The noise echoed in my ear, the sound of

The noise echoed in my ear, the sound of the rope hitting the bottom. It came an hour after I threw the one end down the cliff. All I needed to do was get down and save humanity.

I tied a rope end to the rover & slipped a coil around my waist gradually rapelling down the cliff face of Echus Chasma.The Martian doomsday device threating humaniy's last outpost

was an artistic paean to the powers of genetic engineering, but it was also my son. As my grav boots crunched onto the Martian soil, I held the dog-eared Hop on Pop book tightly &

approached the crystalline entity that was my little boy. He caught a gust of Martian dust in his aura and formed the words, "Hi, Daddy!" I offered to read Hop on Pop to him again

but my crystal child cackled. It cackled in a strange multivoiced way. His words sounded like metal. It said, "Oh daddy, do you think you're little bed time stories could mean anyt

-hing other than static to my tiny crystal ears?" My crystal child's words pierced through me like a glass knife. I dropped him to the floor where he shattered, along with my heart

For a moment, I stared at my shattered child, shocked. Then I sprang into action, clearing the kitchen table, finding my glue gun, gathering the crystal shards that had been my son

His splinters of glass slashed my weak hands as I tried to piece him together hopelessly. How could I let this happen to him? What kind of a parent am I?

I kept asking myself that question as I collected my shattered child into a basket full of the bloody shards his body. What kind of parent am I? What kind was I? The worse kind.

The worst kind? *Shaking my head* it's all about perspective. Sure, the child got broken and bloody. But what about all the good times? Swinging on the swingset, yummy dinners...ah