The Survey

I hate this fucking planet.

Its been dead a thousand years but still they keep it on the scanners. Hoping against hope I guess.

Then they get a fucking signal.

One damn beep on a console run by the big machine, off on a station, far removed.

So here I am.On this fucking planet.

Damn glitch no doubt.

No way anything could live in this shit.

Leftover from a thousand wars, what wasn't destroyed consumed for the comfort they thought they deserved.

Well, it was primitive times back then.

But that aint no fucking excuse.

They knew what the fuck they were doing.

Some of them, the ones with better brains or better backbones tried to stop them.

And you know what they said?

They said, fuck you!

We want what we want and we are taking it while we can. So they did.

This shit ball is whats left of it.

Not one hell of a lot.

Course they didn't send me alone. Had a partner. Real cutie too. Then she made a mistake. A big mistake. And it only took a second.

One sniff.

Bang.

Dead as a black hole from air so toxic that its amazing anything could even think about living in this shit.

I could have seen us getting away, just disappearing. Finding a life away from the service, away from all this shit. Running away from this lifetime of service to the great machine.

Funny, we're the servants now. Big machine got it right. Those assholes got everything they deserved. And no one, no one, gives a piss about it either.

So like I was saying, got a beep.

Go find out, it told us. Could be big news, the news it's been waiting for for a thousand years.

And looking down there, by my left foot, that's the reason we were sent. The reason she had to die, like all dreams that are born beautiful and turn to ash in your mouth.

Sure, I should report it back.

Tell the big machine I found it, that its right here.

But then what?

More visits. More plans. More searches. More of the same shit that started this in the first place.

Think it was Francis Bacon who said, "The endless search for knowledge caused man to fall."

I got news for his long dead ass.

It wasn't that.

It was a world full of greedy sons of bitches who had to have more, had to have the newest, had to have the fastest, had to have the best tasting, always had to have more.

And more.

And more.

Until there wasn't any damn more so then they fought for each other's and killed every fucking thing along with themselves and the entire damn planet along with them.

So excuse me and look the other way now.

Just cover the scanner.

While I put my foot on that little yellow flower and grind it into shit beneath my boot.

Cause ain't nobody coming back here on my accord.

Let it be.

Leave this spinning ball of withered shit that's like a damn sign orbiting the sun crying out, "Look! Here I am! Here is what they did!"

It will make the big machine happy, knowing it was just a glitch, that it is always right.

There ain't no life here on Planet Earth.

And there won't ever be, ever, ever, again.

I hate this fucking planet.