She, a tiny wizen lady with brown grainy skin hanging like a layer of dirt which years have slowly piled on, sat smiling watching her tiny dot of a grandson running around screaming along with other equally minute children at the playground. Wondering where her years have disappeared to, asking herself if her grandson would one day sit watching his own grandchild play. Only perhaps, he would be luckier, he would be able to hold his grandson’s tiny hands, feel his sweaty palm, his fluffy hair a bit wet with perspiration. The distance between them being only a few metres, not millions of miles apart. God knows how far, perhaps a hundred thousand million miles away. She no longer knows how far her family is, how far away from her tiny dot of a grandson playing at a playground who she cannot touch, except for a screen in front of her. ‘They” have told her that the screen’s images are instantaneous, explaining in depth about how Einstein’s theory of relativity has already been taken into consideration, and time difference is really not much of an issue, “they” have tried to make her and thousands other elderly folks feel better, less unwanted. Like garbage ejected into outer space because planet earth no longer has a place for them.

She remembered sending her own grandmother off, with tears in her eyes, promising to call every night. A promise which she kept until teen-hood came along and friends became priority, eventually the calls became irregular acts of obligation, and when the news came that her grandmother has passed on, freed once again to become part of the cosmos, she felt nothing. Only a tiny tinge of remorse that she had not bid her a final farewell. But that is what happens when one could no longer see another’s face, feel their palpable presence, know that that person is not just an image transmitted and then captured by the eyes, but that the person existed in three dimensional space. That if one could just reach out a tiny finger, one could and would touch the other. Now, she recalls and knows that she too, will be forgotten by her grandson, become unreal and distant. Familiar only in the sense of a character one watches on 3D L-TV.

No, she did not feel bitter. This was the way it was meant to be. Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest has taken on a new meaning, it is the survival of the youngests. Every mother would sacrifice her own well-being to ensure a better chance for her children. This same belief is what still holds this space program together, every year with willing volunteers choosing to leave their home planet on a luxury space shuttle to spend their end in space. In death, they will be released into space. People had somehow reproduced so quickly, while the population continued aging and with older people having longer and longer life expectancy such that planet Earth became overcrowded, this was a desperate measure to try to keep the equilibrium on Earth. Year after year, ship loads and ship loads of elderly pack up their belongings bid their families goodbye and step on board a space shuttle that would take them out to space, tour the galaxy, equipped with swimming , bowling, medical, entertainment and culinary facilities meant to ease the guilt of family members and those remaining on Earth. They would wave goodbye happily on board as if leaving for a short trip, feigning excitement, telling their families not to worry and receiving resolute promises that things would not be that different, only they would be physical separated. No ones knows that after take off, all these old folks cry heartbroken tears in their cabins, that they should have to die away from their loved ones, left drifting in space, with only fellow passengers who genuinely feel their loss and mourn.

Feeling the upwelling of emotions of fear, loneliness, she tried to push the thought of her lonely end out of mind and concentrated on the moment now in which she can enjoy the presence of her grandson happily playing amongst other children, even if it is only virtual. She wondered if the footage she is watching now is indeed what is happening simultaneously on Earth somewhere millions of miles and miles away. She allowed herself to shed a tear looking out of her cabin window at the immense darkness and vastness of space, lit up only by the occasional star. She pondered on the maker of this universe and wondered if in death she would become something else that makes up the universe. But her thoughts were interrupted by cheerful voices at her door, asking if she would like to join them for a game of bowling. She quickly dried her tears, called out that she just needed to get her things. The next moment, she was ushered out of her door by fellow travelers like herself, eager to make the most of their last days, even if these days may not be perfect. Some of the men who had had a drink burst into a familiar song. All of a sudden she felt warm again, a lady next to her took her hand and squeezed it.