I was digging frantically through my morass of electronic accumulated data because a server on which I had hosted an online novel site since around 2001 finally died - and apparently my backups of the site are corrupted. I don't know yet if there will be a happy ending to this one.
However, I found the following snippet, which I wrote in high school. I was tickled enough that I felt it should live on somewhere on the net, but probably didn't deserve a node of its own. Hence, it's here.
Please pardon the juvenilia.
Once upon a time, There was a pristine planet of green and
lapis lazuli, shrouded by warm clouds, circling a hospitable yellow sun. On the surface of the planet it was warm, with plenty of land mass and with a textbook oxygen atmosphere. the planet spun silently in its orbit, and one day a small
mollusk managed to make its way, crawling, up out of the warm oceans and onto the beach. It lay there for a moment, then began the long climb to the young forests of the world. Eventually many more of the small sea creatures crawled up onto the beach to disappear among the trees.
After a while they managed to evolve into more complex mammals: the simians made their appearance. Much later, the monkeys and apes evolved into a bumbling ape with a larger brain as well as an opposable thumb. In an incredibly short time, the advanced ape developed the wheel, cities, crime, and pollution. Finally, after a brief period of high living, the nuclear weapon was developed and, a very few years later, man reduced the planet to nuclear ash.
Above it, in solar orbit, an alien Starship engaged its drives and accelerated out of the system. Soon after, another Starship pulled up to a small planetoid. The lock opened, and a suited figure stepped out. Walking up to a small pedestal, it inserted a coin in a slot.
Far below a small mollusk managed to make its way out of the water, up onto the beach.
* * *