'If I Forget Thee, O Earth . . . '

'If I Forget Thee, O Earth . . . ' Summary | Detailed Summary

"If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth..." is Arthur C. Clarke's short story of a ten-year old boy named Marvin who is forced to live in a lunar colony and will never return to Earth, which has been destroyed by an atom bomb.

Marvin feels a sense of anticipation as he accompanies his father upward past several levels of the lunar station in which they live. The pair moves quickly through the Administration and Power section, past the Farmlands where Martin feels an emotional tug to linger and revel in the sights and smells of growing things. Marvin's father pulls him onward though to the entrance of the Observatory, and Martin thrills at the prospect that he will be going Outside for the first time in his life.

Marvin and his father reach the servicing chamber, where they are escorted to a surface vehicle complete with balloon tires and pressurized cabin. Marvin settles into his seat while the air pumps fade and the pressure stabilizes in the vehicle. As the great door to the station opens, Marvin sees the landscape, which he has never before viewed.

Marvin has only seen pictures and television images of the scenery unfolding before him now. The sun creeps slowly against an ebony sky, and in the other direction the stars burn intensely in spite of their small size. Marvin remembers a nursery rhyme from one of his father's book about "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," and he wonders who could not know that stars do not twinkle but burn constantly.

The surface vehicle is speeding along at one hundred miles an hour now, and Marvin realizes that he can no longer see the Colony behind them. The only evidence of human beings that Marvin can see are the structures surrounding a mine opening, a crashed rocket and a stone memorial with a metal cross.

Zooming past the mine, Marvin's father is driving with the exhilarated energy of someone who is trying to escape something. Soon the vehicle reaches the edge of the plateau where their Colony is, and Marvin sees before him an endless vista of craters, mountain ranges and ravines. Martin feels a momentary sense of anxiety but realizes that there is a pathway obviously made by some others at another time.

Night falls abruptly as the sun falls behind the black mountains, and the searchlights on the vehicle cast an eerie glow on the rocks ahead. Marvin and his father drive for many hours this way until they are clear of the mountains. Then they drive down into a shallow valley where Marvin senses that something very strange is happening. The sun went down behind the mountain range a while ago, so the valley ahead should be shrouded in darkness. Instead, it glows with a cool white light. Suddenly, as the vehicle clears the craggy valley, the source of the eerie glow is revealed ahead.

Marvin's father stops the vehicle, and the whisper of the oxygen source is the only noise as father and son sit and watch the nearby planet from which this new light is emanating. When Marvin's eyes adjust to this hazy light, he can see the different landmasses and polar caps of planet Earth. Marvin wonders about the sunsets, the rain, the snow and the seashore. He wonders about all the other earthly things that he has only heard about.

Soon, Marvin identifies the phosphorescent glow coming from a portion of Earth as a radioactive light and realizes that this is the aftermath of Armageddon. Little Marvin sits a quarter of a million miles away from the still glowing destruction and realizes that it will be hundreds of years before any life forms can return to the planet.

Marvin's father shares with Marvin the story of the planet's destruction and how the lunar colony in which they live was the only place of human survival. After the destruction of Earth, the residents of the lunar colony could no longer depend on supply shipments from home, so they have had to adapt to survival in the bleak environment on the moon. The survivors prevailed but need a purpose, or they will also die out. This is their biggest challenge yet.

Marvin now understands why his father has brought him to this place today. It will be up to Marvin and the few others like him to keep alive the dream of their descendants one day returning to Earth after the winds and the rains have cleared the atmosphere of all the destruction. On that day in the future, the space ships will once again launch and take human beings again to the planet of their heritage. Marvin knows that he will bring his own son to this spot one day and share the dream with him, although Marvin can only dream about the world he never knew and never will.