“I’m going to take you into the future today children. Imagine two small planets hurtling through space, they circled around their sun for millions of years. One of the planets was populated by beings called Lings. The other planet had a population of Tics. At night the Tics would look at the planet of the Lings, quite unaware of the existence of life on that planet. On the planet of the Lings, they, too, would gaze upwards and look at the silver ball in the sky never dreaming it was full of Tics.
The millennia passed.
Then, one day a small space craft set off from the planet of the Lings and powered its way through space. Three or four days later it landed on the planet of the Tics. Its door opened and out clambered three space suited Spacelings. They climbed into their buggy and began to investigate this new world, their own planet's nearest neighbour. It was soon apparent to the Lings that the planet was quite uninhabited. There was no sign of life of any kind. No trees, no plants, no insects or animals, no water. Nothing but dust and dirt. There was no sign whatsoever of people of any kind.
The Spacelings explored but to no avail. The planet was quite empty and dead.
But, as they made their way back to their spacecraft they came across a cave.
They stopped to explore and to their amazement found an old book lying in the
dust and at the side of the book a few bones. It had clearly lain there for
many thousands of years. They buried the bones and carefully picked up the book
and headed back to the space craft - anxious to report back to their
superiors at home.
Back on board they carefully opened the book and found page after page of ancient, neat writing. It told the story of the great Tic civilizations that had once lived on the planet. They read that once the planet had been filled with millions of Tics. Tics of every colour and every belief. There were yellow Tics, white Tics, red Tics, black Tics. There were Tics who drove buses, Tics who taught in schools, Tics who worked in banks, Tics who worked in hospitals, Soldiertics, Scientics and Footballtics and Shopkeepertics, every kind of person and job you can think of just like on their own planet of Lings. There had been cities, farms, factories, motorways, animals, forests, rivers, mountains, deep oceans and all the other things that the Spacelings knew so well. It was just like at home.
But as they read further, they realised that all was not well. The book
told them that the Tics often argued amongst themselves. White Tics hated the
black Tics and red tics fell out with the yellow Tics. There was colour
prejudice. They had different religions and Tics from one religion often fell
out with people from another, Some Tics were looked down on by other Tics.
There were different classes of Tics and some had special privileges. These
Upper Classtics went to special schools and looked down on the Ordinary Tics. Many Tics were greedy and took
more than their share of the planet’s resources. Other Tics became overweight
in some parts of the planet whilst others starved in other Tic countries. The
various Tic governments were often corrupt and allowed some Tics to become
extremely wealthy whilst ordinary Tics were often unemployed and poor.
The planet was filled with great inequality which made many Tics angry and
often violent. Often the young Tics could not find work and so could not afford
to buy a home of their own and so became angry with the older Tics.
Some Tic countries polluted the
atmosphere and said that this was the price you had to pay for progress – one UStic
shouted when he became POTUStic “We’re gonna Drill Baby Drill” even though
everyone knew that this would cause irreversible damage to the planet's atmosphere. Tics across the planet were using more and more of the planet's
resources and then throwing things away so that the lands and the
oceans became filled with rubbish, plastic and the like. Many Tics had
polluting cars which harmed the atmosphere and caused illness and the Scientics
spoke out and said “If we carry on like this our planet will become polluted
and die. The atmosphere will warm, causing many places to become deserts and
the ice caps to melt so that the seas will rise and cause great floods in other
places”. But no-one took any notice.
Many Politiciantics and Religioustics warned that unless the governments did more to help people, tackle pollution and become more caring then the Tic society was in grave danger. But many Tics wouldn’t listen, "We must have our cars and our TVs and all the other things that we like" they said. Nor would many of those in power listen – they said ‘No this is progress - it is what the Tics want, there is no alternative, it is what makes us rich.’ But it didn’t make Tics in some countries rich, it made them poor for they were forced to labour in sweat shops in order to provide cheap products for the rich Tics in the rich lands of the planet. And the poor Tics became angry and resentful. Many wealthy Tics and Tic companies cheated on the amount of Tictax for which they were liable and as a result countries and governments had less money to provide for things like schools and healthcare.
