“I heard Jason, the teen mayor, lives here,” said Pat. “That’s why we’ve come here?” asked Freddy her ten year-old son.
The aliens, Pat and Carl, were here on a once in a lifetime trip to Earth, what the planet Solaris were calling Safaris to Earth.
“Poor Brandon, still living in his parents’ basement. I heard he never got over his ex,” said Pat to Johnny, her son. Brandon was Pat’s brother and a black sheep loser in the family who everyone pretty much pitied. In Solaris this meant that Pat would have to take care of her brother for life, and that this was now their family’s problem.
“I heard there a problem on Earth which the safari guide had told us about,” said Carl, “and that problem was that all of their old folk have died, and the only people who are alive are around forty years-old, and they are still trying to re-populate their planet.”
“What?!” said Johnny, “even though that guy Elon Musk had completely the ecology in the year 2025 when he was basically vice president of a portion of the planet Earth they called America?”
The family nodded their head to the music in the safari, which was set up like a luxury cruise. It seemed to be playing some sort of sweet treacly tunes that made people made people nod their heads, “Hit me baby, one more time…”
“This music,” said Johnny, “It’s making my tooth ache.” “Well…” his parents responded.
It wasn’t everywhere that the tunes from all genres had been melded to create a super computer of music that everyone was able to enjoy, that was accessible at one touch of a button from anywhere, walking, talking, running, going to school.
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“Art”, said, Johnny. They looked up to see what in the golden age of the Earth days would have been its best painter, David Hockney, and the painting that they saw was the swimming pool series that he had created while living in Southern California, USA.
Left Behind
“This planet is stupid. Look at this,” Johnny pointed at the map that had been included in the complimentary ‘Welcome to E-Arth’ gift bag that they had been given as part of the inaugural safari trip. “This makes no sense at all. These stupid Terrans; how could it possibly be 8:00 a.m. here and also midnight somewhere else? AT THE SAME TIME?! How have they not idioted themselves into extinction yet?”
“Don’t be so judgmental,” Carl, his mother’s newest consort, interjected in an attempt to keep him from getting too wound up. “They have these primitive vehicles that allow them to travel between places temporally. I watched a series of documentaries on it, ‘To From the Present F, FF, and FFF,’ or some other ridiculous name.”
“Time zones. Yes,” piped in Pat over the monotonous droning of the safari guide, Guidatron M8203.01B. “Different areas are locked into specific times, so even though it’s 8:00 a.m. here in Lon Don, it’s yesterday in Lost Angles; time travel, duh!”
“Los. Angeles,” hissed Freddy, her youngest.
“Don’t be ridiculous, there is absolutely no way that a place would be given such an absurd name as Los Angeles. Neither of those are real words, and even primitive cultures like the Terrans aren’t backwards enough to use nonsense words as place names,” she smirked at the obvious ignorance of her youngest child.
“Disembark, Disembark, Disembark. The ship has landed at Galactic Landing Pad 4 Alpha 3, E-Arth code Lon Don, UK,” blared through the speakers attached to the top of Guidatron M8203.01B as the Solaritian tourists collected their luggage and headed towards the hatch. “The current local time is 8:05 a.m., June 6. A kind reminder that the return journey to Solaris will begin at midnight, June 20. Please make sure to not leave any personal items on board. Passengers with scheduled guided tours, please exit via Airlock hatch two. Passengers on self-guided tours, please use Airlock hatch one. Enjoy your stay, thank you for joining our inaugural E-Arth safari.”