Moon Rocks

 

Moon Rocks

We were just sitting here, minding our own business, when the first astronaut grabbed one of us and took him away to be tested.  They called us “moon rocks,” not very original.  Humans were searching the universe for signs of life, but they hoped to find intelligent life, not rocks.  They thought life required water and carbon. It never occurred to them that rocks like us could be life forms.  They took us home to their earth, cut us open, put us under microscopes, and found no sign of life.  They concluded we were just useless rocks, so they used us in gravel and asphalt, to pave their roads.  We were no more than slave labor.   

After they harvested all of us moon rocks, they moved on to Mars, where they found no water or carbon-based life, nothing organic or intelligent, no complex protein strings, just rocks.  Mars rocks, like us moon rocks, were also alive, but because they didn’t move, humans didn’t know it.   Martian rocks were flown to earth, cut, crushed, analyzed, and found to be of no useful value. They were objectified, used for brick and mortar.    

The same thing happened with rocks from Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter.  They were all examined, assumed dead, exploited and used for dams and bridges.  We rocks were now everywhere on earth, but humans felt superior to us. 

Being rocks, our options were limited.  We couldn’t protest or riot, so we found another way to revolt.  We decided our best revenge would be to age and crumble.  Skyscrapers fell and highways cracked. Humans fell off bridges, crashed into sinkholes, and were crushed in tunnels. 

Human life on earth was extinguished, and our invasion was complete.  We were free.  Over the next billion years we just sat around doing nothing, the way rocks do.  Then erosion wore us down into soil.  Lightning struck, protein chains formed, complex molecules changed into the first one-cell life form, and organic life was born on earth once again.  We evolved over eons and grew arms, legs, and brains. 

We had long ago forgotten our roots as rocks.  When we invented spaceships, flew to the moon, and found our ancestors, we didn’t recognize them as family.  We just paved our roads with them.