The First Day on Earth

There is a question that I always ask myself. I ask it many times during the day. How far away from here is far away enough? How far away would I be willing to go?

My answer is always the same.

You? I bet you’d think the moon was far away enough.

I say the moon is still too close.

Here’s the thing with the moon. You can still see it. Mars? Too recognizable. Jupiter is too stormy and everyone is always looking at Saturn’s rings. Maybe Neptune. No one ever knows when Neptune is around. It just sits in the sky, disguised as a star.

But those aren’t the places that I’d go to. Those places are still too close. I’ve got my eye on something farther away than that.

Mr. Cates is discussing Human Mirgration.

He underlines it on the whiteboard.

Human Migration.

I look out the window, letting Mr. Cates’s voice recede to a soft buzz until I can’t even tell what language he’s speaking anymore. I stare at the moon.

It’s sitting there, in the sky, even though it’s morning and the sun is out. It just hangs there, showing its face. Begging to be lived on.

Mr. Cates passes us a handout. He’s pointing to the board. He’s talking about how history changes. Times change. Things change. What was once unacceptable becomes accepted. What was once accepted becomes unacceptable.

“People, they leave the terrible behind. They leave the people who don’t understand. They leave because they’re burned out. They leave for a better life. They leave the way things are, for the way things could be. They start over. They go across the ocean. They discover new lands. They settle the West. You can call them whatever you want – explorers, conquerors, settlers, pioneers,” Mr. Cates says.

He dims the lights and starts up an animated computer slide show that demonstrates the movement of people from place to place. The colors go from one end of the earth to the other. I am transfixed by the swirl of colors.

I think that some people go just because they have to get away.

I think that they were lucky back then. To have somewhere that far away to go. Somewhere totally different. Somewhere totally unknown. Somewhere they could disappear. Somewhere with breathable air. A place that wasn’t even mapped yet – the edge of the world. I’d have signed up for that so fast I wouldn’t have even packed a bag.

But these days, where can a person go? Not even Antarctica is unpopulated anymore.

They only place to go is up. “Every day is different,” Mr. Cates says. “Every day is a new day in history.” The only thing that is different about most days for me is the weather and what class I’m going to fall asleep in.