She opened it up and began to peruse the table of contents. The professor waited for a moment before beginning again. “In it, you will find the complete history of our contact with them. From the first time we made contact with them back in 1892 up until 2006, when our coexistence with them ended. It starts with early communication and then proceeds on to the first visit. You remember that things started off rocky. People didn’t know how to react to them. Religion was one of the first to go. People couldn’t understand how religion could still exist.” “I remember all of this, sir. I just don’t understand why it matters!” He sighed for a moment, as if the weight of the world sat upon his shoulders. He took a step closer to her so that he could see the small green pendant hanging from her neck. He cleared his voice and began again. “The following 150 years would be very, well, interesting. A lot of things would change. Conflict began in 1908. The first laws protecting them came in 1923. Their first experience in our wars came in 1945 and then again in the 50s. We finally visited them as the 1960s came to a close. Do you remember the champions of equality back in the 1980s? Ray Bradbury, Martin Luther King Jr.?” The girl’s face lit up. The professor knew now that she was starting to get it. He prepared to drive his point home. “But like all great things, this period of prosperity was destined to end. It happened on a sunny morning in D.C. in 2008. Perhaps the most historic moment in American history. And it all ended with a bang. A single shot, penetrating the skull, killing him instantly.” The professor felt great pain as he said this, like an old wound roaring back to haunt him. His student’s face was set like stone, and she bit her lip nervously. With great pain, he drove the nail into the coffin. “And it was over like that. War came within a week, and it was over in two. They never stood a chance. But we paid the price for what we did, in more ways than
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you can imagine.” She took a step closer to the professor and took hold of his elbow. With her eyes now fixed on his, he choked through the last few sentences. “I watched it happen; everyone on this side of the planet saw it. We cleansed their home in the warm glow of atomic fires.” “I think I get it now.” “Good. now get out of here, and enjoy the rest of your day.” “Thank you for your time, sir. And have a good weekend.” With that, she turned and walked out of the room, her blonde hair bouncing as she did. The professor turned back to his desk with a great weight in the pit of his stomach. He sat down in the large armchair behind his desk and began to grade a pile of homework. When night fell, he packed his bags and left the room, the lights clicking off automatically as the door closed. Outside, he took a moment to gaze up into the inky black sky. The stars shone brightly, but the moon, or rather its shattered remains, hung dully in the sky. A monument to all our sins.