When a person is lost in life and everything seems hopeless and futile, often times his reaction will be to ask nobody in particular, “What does it all mean?” as if he actually expects the Universe to answer. But truth be told, the Universe doesn’t know any better than we do. It would often find itself pondering its own existence and wondering what in the world all those small, living creatures within itself think they’re doing. Stars make sense to the Universe since they burn and that’s all they do. But it has absolutely no idea who Tom Cruise is, nor why it should give a flying fuck.
And if the Universe has no idea as to its own machinations, then what chance did the small, neurotic ball of cooling molten rock known as Earth have? Despite the eons and epochs the poor planet spent pondering and worrying about fulfilling its purpose in the equally confused Universe, Earth had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to be doing, but it was pretty sure it was doing it wrong. It had no idea what it had to offer. Earth saw nothing about itself as particularly special, unlike the other planets that orbited the same sun. Saturn had a beautiful array of rings. Jupiter compensated for its morbid obesity by gathering the most moons. Pluto was small, but cute. Mercury was hot and it knew it. Mars was a beautiful shade of red and of course Uranus just had to be different by tilting itself on its side. What did Earth have to offer? No rings, one measly moon, most of its boring brown surface flooded with water, and a balding patch of ozone. Sure, it was the only planet currently capable of sustaining life, but Earth had a sneaking suspicion that perhaps life wasn’t all that great after all ever since Venus seemed to devote its existence to becoming as inhospitable to life as possible. Nothing said rebellion more than Venus's searing heat, massive volcanoes, and poisonous atmosphere. It even rained sulfuric acid. Damn that’s cool.
In its younger years, Earth had dinosaurs. Those were also cool. But Earth just wasn’t all that cool anymore.
All the small, scuttling creatures on Earth’s surface remained entirely oblivious to Earth’s plight. They were so self-involved with owning as much of the Earth’s surface as possible that they never bothered to ask the planet how it felt in the matter. Nobody ever asked Earth anything. They never even asked it if it wanted to be called Earth. If Earth could decide, it wanted to be called Zanzix. Or Azzanizanz. Something with a lot of z’s. It liked z’s.
Earth was misunderstood, unloved, and alone. The Universe was alone, too, but that was due less to antisocial tendencies and more to the fact that no other universes exist within this dimension. But at least the Universe was content. Earth was not. It was plagued with anxiety. Sometimes it wondered why bothered doing anything at all. Neptune didn’t really do anything and it seemed happy enough. But Earth was too nervous and fidgety to simply laze about. No, it had to be productive. It wanted to do something, but it wanted to do what it wanted to do. It couldn’t simply continue its current condition forever. Something needed to change.
All at once, Earth stopped rotating. It stopped at a realization, much like how a person might stare in a mirror while shaving, or a cartoon coyote might look directly at the camera after he runs off a cliff while chasing a speedy bird, right before he plummets to the ground and crushes upon impact to resemble either a pancake, a coin, or an accordion. Earth had its answer right in front of it. Why couldn’t it simply do what it wanted to do? Why couldn’t it change, in little pieces and as a whole, all of a sudden and for no reason? Its entire existence it had attempted to remain at least fairly consistent to appease its life forms, most recently the humans who feared change when it didn’t conform to their rules. But they cut down Earth’s trees and melted its ice caps. They polluted its air and killed its dodos. They blew up its mountains and stole its coal, which they then used to pollute its air and perhaps kill a dodo or something (Earth didn’t really pay too close attention to what humans were doing, it just knew it was supposed to be mad). And if the life forms didn’t even respect Earth enough to not actively destroy it, then what did Earth owe them? Why should Earth adapt to their needs? It gave them life, after all, why not have them adapt to its desires for a change?
And suddenly Earth felt something it hadn’t felt in a long time: happiness. Excitement. It felt young again. It had purpose, maybe not what it was supposed to be doing, but absolutely what it wanted to be doing. It had the rest of its existence to look forward to, and it could do anything—anything!—it wanted. New land formations, new life forms, new weather, perhaps a new moon or two, anything it wanted to have and contain and be was entirely within its power. And Earth was content with this thought.
Having made its decision, Earth began to rotate. The opposite direction.
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