Southend U3A

The Far Future - Ann Southwood

September 2011

'Mama, I'm Hungry.' Cassie looked down at her son. She knew he was tired and she was hungry as well but they had to continue their journey without too many stops or they would miss the transit coach.

'Sorry, Jonnie, but we will get food at the coach stop, it won't be long now.' Jonnie sighed. At 8 years old he was a strong lad but this interminable walking was wearing his legs out and the path seemed to go on forever. The scenery wasn't much either with burnt out buildings on both sides of the pitted road. Fields ravaged by fire and trees felled for fuel. Why did wars have to happen?

'Mama, did you have wars when you were young?'

'Not when I was young, Jonnie, but when your Grandmother was growing up there were wars all over the world; people were starving, there was not enough food to go round. The sun burnt all the land so nothing could grow. Then the rains came and when the water subsided everyone had to start again; but grandma was lucky, she escaped to the moon, and in the English quarter a few old age farmers farmed the little bit of land they had and grew vegetables and rice. Then the Italians made pizzas, the Chinese a sort of rice stew and all the other countries made their own food from the ingredients they had taken with them and they all exchanged their ideas and the moon became quite a cosmopolitan society. That's why I have to go back to the moon with you so you have a chance to taste the good life as I did when I was your age.'

'So why did you have to come back here then?' Cassie wondered if she should answer that question. 'Well . . . I came back so I could have you. On the moon it was difficult to have babies and if you look around you will see lots of mothers with their offspring going back as we are. We had to choose whether to have a boy or girl as we were only allowed one child, and I chose a boy and I also had to choose who the father would be before we left so everything could be made ready for your arrival.' Jonnie glanced at his mother and thought how lucky he was to have been chosen, but his legs still ached and he was still hungry.

After another few hundred meters they could hear the buzz of a crowd of people and there was the transit station with the coach waiting to be boarded. Cassie and Jonnie joined the throng, Cassie stopping to buy a food bar for Jonnie. She recognized some of the other women but some she had never seen before and wondered where they had hailed from. Another hour passed until they were on the coach, safely strapped into their seats and two hours later they landed. Cassie was apprehensive whether Jonnie would like his new home and wondered how long it would be before he wanted to go to the newer inhabited planets like Mars and Jupiter as there was a shortage of suitable housing in the English quarter on the moon.

Jonnie was thrilled both with the flight and his new surroundings. Their home was in the biggest of the spherical domes built alongside each other and as the buggy that transported them from the landing stage drove right into their dome, he thought that when he was old enough he would like to travel to the other planets as a space pilot. Having alighted he gazed in amazement at the orderly row of gardens to one side of the main road, where he saw men tending the vegetables and plants and wondered to himself if one of these men was his father, but of course he was never to know, as donor secrecy was sacrosanct. His mother had told him about the blue soil the vegetables were grown in and that they were all genetically modified unlike the planet Earth where people of the old ages railed against this method and starved rather than eat what they classed as unnatural and not fit for human consumption.

On the other side of the main highway were the tented platform homes of the residents one above the other, rather like the skyscrapers that he had seen on his x-box and Cassie led him to hers. She thought as they entered that there might have been squatters but it was just as she had left it over eight years ago, and she was thankful for good neighbours.

Jonnie had a good look round at his room which had a bed with a shelf above to store his latest DAB wave TV system and automatic satellite phone on which he could contact his friends in every part of the new worlds. He settled into the life very quickly and for that Cassie was grateful. She herself was pleased to be home and rejoined her neighbours and friends who shared the cooking and child care. They often went by buggy to the other quarters so Jonnie could see how the other nations lived and he became rather partial to Chinese food.

So the years passed and Jonnie at the age of twenty packed a rucksack said a tearful good-bye to his mother and set off to Mars where he hoped the good life beckoned and would fulfil his dream of being a Sky Ranger.