silence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I thought they burned this place\nto a crisp.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018They<\/em>?\u2019 Noble replied. His\ncrewmembers could almost sense the anger in his voice. \u2018They. We. Us. It\u2019s all\nthe same. We\u2019re<\/em> all the same. We\u2019re all human. The only thing that\nseparates us is time. My grandfather\u2019s generation and the generation before him\nhad more time than they ever knew. And look what they did with it. This is the\none bit left.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Noble\u2019s grew silent as he once\nagain took a moment to admire the view. His disbelief for its beauty was\nmatched by his disgust for what he was sure lay beyond it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018They turned it into a carcass, a\ngraveyard for toxic waste and nuclear warheads. And those birds,\u2019 he said,\npointing at the sky, \u2018are probably our only company. You\u2019ll be lucky to find a bacterium.\nAnd those trees are now the sole lungs of the Earth. And they\u2019ll tumble soon\nenough.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tate came to Noble\u2019s side and\ngently placed his hand on his shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018But we do have something,\u2019 Tate\nreassured him, \u2018we have that small patch of rainforest. We have a blueprint. We\nhave<\/em> a little bit of hope.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Noble came close to a smile. Tate\nturned around and gently nodded at Taylor and Jackson, who nodded back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018We can do it, Sir.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Heartened, the Commander\ncautiously took a first step forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A first step towards salvaging\nthe Earth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A first step towards rebuilding\nhome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","categories":[401],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5522","project","type-project","status-publish","hentry","category-sixth-form-stories"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project\/5522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/project"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}