Baby owl's dream
One night like any other, in a small forest on planet Earth, a group of young children made up of elephants and owls come to find an old monkey with pink and white fur sitting under a tree, playing a guitar. "Francis," asks one of the elephant children, addressing the monkey, "baby owl is trying to tell us something, but we don't understand..." Francis notices a tiny baby owl resting on the elephant's head, waving and pointing at the moon, whose light illuminates the clearing. Francis looks at the children and says: "It's very clear, what don't you understand?"
The children look at each other, puzzled. Francis smiles mischievously and adds, "Baby Owl says he wants to go to the moon!"
Baby Owl starts to hop and stomp with joy.
A big blue elephant speaks up in a provocative tone: "Yeah well, even for an owl, I say it's impossible!"
Baby Owl frowns, then shows the tiny muscles of his fluffy wing while nodding vigorously. Then he turns to Francis, his eyes quizzical.
"Are you so sure of yourself?" replied Francis to the big blue elephant. “You don't think it's possible for owls to go to the moon?
"Not a chance!" assures the big elephant. "The distance between the Earth and the Moon is nine times the distance around the Earth. So over a distance like that, I'm waiting for the owls!"
Baby Owl frowns, looks thoughtful and upset... He looks at the blue elephant, then flaps his wings, shaking his head negatively.
"Who said anything about going to the moon on the back of an owl?" asks Francis, "No, we'll have to build a spaceship." Baby Owl raises a feather and, with a flick of his wing, slowly sends it skywards, making a "shuuuuu" sound.
"Yeah, but then you don't have to be an owl to get on the spaceship!" retorts the big elephant. Baby Owl looks the elephant up and down with worried eyes.
"For an elephant you might need a slightly bigger vessel..." remarks Francis with a wry smile "But if nature allows it, then it's possible and the knowledge to make it happen exists." Baby Owl starts hopping again with joy.
"Careful," Francis warns, "the ship isn't going to build itself; you're going to have to work hard at school and know how to work in a group to build the ship." In a flash, Baby Owl returns with his schoolbag.
"But Baby Owl," asks one of the little monkeys, curious, "why go to the moon, exactly?"
Bébé Chouette then takes a pair of sunglasses out of his satchel and forms a V shape with the feathers in his hand.
"First of all, it's a real class act, don't you think?" replies Francis, winking at bébé chouette, "and secondly, we need to look further afield. Going to the moon is just one step in the conquest of the universe. In my opinion, we have no choice, for two reasons. On the one hand, if we want to continue creating and reproducing, we need space and resources. We can't go on populating the planet indefinitely, or we'll run the risk of doing something really stupid, like upsetting the climate, or becoming so numerous that we'll have to massacre the entire natural environment. If we want to preserve biological diversity without halting progress, we'll have to turn to space!" Baby Owl brags in his sunglasses.
"What's the second reason?" asks a skinny green elephant, looking a little worried.
"A very long time ago on Earth lived immense dragons, before an asteroid, about 10 km in diameter, hit the planet with incredible energy. The cataclysm exterminated almost all forms of life, with the exception of a few survivors from whom we are descended. In fact, owls are direct descendants, since all birds are descended from the few dragons that survived for a time... unlike us apes and elephants, who are mammals." The children fall silent, and Baby Owl points insistently at the moon again.
"Indeed," Francis continues. "Today, if a new asteroid threatens to hit us, there's nothing we can do, and we risk suffering the same fate as the dragons. That's why we need to promote the conquest of space. Not only, if we're settled on the moon and other planets, we're less likely to disappear, but what's more, with our spaceships, we could try to divert the trajectory of this kind of threat and save life on Earth, at least for a while."
Baby Owl winks at Francis.
"How do you know all this, Francis?" asks a little orange owl, intrigued.
"Long after the era of the dragons, a species of ape called humans colonized the planet before disappearing in their turn. Unlike the other animals that had lived on Earth before them, humans were able to explain natural phenomena. They understood how to create knowledge. By always being curious, by accepting that we can never be sure of anything. In reality, we're always wrong, there's always something to improve on what we think we know. We guess, we make mistakes, we correct, we start again. So humans have discovered theories to explain certain behaviors of life, matter and energy. Thanks to these theories, which they called "the fabric of reality", they developed their technology and managed to walk on the moon..... "
Proudly, Baby Owl takes the plans for the Saturn V rocket out of his satchel.
"We know this because they passed on their knowledge to us in books and machines that we've tracked down and studied."
A pensive silence settled over the children. Then a little pink owl asks, "But then, Francis, if humans were so smart, how did they disappear?"
With a grave expression, Francis lowers his eyes and murmurs sadly, "They killed each other... they built ultra-powerful bombs and ravaged their civilization to extinction." Again, silence falls over the group.
The big blue elephant, trying to lighten the mood, exclaimed: "Wow! You really shouldn't joke with humans...".
"You know, blue elephant," Francis reacts bitterly, "the history of humans is our history. In a way, we're on the same team, so we shouldn't brag too much."
"But why did they do that?" asks the orange owl, puzzled.
"We don't know the details of the conflict that led to their extinction, but throughout their history they never stopped forming lots of teams that hated each other."
The big blue elephant comments, "From the moment you give orders to blow everything up to several bands of monkeys fighting, how do you expect it to end well?"
"We fight sometimes too, don't we risk the same thing happening to us?" asks the worried orange owl.
Baby Owl nods.
"Of course we do," replies Francis, "but we're going to try not to make the same mistakes. With all the animals, all the plants, all the life on Earth, we're all one team. We're all programmed to survive and love one another, it's just that we have to solve problems without violence. Well, that's just my opinion... But since progress confers the power to destroy each other, we have to try something else."
"But isn't progress the problem?" asks the orange owl.
Baby Owl nods between yes and no.
The risk of knowledge turning against us will always exist, but thanks to humans, we know better the pitfalls to avoid..." Francis's eyes darken. "It's just my opinion, but I think the universe has no conscience or morals; I think the wind has no thoughts, the sea doesn't decide where the waves crash, and that one day, a breath will blow us away, or a wave will submerge us forever... I refuse to let our team die out without doing anything. And only knowledge will save us."
" Let's go and see the stars
The Milky Way or even Mars
Where it could just be ours
Let's fade into the sun
Let your spirit fly
Where we are one
Just for a little fun
I want to get away
I want to fly away "