“dad are we going to die?”
I stared at my daughter's teary eyes as she stood right in front of me with the most innocent black face ever. She does not deserve this fate, I murmured.
“we won't die”, I said with a weak forced smile, and her mum burst into tears, everyone even my daughter knew that was a lie, but I had to be strong for them, the truth was too painful to be heard. The decision mantel fell on me. I looked at the eyes of each and every black man, women and children in the crucible stuck in mars, the red planet, habited by us, the survivors of the holocaust, and I knew we all wanted the same thing, but to achieve that, our lives was the price to be paid.
“here is a pen and paper”, a pen filled with the blood of our dead and a paper made from the skin of the living. “thanks darling”, I said and began to write.
“It all started with a nuclear threat from north korea to the USA, and escalated so fast that before we could phantom what was going on, nuclear bombs began raining everywhere, half of Europe, asia and the earth itself was cleared, billions died, this was the HOLOCAUST.
A treaty was finally reached to end the war but it was already late, the impact of the numerous nuclear bombs had shifted earths magnetic field, so instead of earth moving round the sun, it began to move towards the sun. Gradually, as time went bye, ice caps at the polar regions of earth began to melt, flood started, killed millions, and as the earth moved steadily towards the sun, water bodies began to dry up, animals began to die, crops began to die, soil became too hard, the sun became so hot, climate change and heat waves began to flood the earth, and finally we lost the ozone layer.
The survival of man began, starting from the whites who died of skin cancer because of the direct UV light which had little effect on Africans because of our melanin. And so black became the new cool, the fittest survived and the weak were wiped off the earth. In a last bid to survive the whites began harvesting melanin from blacks and we had no choice than to fight back, with nature by our side, we wiped them all. Still we knew earth was doomed for destruction as it became hotter by the day. And so a team of African scientist built a crucible to take survivors to planet MARS.
We landed on MARS with little or no idea of what it entails or holds for us. The red planet looked more like a dragon about to devour us, but we are Africans, we survive anywhere. Two men were sent out and they never came back, two other were sent afterwards and they still never returned. And then we prepared for the third exploration well and we went out. The soil was red, dry and filled with iron oxide. Temperatures in the morning were only 32 c and in the night as low as -143c. Liquid water could not be found on the surface of Mars because of its very low atmospheric pressure which vaporizes any trace of water, hence no plant or organism can survive on it. Heavy volcanic eruption were seen everywhere and lastly without an ozone layer, direct space wirlwind and waves hits the planet causing everywhere to be filled with heavy red dust. That instant I knew, we were all doomed! But somehow we had to survive. This is 2078.
I stared at it's two moons and finally understood why it was called Mars, after the Roman god of War. We found the bodies of our own people, dead, dry and frozen. The planet isn’t habitable, so we went back to the crucible. After the inventory, we discovered that we had just 6 months of fuel, oxygen, food and water left. We were in total 150,000 Africans from all over the world. The very last of mankind. And as days went bye, people began to die from strange illnesses, and little ones from common cold because of lack of medicine. We are scared. We prayed to the gods, to God but no answer, not even a hello.
I came here with my little daughter and wife, and assumed the role of a protector. And I felt every death in my bones. We are dying in a strange land, with no sight of a future in less than 6 months…….”
“Dad they are here again!,” my daughter screamed. I dropped my pen in fear but regain composure. I had to show no fear.
“Gather the women and children together, this time everybody fights, pick up anything you can, face mask, oxygen tanks, cutlass, swords, piece of wood, metals anything at all, men stay in front, women and children behind”. I gave the order and even though fear spread throughout the crucible like a plague, we knew we had to fight or die as slaves. I stood at the highest podium to give what I believed was my last speech to the last human race…
“Africans!”, the slowly chorus black. I raised my voice higher.
“Africans!!!”, “black!!” their voices gained momentum. I shouted louder, this is a cry for bravery in times of war...
“AFRICANS!!!”, “BLACK!!!”, the crucible was overwhelmed with the courage of the few thousands remaining… courage grew and faith increased… I saw hope in their eyes once more... I began my speech.
“We were most of our lives on earth slaves to the white, we were judged by the color of our skin and called dumb, baboons, weak, black! We were used and dumped, killed like cows and told to keep quiet. We were termed a lesser race, we were ruled like slaves, but out of the shackles of those chains and the burden of hate they showed us, we rose, and overcame those who called us weak... Black became a household name for "strong and courageous", we doomed those who challenged us, we rose from ashes to be kings, black saved us from the holocaust!”. everyone chorus “black, black, black!”, I continued.
“Now we are faced with a similar enemy who wishes to take us slaves, who wants us to, once again begged for bread, to begged for our lives, to live as slaves, but we will not bow to no alien, we are black!”.
They chorused, “we will not, we are africans, we will not!”
“Men, women and children, take up your arms, we may have just few months to live but we will live as free men, whether on earth or in a foreign planet! We fight and we die and free me".
I saw the courage in these little ones eyes and I couldn’t help but cry, everyone said their final goodbye and we marched to war. Then someone brought up an idea, brilliant I said, and we hurried with the plan. I rushed back to continue my writing…
“Aliens are here and they see us as enemies, even if this is a lost war, we must fight to survive, we are Africans. Right now we have made a choice to do away with the crucible to warn you. So if you are reading this letter, know that we are all dead, and we used the last of the crucible resources to send you this message, African kept mute for too long while others use our lives to play politics. STOP THE HOLOCAUST BY ALL COST. We choose to warn you instead of to live for few more months, don’t waste this opportunity… save African, save planet earth, Mars is no place for humans.”
I stared at my daughter and saw she knew this was it, this was the end. I held her close and we all left the crucible and turned it to what is was supposed to be, and off it went into the red sky and disappeared. As we stood face to face with the aliens I held my daughter and said
“we are goiing to die, but black and proud!” and the war began...
EPILOGUE
Somewhere in NIGERIA year 2018 (the past).
A young boy finishes to read a letter written on what looks like a human skin with ink made from human blood and became terrified. It was a warning from someone from the future. He ran home to tell his dad about this strange letter he found and on the headline on the news was, “NORTH KOREA THREATENS NUCLEAR WAR WITH THE USA…”
