The Truth Of It

Once there was a beautiful world out there.

One day an argument broke out between this world and it's clouds.

It was a trivial matter to begin with but then the fight turned ugly and one thing led to another. Until the clouds humiliated, told the world, that of course they understood that the world was big and without an end, while they themselves were ephemeral and had no great identity to boast of. And that it seemed they perhaps were not needed any more. The world said that they had understood correctly and could go get lost, without delay.

The clouds said they were leaving the skies, never to return. And since nothing remained between them anymore, they were taking back all the rain that had ever dropped from them. So, first the seas ran dry. Then the trees, the flowers, and the grass all wilted. Then water disappeared from all the men’s tumblers and birdbaths. Till finally the world was reduced to a barren ball of cratered waste. Spinning silently it disappeared into a black bottomless space.

I am told it is still somewhere out there, and that there's no life on it, and that the scientists now call it 'Mars’.