Unbearable

Species Suicide

Children at Al Ahi hospital.

How much does it matter to me which side can claim responsibility? How much does it matter to these children what name was on the bombs?

If there is ever an archeological dig to uncover artifacts left by our extinct species, what will the archeologists make of this?

Is it possible these beings meant to do this? It wasn’t some horrible inadvertent accident?

Their own children! What possessed them? No wonder their tenure on this planet was so brief.

They were so advanced in so many ways. Knew about atoms, molecules, even how to manipulate the structure of matter. Fascinating remnants of their desperate attempt to escape their own horror by migrating to Mars. Given their record on earth, good thing they failed. Hate to think what they would have made of another planet.

We know how members of our species can have differences. But our determination to thrive, to learn ways to make room for each other’s differences, has meant we couldn’t imagine having those differences reach the level at which they tempt us to turn in violence against each other.

There are so many creative ways to harness difference for the common good.

I guess we’ll never know what went so badly askew among them that they no longer could recognize that their bonds, if they’d honored them, totally outweighed their deepest differences.

But the children? Were they really that hard-hearted?