A Nudge (1997)

 
A Nudge
I watched, for billions of years as the earth matured and I encouraged life to form as it may.  It always intrigues me what my materialize.  And things were good, modern day earth biologist refer to as sustainable yield;   A concept that implies harmonious continuation of a species with its environment.  As has happened time and time again, on worlds too numerous to mention, something  is thrown into the brew and the scales are tipped and harmony is jeapordized.  In the wink of a cosmic second, Earth,  was struck by its greatest challenge, how to coupe with the intelligence of the human species.

The Earth is a particularly favorite gem of mine, located in a distant arm of the Milky Way galaxy (732312042.320).  She was spun off a galactic arm and her future matter coalesce like most others.  Over billions of years the matter solidified and cooled at just the right distance from her indistinguishable star.  A skin of water formed over the bulk of her surface, and it was spotted by masses of dense material that became the land.  This material is not securely rooted, but rather floats on magma seething in her belly still upset from her initial creation and agitated by denser matter that releases energy as it decays.  This turmoil causes the motion moving the land across her surface causing fissures to erupt in her beauty and spew forth the myriad of denser matter from her heart.  In these cool seas, were areas where volcanism mixed essential ingredients into the broth. Electrical  impulses pulsed disparate charges in the thin but intriguing ocean of gases that enveloped her.  All this energy came together to form knew compounds.   These new compounds replicated chemically and over billions of years, replicated organically and life was born.
 
I was pleased, to see the diversity of life spring up on her skin and on the land.  Energy and matter was renewed and introduced in the usual ways.  On schedule some comets, with the beautiful curving tails, penetrated her, adding their make-up to the earth's.  Of course this, copulation, is filled with the pangs of passion and some life gave way for others.  A process that never ceases to fascinate me.  I love the Earth and her capriciousness.  Indeed, like any child, she surprised me with variations that I hadn’t conceived.  In her creativity, she at times impressed me.  I tried not to intervene, but from time to time, a subtly nudge was needed, but I did so sparingly.  I wanted her to self determine.
 
Hello! what’s this, mammalian life, warm blooded, adequate life-spans, enlarged brain cavities, appendages to manipulate their environment.  This life-form would bare closer scrutiny.  Man as it became known, has been a real rush.  It developed incredibly fast, as these things go.  I was impressed, the Earth had done well.  She wore all her species like jewels dotting her skin.  But she somehow knew that these busy creatures would please me most because of their intellect. 
I enjoy creatures that can conceptualize me.  If for know other reason to marvel at how they worshipped me.  But this worship came from the fear of their own mortality.  I haven’t witnessed this level of awareness often.  And this worshipping thing became trite and I lost interest.  But humanity had good ideas and true creativity.   Indeed the art, music and passion they displayed reminded me of myself.  Indeed Earth had done well in rearing this offspring. 

Earth had learned one very important lesson from me--Patience.  But I wondered about her wisdom as I watched this human life proliferate, and to have an ever increasing deleterious impact on the Earth.  Indeed, the nature of some of these rapid changes occurred at a scale mirroring some of my cataclysmic events.  While they apparently held the intellect to conceive of these global changes, they obviously lacked the wisdom to moderate their tinkering.  How could they know otherwise, they are so young. 

So I watched my Earth struggle with man, and was proud to see her nudge man with subtle reminders of the folly of their ways.  She made subtle hints about the consequences of their waste and abuses.  I scoffed at how they seemed to tolerate it in their own environment.  Indeed they breathed it in their own air, and bathed in their own seas.  And Earth started to have trouble as the air and water changed.  She fell behind and things got out of control very quickly.  And I'm thinking it's time for me to help my Earth.

I looked around space at the comets and asteroids and wondered if I should provide a nudge to help the earth out.  I wondered if perhaps it was time for a calamity. I would just change the trajectory of a large enough object. Oh, I don’t like doing this, but Earth is a real gem.  I’m wondering if I should do something more direct to my grandchildren, these humans.  But they have such a collective tendency towards hysteria.  It is right to let Earth sort this out.  It is after all, her body, her children.  Earth will, still be beautiful, even if she had a yellowish tint of sulfur dioxide in her sky.  But I am partial to the blue of water molecules.

Moving on to planetoid (P27421203523.3523.264623). It is a lifeless sphere…..