Once, We Were Home

“Mommy, why are they sending us away?”I squeeze Zirka’s hand and fake a smile the best I can. “Because they say we have to leave, honey.”

“But why, mommy? What did we do wrong?” Her puzzled expression tells me that my answer isn’t good enough.

“We did nothing wrong,” I say. “They just don’t want us here anymore.”

“They don’t want us here in town?”

“No, they don’t want us on this planet.”

She frowns. She’s a smart girl, and I know that doesn’t cut it, but she drops her questioning and looks down at her feet as we crunch along the gravel path in line with the others.

“It’s complicated,” I say.

Someday I will explain it to her. I will tell her how she was a baby–barely alive–when we arrived on earth six years ago–a motley group of refugees fleeing a devastated, war-torn planet. How five thousand sick, starving souls in a battered spaceship were welcomed with open arms by earth’s inhabitants, who nursed us to health and gave us food, jobs, homes, and sanctuary. Your new home forever, they promised.

We found the only difference between us and humans is our purple skin, but we are genetically identical in every other way. Somehow, we developed along parallel paths–light years apart–whether by creation, evolution, or random chance we didn’t know. But it was miraculous, everyone agreed. Our survival, and our shared humanity.

“Move along,” shouts a soldier, brandishing a lethal-looking weapon in our direction. I grip Zirka’s hand tighter and we quicken our pace to catch up with the others in line.

Zirka is crying. “Mommy, I’m scared,” she whimpers. 

“I know, honey, I know.” Our eyes meet, and I reach down to wipe her tears. “We will be okay, I promise.” I hate lying. I hate making promises I can’t keep.

Someday I will explain to my scared little girl how the new president, Daniel Trounce, vilified us as alien scum. How he called us vermin invaders who must be eradicated. How he fueled public hate and disdain, and called us criminals and low-lifes who must be deported back to the garbage planet we came from.

We stop moving. We are hundreds of people deep in line, but I can see our spaceship a hundred yards away. Still battered but patched up enough to make it space-worthy, or so they say. I have my doubts. Can we trust anything they say?

But what does it matter? I know the unbearable, terrible truth. The one thing I may never tell my daughter.

There is no home to return to.

I saw the nuclear glare that engulfed our planet the day we barely escaped alive. Against all odds, we survived the long, treacherous journey to this planet called Earth. Our new home, where we would always be welcome, safe and secure. They promised us. We believed them. 

How quickly promises are broken. How quickly friends become foes.

Today, we will be deported back to our native homeland, to a planet that no longer exists, save for our fading memories. They have no mercy for us, no compassion for our plight. They don’t care what happens, as long as we are banished for good. Forever doomed to wander through space and time, refugees without a future, without a home, without a prayer.