UP THERE IN THE STARS

Beginning of 2070's

'Did you hear the news?' I exclaimed to Charlene as I stomped into the room.

'Let me guess! Someone important people somewhere,'ve bought or sold something important, haven't they?' she said with a mocking tone. She furtively looked up at me while continuing to braid Lynne's hair.

Our daughter was sitting on the floor in front of the sofa between Charlene's legs. The latter didn't like to follow the news, and she despised politics. She was in her thirties when she went to the AI concentration camps during their colonisation. Following the trauma of those years together with the measures of the few years before that, she had developed a strong distaste for everything slightly remotely connected to mainstream or independent media. According to her, the media was just propaganda for those who could afford the privilege.

'Almost. They're going to Mars,' I said. I could barely conceal the sadness in my voice.

'And does this make you feel sad?' Charlene retorted, shaking her head gently, 'Earth will be much better off without these guys. Let them go and wreak havoc elsewhere!' she added with a burst of laughter.

I remained standing in front of Charlene and Lynne. I gazed at them without seeing them, my mind lost in my thoughts of the abandoned little boy I still was. The leaders of big American, Chinese and European multinationals had already been working for many years on a great expedition in space far away from the problems of the world which had made them rich and prosperous. So, the news wasn't really new. The Babel gene consisted of the final straw that had broken the greedy camel's back. It was high time they went into exile in a place where they could reproduce exactly what they had done on Earth: conquer, exploit, ruin, and finally, abandon.

It was staggering to see the money, energy, and resources deployed in yet another great project which aimed at benefiting only a handful of people in the world population. Men had definitely learnt nothing at all from their past mistakes. At least, if ever something serious happened there, the rest of us would be spared that time around. The silence and emptiness of space would protect us from their insanity.

Yet, I couldn't help it, but felt the dagger blade of abandonment. The difference in colour, complexion, social status or whatever didn't take away the fact that we were all part of one big family: the family of planet Earth. Even though we didn't get along with each other, we were still relatives. Once again, some relatives were leaving me stranded on one side to move to another, or vice versa.

For the great majority of men and women who had neither the physical strength nor the means to pay for the great interstellar voyage, they felt they were being forsaken by the all-powerful ones of their world once again. While the Westerners stuck on Earth longingly watched the leaders of multinationals together with their families and their good friends, go up there in the stars, the former wretched of the Earth couldn't care less. With their special gene or without their special gene, and with no doubt, they saw no point in following the big leaders out of space. Those so-called leaders were the very same people who had dragged them over centuries in humiliation and pain.

In fact, human beings are all like stars: we share the same immense space where we keep crossing each other's path at several points in time. That is why, I knew deep down seeing them leave that their pretentious path would cross ours again at the very place where they had left us as unworthy miserable survivors who should have in fact died. We were no longer their simple guests on Earth, the planet with its mysteries had officially declared us also its worthy heirs.