NaPoWriMo Day 20
Two-thirds of the way through and I’ve actually managed to get a poem done every day so far, which is something to celebrate! I’m not sure how easy next week is going to be though, as I have some all-day work meetings and after-work dinners to fit in. Maybe more haiku will be deployed!
I basically followed the NaPoWriMo prompt again today, which was to explore ‘a particular object or place from the point of view of some far-off, future scientist. The object or site of study could be anything from a “World’s Best Grandpa” coffee mug to a Pizza Hut, from a Pokemon poster to a cellphone’. My future scientists are school children from a un-named planet, who’d left Earth long ago…
Field Trip
An excursion to planet ErTH-1!
So interesting, bleeped Colonel-Miss-88,
trying to ignore our groans.
It’s a rubbish planet! Literally!
Can’t we go to AppleWorld™?
Ancestors are BORING!
Ugh, even Wales9 would be better!
Negative, Colonel-Miss went on,
ErTH-1 is fascinating.
Your virtual X-AMs are coming up, and
this trip will help with Ecology,
Ancient History, AND Interstellar Geography.
Don’t forget – no one will be allowed off-ship
without their respirator!
It took AGES to get there.
Even further than DizneeWorld7!
It was OK though – I shared a pod
with Oaktree and Maisonette,
and our sandwiches came out straight away.
Freezy-cheese and nu-HAM – my favourite!
Finally we saw it coming into view,
a dull grey and brown pebble,
circling a sputtering sun.
You can put on your occulisers now,
chirped Colonel-Miss-88,
and you’ll see it in green and blue,
just like it used to be!
Janitorbotz had cleared a whole street
in a country on ErTH-1 called ‘Watford’.
Colonel-Miss-88 scanned our permission chips
and we filed into this primitive building,
which we were told was:
‘ALBAN WOOD PRIMARY SCHOOL AND NURSERY’.
No holo-pads of course,
not even a suspended animation chamber.
I don’t know HOW they’d have done detention,
laughed Colonel-Miss.
It had an electronic whiteboard though –
just like the one in the Intergalactic Museum!
We got to try on these old clothes too,
which ErTH-1 children had to wear as uniform.
What was the deal with TROUSERS?!
Hilarious!
Outside was the playground – all barren concrete,
like Mebula4 after the millennium wars –
but Colonel-Miss told us that historians
were pretty sure it was supposed to look like that.
Finally, there was a room called a LIBRARY,
packed with obsolete technology called ‘books’.
There were hundreds of these rectangles,
all with colourful pictures on them –
mostly ErTH-1 children,
back when everyone was either pink or brown –
and extinct ErTH-1 creatures, like birds.
Some of them had pictures inside too,
but they were mainly filled with tiny black squiggles.
When we looked at them with our occulisers,
nothing happened at all!
None of us were able to guess what they were for,
but we were allowed to take one home if we wanted – a souvenir.
Mine is falling apart, but I like its picture:
An ErTH-1 boy with strange round occulisers,
and a lightning-shaped mark on his forehead.