"Wanna go on an adventure before bed, Petra?"
I nod quickly. Before Javier, it was just the three of us. Andthere were enough years between that I remember what it waslike not have him come between my time with them.
"How about a fairy hunt?" She winks and gets up.
I can‘t help grinning. She knows how to lure me in." - P105
The 3D hologram spins like a massive blue-and-green mar-ble. A few gasp at the planet only the youngest of us here haveactually set foot on. It spins gracefully right in front of me.
Even if it‘s no longer anything like that Earth, I still smile at thememory. On that virtual planet was my Lita.
I tell myself the hologram‘snot real. I can‘t just rush out and push Halley‘s Comet off itscourse. I can‘t make it un-happen.
There are ooohs and ahhhs from the green-lipped Collective,
like they casually witnessed a hard tackle at a football game andnot the destruction of a planet. - P109
"Today we celebrate our arrival to the new planet. Whathappened to the former world was not a tragedy. It was an op-portunity to leave our past behind. Thanks to the Collective,
not a single memory of a world filled with conflict, starvation,
or war will find its way into our future."
My parents wanted a better future too. But Dad said exactlythe opposite of how people needed to get there. "It‘ll be our job toremember the parts we got wrong and make it better for our childrenand grandchildren. Embrace our differences, and still find a waymake peace." - P110
The dates my parents were removed. They were an entirelifetime apart. I know Mom had been joking in our backyard,
but that‘s how I would have imagined them in the end-lyingside by side in our garden bed together. Instead, another imagecomes to my mind now. Each of them floating by themselves,
out in a vast space. Not old, but how they looked the day we leftEarth. Frozen and alone. - P116
|