It's a wonderful life
Introducing, the one and only mother of us all — perpetually purveying provisions. The lady who gave us life itself — your mum and mine ... yes, it's Gaia!
Let's give the old girl a round of applause. Where would life on earth be without her? Three and one half billion years old and she doesn't look a day over forty. She still has all her own teeth too.
So how's the ankle biters, great earth mother of us all? Up to their tricks as usual I suppose? I heard you lost a few of them over the years — species come, species go. But you keep pumping them out, don't you?
I've been meaning to talk to you about that. A single mum like yourself trying to make it in the world. No hint of a man around and you veer from one virgin birth to another. I tell you it makes us wonder: are you cohabiting with god?
Not that there is anything wrong with it, mind you. What two consenting deities get up to in private is their own business. But hey! You should get out and about now and then. Slap on a number and do the town. Part of the planet went urban a few years back.
Go clubbing. We'll fix you up with something off the rack by Maggie T — an off-the-shoulder peasant dress with a full skirt down to the ankles. (And maybe a few flowers in your hair for effect.) It's you! With your full figure and those engorged paps you make us mammals proud. I told the rest of the vertebrates you were one of us. Hey, you lot! Come check it out and meet the matriarch. Mammalia rules, OK!
There's been big changes on terra firma since you took up earth mothering. While you've been on maternity leave we've invented pottery, weaving, writing, heaps of other stuff and the World Cup Final. You wouldn't know the old place.
Sibling rivalry is still a problem, however. Every few years they're at each other over some niche or another. But as they say: kids are the same the whole world over. What one's got, the other wants it too.
But what am I doing? You know all this. Here I am prattling on. You don't need a live-bearer like myself trying to teach you to suck eggs. You must think I'm awfully rude.
To tell you the truth, I'm always like this when I'm nervous. I don't want to be a panic merchant but word has it that life on earth is already half over. That's real...ly freaky! Where did it go?
I don't think you realise how angry that makes us feel. We've finally reached our stride after all these years, and secured a little comfort for ourselves, when we learn that fully 99.999% of all species that have ever existed are already extinct. What sort of mother does that make you? You give life then abandon it!
I always thought that "mortal" was just another figure of speech. I didn't realise it meant that we too were in line for the big jump one day. It comes as a bit of a shock.
But if you won't look after us, we'll have to club together and do it ourselves. Maybe we'll be able to postpone our own extinction by a few hundred thousand years. It's worth the effort. This one is the only one we've got, and despite some aspects, it's a wonderful life.
By Dave Riley