The Last Armada

The Earth's Ecosystems had worked perfectly until the twentieth century. Things had begun to deteriorate with the industrial revolution and then discover that coal and fossil fuels could be burned to drive mill wheels previously driven by water.

The chimneys and tractors belched out toxic fumes poisoning the atmosphere and making people and animals ill, but it made money for those in charge and that was the only thing that mattered. Money.

Hedges and forests were razed to make way for factory farming and chemicals were sprayed on plants to make them grow to obscene sizes cutting costs of production, but prices stayed the same.

The chemicals were pushed onto farms by the pharmaceutical companies who never looked any further than their offshore bank accounts. Tax was a filthy word.

All that mattered again, was Money.

People were dying from Cancer and other diseases caused by the chemicals pumped into the meat, fruit and vegetables and the workforces began to shrink, which was fine for the corporations because they had robots driven by AI so workers became an irrelevance. What these economic brains seemed to have missed was that these workforces were also their market. If they had no money to spend then the corporation's turnover would grind to a halt.

The chemicals were having another effect, the pollinators, the bees and butterflies were dying too, although they realised this and began to prepare to leave. Humans never realised that many insect genres were as intelligent as humans if not more so. Ants, Butterflies and Bees were three such groups and talked with each other as the saw wheatfields and fruit orchards become parched and dying because there were not enough pollinators to keep the plants alive.

Famine swept the earth, suicide became the only way out and the rich and the corporate realised that there was no food for their money to buy, and they could not eat or drink money.

The seas became salted and mired and the only fish were rotting on the seabed with a few bodies washed up on the shore. Even the scavengers got fewer because the carrion that they found was poisonous.

The governments wanted to impose martial law but the army was fled or dead.

Rain stopped falling, and the land became parched and dry and the earth began to split.

Butterflies, Ants and Bees had taken refuge in dark caves waiting for the moment when the dying Earth split asunder. With a resounding crash in it's final agony the Earth fell apart and the Butterflies, along with Ants and Bees on board left the Earth for a new home.

Gaia protected them in the cold vacuum of space and would guide them to a new home on Mars. There were no humans there but there was still some vegetation and some rudimentary creatures that might evolve in a few million years, but Gaia would never let an aberration like humanity ever happen again.

Life was precious and should be protected and enjoyed. Humanity was covetous and was happy to even destroy itself rather than grow and evolve.

The were no humans now to see the error of there ways, and even if there were the chances are that they would do the same thing again.

This was what humanity ultimately deserved.

Appendix

The music is "Time We Left This World Today" by Hawkwind and compliments this story. Play as you read.

The Prompt

Write a story inspired by a work of art. Make the artwork your featured image and give credit to the artist in the caption.

You can read about the challenge fully here.