A little time ago in a galaxy not too far away, there lived a little boy who loved the large red planet next to his own. Whenever it would come into view he would spend all night staring at it as it dominated the night sky. On the days following those nights, he would spend his schooldays sleeping at the back of the classroom. The rest of the time he would fill his notebooks with poems and prose about the beauty of the celestial being next door.

His family and teachers soon became tired of trying to teach him about anything else and allowed him to fill his mind with stories and facts about the neighbouring world. Any friendships that he made didn’t last long, the other children sick of his monotonous conversation.

On his final day of school, his parents surprised him with a ticket for a small tourist craft bound for the red planet. He had never been more full of joy. He re-read all the stories about the strange creatures that lived there, the difference in gravity, and the oxblood and maroon plants which covered every inch of the surface.

Departure day finally arrived and he was surprised to find that he was the only passenger on the robot-piloted spaceship. However, as he didn’t know anybody who loved the planet even 1% as much as he did, it was perhaps to be expected.

Although the flight took five days and nights, he barely slept, such was his excitement. When he did drift off, he would dream of the beautiful, extranavagantly-dressed native people who would welcome him to their world in their wide variety of local languages, which he was eager to become fluent in.

The craft touched down on the morning of the sixth day and the young man rushed to disembark. As the door swung open, he prepared himself for how different the gravity would feel, but was disappointed to discover that it felt much the same.

He shielded his eyes from the dust disturbed by the landing and, as it settled down, scanned the area around the landing pad for the scarlet flora and fauna he had dreamed of, but all he could see was reddish rock. Scanning the horizon, he saw nothing but more of the same. Reaching the bottom of the steps, he took his first steps onto the planet’s surface. Behind him, the steps retracted, the door closed and the spacecraft took off. Confused, he began to walk in a random direction.

He soon lost track of time, walking by day and sleeping in the open air by night. There was no sign of life anywhere.

The day he exhausted his supply of food and drink was the same day he heard the spaceship return. He ran many miles before reaching it, sure that at any moment it would take off again, leaving him trapped on the dead planet.

The moment he stepped aboard, the doors closed and they took off. Once again, he was the only passenger.

Five days and nights later, he landed in his home town. The place seemed strangely quiet. He walked the few minutes to his home, not encountering a single other person along the way. Letting himself into his kitchen, he noticed a newspaper laying on the table. The headline read “Departure Day Tomorrow!” Reading on, he discovered that a long-planned evacuation of the planet had occurred two days ago.

Opening the paper at a random page, he was surprised to see his own face staring back at him. It was accompanied by a light-hearted piece about how his school and family, sick of his obsession with the red planet, had conspired to produce magazines, journals and textbooks which painted their celestial neighbour as a place of endless wonder, instead of the barren wasteland it really was. It outlined how his trip had been arranged to coincide with the mass departure from their own planet. His mother explained to the interviewer how easy it was to keep from him the news of this world’s scarcity of resources, the successful search for another suitable home and the organisation of transport to relocate the entire population there: “He never paid any attention to anything except that damn red planet, so it really required no effort at all.”

As he turned the page, a handwritten note fell out of the paper. It was signed by his mother and simply said “Sorry, you were a bit annoying.”

He sat down, alone on an abandoned planet, and cried. And there he sits to this day, with only the red planet for company.