"Frankly, my dear, Earth Day is lame. I refuse to go again this year," Mr. Jones said.

Mrs. Jones hoped the children had not heard their father. "But dear, they had such a good time last year."

"Well, the price of admission has gone up again and I'm sure the parking situation is worse than last year."

"The children will be disappointed if we don't go," replied Mrs. Jones

From the porch of their pod house on the moon, Mr. and Mrs. Jones glanced in the distance at the blue planet they once called home. 

"Do you remember Disney World, Donna? How awed we were at the artificial environments and mechanical creatures! We didn't appreciate the miracle of nature and the planet we lived on. Now we live in an artificial environment here and everything is mechanical."

"But the children don't remember earth," replied Mrs. Jones. "I heard that this year another tree has been added as well as another live animal. Remember last year when the children saw the bird and heard it sing? They couldn't believe it was real!"

"Well, alright. We'll go. But this will be the last year," said Mr. Jones.

"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Jones. 

© 2007 Martha Conte. Original for CCF ( Conte grants CCF first electronic rights for one month; CCF may archive the material indefinitely and include it in an eBook anthology).