Legs

They came, disguised as the planet’s dominant species. We burrow our way deep beneath the earth, raiding the captured energy of the sun, burning again what had died more than three hundred million years ago. Poisoning our skies with the black breath of dead dinosaurs compressed into oil and into coal. They came, hunting for resources, for the resources we had already half consumed. More and more deeply we drank at the wells, straining tar from sandbanks to satisfy our thirst, pumping tainted water into our aquifers beneath our feet. Unknowingly powering the traffic jam of an invader’s fleet.

The oil was running out, the tar sands long evaporated. Arctic drills chewing through permafrost in search of their nourishment. They would leave us drained, stranded on this rock while they pillaged the stars. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Bio-oil was our biggest mistake.