Sparkle

Here's a whimsical story for the year's end. It explains why methane gas has been found on Mars recently and the origins of a popular nursery rhyme....

Sparkle

Derek was okay for a robot. 
Shortly after I flopped out of a tube in the big pod on Mars, 
he gave me a tag name, Sparkle. 
He didn't know that my mother had already named me
Farming Today after her favourite radio programme. 
She'd lived somewhere called Earth and used to tell me
about things called meadows. 
I don’t know what happened to her after that.

Derek and I used to have late night conversations. 
He said I was a good listener.

One night after he had shambled back to his sleeping pod, 
I had a dream which mixed up all my mother’s stories 
and Derek’s odd tales. 
The next morning I came to a decision as the milking robots 
sucked at our udders. 
When Derek appeared to re-fill the food hoppers, 
I told him that I wanted to go on holiday. 
I didn’t even know what a holiday was. The word had come
to me from somewhere and I was completely cudsmacked 
that he agreed by nodding and winking at me in a very odd way.

What happens now, I thought.

The next evening he sloped by as usual but as his voice 
droned and unwound, the pen door suddenly swung open
and he told me to get going before any of the other robots noticed. 
Some of my neighbours moaned and fretted on their bovi-tred. 
I was heady with the anticipation of adventure. 
I sensed another animal padding along behind me but squinting 
through the shadows, I could only see Derek's blinking lights.
The first hatch slid away easily as Derek shone a laser beam 
into the sensor.

I noticed a big round hole like a giant eye set into the wall of the pod
and through it I saw what my mother would have called 'a grand view'. 

Derek had bored me silly with his tales about celestial bodies. 
I’d spent my whole life seeing very little in the red gloom of the big pod.
Now I started to feel excited by glimpses of enormous bright globes. 
Hairs bristled all down my back to the tip of my tail. 
Derek had told me about the large blue disc hanging above the horizon 
and here it was right in front of me. 
He activated the last door sensor and nudged my left flank saying, 
'off you go girl.’

I sauntered a few steps outside the pod and was about to turn around
to ask Derek how I would get back in, when suddenly there was explosion
of light.  
And a shocking sound like a cracking bone. 
I was falling through the red dust into the dark blue emptiness, 
past comets, constellations and meadows and looking back I saw 
unmistakably, a laughing creature with a strange but familiar look 
in its eye as I flew across the face of the Moon.