As the mother ship entered the outer edges of the solar system, the school orbiter left the holding bay to begin the journey for the day's lesson.
The alien children gathered quickly at the windows. They were small in stature, only about eighteen inches in height. Their heads were large and bald. Their faces had a tiny nose and mouth and their skin color was grey. They all looked alike, except for their eyes. Their eyes were huge round circles of color. Some eyes were brown and some were blue. There were green eyes, yellow eyes, red eyes and even purple. It seemed that every color ever imagined could be found in the eyes of the alien children.
As the school orbiter cruised by the outer planets of Uranus and Neptune and a small dwarf planet called Pluto, the children listened as their teacher explained the facts of each one. The teacher, who was about three feet tall, looked very much like the children except for one distinct difference. His eyes did not share the same bright colors. They were large, black almond shaped discs that set at an angle on his face, the inner edges pointing towards his small nose.
When the school orbiter cruised past Saturn, the little alien children were delighted by its many rings. Jupiter soon came into view and the children listened intently as the teacher explained its large black spot. Mars was next and the children with red eyes were amazed this planet shared their color.
Suddenly, one little alien boy shouted, "Teacher! Teacher! What is that bright blue planet?" It was Agog, who was always excitedly curious about everything. He had already left the group and was looking out the windows on the other side of the classroom. Agog, with his bright lime green eyes, had one thing the other children did not. Agog had one strand of blonde hair, about an inch long, that grew right out of the top of his head.
As the rest of the children scurried to the windows where Agog was standing, the teacher answered, "That is the destination for today's lesson, it is the planet Narci."
The children all chimed at once, "Narci?"
"Yes", the teacher answered. "It used to be called planet Earth."
"Why did they change the name?", Agog asked.
By this time the school orbiter had entered Narci's atmosphere, and began to slow down. The children lined the windows, their faces pressed against the glass. From the outside, their bright colorful eyes looked like a rainbow of polka dots.
As the orbiter hovered above an ocean of blue sparkling water, the teacher began the lesson. "Two thousand years ago, Narci, then called Earth, had inhabitants know as humans.", the teacher said.
The children giggled. Agog yelled "Huuuuuumans?", drawing the word out and making the giggles turn into loud laughter.
"Yes.", the teacher answered. "Now, settle down and listen. Listen very carefully."
Silence fell over the room as the children all turned to look at their teacher. His voice had never sounded like that before. It sounded almost sad. He motioned for them to resume looking out the window and simultaneously, they all turned their faces back to the glass.
The teacher went on to explain that when the humans lived on Earth, they were very smart. They loved to learn new things. In fact, during their last two hundred years on the planet, they had made more technological advances than at any other time in their history.
"What is that!?", Agog shouted, pointing to the surface of the ocean.
The teacher walked over to the window and looked out at a pod of giant blue whales that had breached the surface. There were hundreds of them. As the whales spouted, the mist rose up in the air and tiny rainbows formed as far as the eye could see.
"Those are whales.", the teacher said. "They were nearly extinct when the humans were here."
"What is ex-stink?", Agog asked, causing another ripple of giggles.
"Extinct.", the teacher corrected. "It means that the whales were almost all gone. If you will be quiet, Master Agog, I will explain."
Once again, the children fell silent. They knew when the teacher used the "Master" title, he meant business.
The teacher continued, "The humans had made leaps and bounds in their ability to communicate with each other. They made a device, called a cell phone, that would let them contact any other human on the planet, regardless of where they were. They could be on the tallest mountain or in the deepest ocean and still be able to talk to each other."
"Then the humans put cameras on this device and they discovered they could take a picture of where they were and send it to someone. Not long after this, the humans were able to put all of their computer technology in this device and carry it in the palm of their hand."
"They made a program called a social media application and put this into their cell phones. This let them communicate all their day to day activities to everyone they knew."
The teacher paused and joined the children again at the window. The school orbiter was coming close to a land mass. The dark green hues of the tree lined seashore were coming into view. He could hear small ooh's and aah's as the children watched a thousand zebras gallop down a sandy beach.
"Then what happened?", Agog asked, his face still pressed to the window.
"The humans discovered they could take a picture of themselves with their phone.", the teacher spoke the words almost as a whisper. He looked down and all the brightly colored eyes were staring back at him.
The children had never seen their teacher actually look sad. Agog asked, "Was that a bad thing?"
"It turned out to be.", the teacher answered. "The humans became so involved with looking at pictures of themselves that they began to forget about the things that were important. They enjoyed this activity so much that they became narcissists." The teacher paused and raised one finger.
Even though he knew he would never pronounce it right, Agog spun around to ask what the word narcissists meant. When he saw the teacher's raised finger, he closed his little mouth and turned back to the window. The teacher smiled as he watched the sun glisten on the one blonde hair on Agog's head.
"A narcissist is someone who is in love with their own self", the teacher explained. "The humans spent so much time admiring their own faces that they forgot about each other. They became vain and very selfish. They began to be mean to each other and to not care how other humans felt. They forgot to do the things that made their societies function. They forgot to go to work, they forgot to learn new things, but the worst part was, they forgot how to love."
"But, but, but", Agog interrupted, "Why? This place is so beautiful! Just look at all there is to see!" The teacher fell silent and watched again with the children. There were all sorts of animals roaming the landscape and hundreds of different species of birds flying through the air.
"The planet did not look like this when the humans became narcissists", the teacher said. "When the humans only thought about themselves, they forgot to take care of the Earth. They took the things they wanted from Earth, but did not give back to the Earth. They used up all the Earth's resources, and since they had quit learning, no one knew how to take care of the Earth anymore. The Earth began to die."
"Die?", the children gasped together.
"What happened to the humans?", Agog asked, his voice now a whisper.
The teacher continued, "There were a group humans who tried to get the others to stop being narcissists. These humans did everything they could think of to make the inhabitants of Earth stop looking at themselves. They tried to explain that what they were doing was wrong and they tried to teach them to take care of each other. But, the others would not listen."
"There came a time when there were only 100 humans left on the planet, who were trying to make things right again. They were vastly outnumbered and since they were the only ones who knew how to take care of each other, they moved to a region that the other humans had forgotten about. It was in a valley, between those mountains up ahead, that we found them."
.......to be continued..........
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