LIKE the man on the moon, there is an old man in Mars. He stroked his white beard as he looked through his telescope at the spaceship that was encircling his planet,
“There’s a ship from earth!” he announced and watched as his equally old wife came scurrying from an underground cave and peered through the glass which he held out for her.
“They’ll take photographs and send it back to earth and they’ll announce to one another that there’s life on Mars!”
“I wish I’d dyed my hair,” she whispered, “then they’d say there are beautiful women here!” “They’ve got enough beautiful women there!” he sighed.
“You’ve been peeking at earth!” she laughed, “What else do they have?” “Rivers flowing with water and huge oceans!” “Water!” She sighed, “it’s because our water dried up that Mars started dying!” “But they have all!” Said the old man, who was a scientist, an astronomer and also a philosopher, “God has been special to them!”
“They seem to be his special people!” grumbled the old woman. “If you see what they’ve got, you’ll believe that!” said the man as he turned his giant telescope away from the spaceship and towards earth.
It took some adjusting before he could focus onto the planet below, but before he could look his wife grabbed the telescope and peered down at earth.
“Husband!” she cried.
“What did you see?” he asked. “Didn’t you tell me their skies are blue?” “A lovely dreamy blue,” he whispered.
“It’s red!” Her husband moved her aside and looked at earth, then he looked at his wife and there were tears in his eyes. “It’s the colour of hate!” “Hate?”
“Earth has changed!” he shouted, “There’s hate and anger, blood and tears in that wonderful planet below!” he said.
“That’s impossible!” said his wife as she moved closer and hugged her sad man who was a philosopher sometimes.
“Why should they hate each other when they have so much to be happy about?”
The spaceship from earth which was hovering round Mars stopped over where the old couple were, the captain of the spaceship looked down at the old couple then passed his binoculars to his mates, “They look sad and lost!” said one of them. “Once we land we’ll teach them about love..!” said the captain.