There were also, the book said, some Tics who wielded great power. For example, Mediatics who wielded influence through newspapers and TV empires and these Mediatics encouraged everyone to live the good life; "Go on", they said, "buy what you want - you know it makes sense and you're worth it" And these Mediatics told ordinary Tics to vote for who the Tic newspapers approved of rather than think for themselves. And many Tics did. And many Tics stopped thinking and asking questions, they couldn't be bothered and so more and more Eviltics were allowed to gain power because nobody cared. More and more Tics said "Politics is boring, all politicians are the same so I can't be bothered to vote I just want to enjoy my TV, watch Strictly Come Dancing, the Apprenticetic, or soap operas, or go with my Tic friends to the pub or go on holiday, and have a nice life. I can't be doing with all these so called experts who tell me that life can't go on like this - they need to move on, get over it, get a life"
And the UStic which was the richest Tic nation and used up more and more of the planet’s resources and exported much of its violent culture in films and the like to other Tic nations. And other Tics watched and copied, thinking that the Tics in UStic land had a great life. And, just like in UStic land violence and guns and drugs became part of life across the planet. And things got worse and worse and Tic nations became more and more divided. More and more disputes, and then wars broke out. There were Terrortics who planted bombs and although ordinary Tics were angry and outraged at that, no-one did anything to solve the problem - they just sent more and more people to prison or started another war, rather than do what was necessary to make things better. But most Tics just said, 'What can I do, I can’t do anything, it's nothing to do with me, it's the government’s problem. And, anyway, I'm alright I have a nice life'.
But slowly at first, and then faster and faster, the planet began to fail and then die. The weather began to change and great storms and droughts occurred. Crops began to fail. There were more and more Terrortics attacks as some Tic countries began to feel the effect of the planet’s climate changes and their people needed food. Millions of these starving Tics from poor countries began to move to what they hoped were better places as Refugeetics, escaping from the climate change and the wars. And there was anger everywhere. The UStic and the UKtic, who had a special relationship, built walls or and tried to stop these Refugeetics getting into their country and keep them out of their lands. But still they came because they were desperate.........."
The Spaceling who was holding the book turned over the last page to continue reading and his eyes, and those of his colleagues, took in the final words. Their hearts began to race and their mouths fell open as they took in the words. Then they looked at each other in disbelief and horror.
The three Spacelings, in silence, closed the book and wide eyed looked at each other. Still without speaking they hurried across the surface of the barren planet to their space ship and fired up the rockets and began their journey back home. Three days later they arrived back. They climbed out of their craft and were quickly taken to see their superiors to be debriefed.
They told their superiors what had happened and what they had read. They took out the book and held it up. "It is just like our planet" they said. "We Earthlings fight amongst ourselves. We pollute. Our governments are corrupt. We face disaster if we continue in this way - the Tics tell us so in this book. We fight wars and we cause people to hate us. Half our world starves while the other half is overweight. Our young are unemployed and our governments do nothing about it but tell us that this is how it has to be. A few get very rich at the expense of the poor. Our great companies don't pay the taxes they should and so those in greatest need suffer. We must do something about it" said the Spacelings'.
'Well that’s all very interesting" said their superiors, "But it's not our problem, we are just Earthlings. Stick to flying rockets - that's your job, it's nothing to do with you. That's what we have politicians for to solve problems like that. Don't worry about it, there's more to life. Get over it. Move on."
There was silence and then the leader of the Spacelings stepped forward said 'Well, Sir, read the last page.' He opened the book at the last page and placed it in front of his superiors who looked at the ancient spidery script.
'Beware, heed my message' said the writing, 'I am the last surviving Tic.
My planet has died. Pollution, wars, violence, prejudice, greed, people
not caring, corruption has killed the planet and killed our great Tic
society. We didn’t listen. We didn't act. We didn’t learn. We didn't care and
now the great planet Luna is no more. I am the last of the Lunatics.'
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