Photo courtesy of wildverbs
“Do you think there will be fountains there?”
“I don’t think so,” Dina replied. “They said there isn’t enough water. Everything’s recycled.”
It was the day before their departure. The following morning their parents would take them to the spaceport at Canaveral, and they’d leave the only home they’d ever known behind them, shuffled off to a sealed dome on a world so different from their own as to be unfathomable. It was a harsh place, cold and red and lifeless, at least for now.
Someday, they were told, their new world would be green. There would be water and fountains and their children’s children would run and play in endless fields of languid grasses. But that world was one they would never see. It was a world that, one day, they would be called upon to help create.
But that was years ahead of them. For now, they merely sat and watched, as the last fountain they’d ever see burbled on before their innocent eyes.
Written for the FFfAW Challenge – Week of June 12, 2018. Word count: 166. Read other stories based on this prompt at InLinkz.com.
Writing Tomorrow 
Great story! Makes me think, I don’t want to live in another world. I like this world! How sad that new world will be.
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Perhaps at first, but that’s the nature of being a pioneer. The first colonists on Mars will be asked to make a lot of sacrifices: they’ll have to leave Earth behind, trade fresh air and green fields for sealed domes and recycled water. And ultimately, their sacrifices will lead to a new, greener, more pleasant world that they, and likely their children, and likely their children’s children will never see. But future generations will honor their sacrifice, and remember them much as we remember the great explorers and colonists that stretched the boundaries of the United States from one coast to the other.
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I can see your point. And I agree with you. I just don’t want to be one of the pioneers. I want to keep my feet on the earth.
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“It was a world that, one day, they would be called upon to help create.” Isn’t that true for all of us.
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A sad thought. It will take a special kind of person to make that sort of sacrifice. Well written, focusing on the simple things that will have to be given up.
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The problems with colonizing Mars let alone terraforming it are enormous. I love the idea of manned space exploration having grown up with the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo projects, but until we can find a way to counter or adapt to microgravity, it will be hard (or impossible) to have multigenerational colonies on the Moon or Mars.
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You paint a bleak picture of this new world, and yet there’s hope. Great stuff.
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I love it, such an amazing take 😊
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