Horses on Mars

The short video clip, entitled ‘Horses on Mars’, begins with these words appearing on the screen as calm, soothing space music plays in the background:

In 1871, Lord William Kelvin proposed the idea that through meteor and asteroid impacts, life may be ejected from the surface of planets into interplanetary space. Life could hop from planet to planet, spreading out through an entire solar system or even beyond. It has since been discovered that certain forms of microbial life do have the extraordinary ability to survive in the extremes of outer space. It may be that all life within our very own solar system has a common ancestral lineage – and a common home…

The camera zooms into the planet Mars, and then we get a close up view of a pebble on the once watery planet billions of years ago. We see cute little microscopic organisms playing with one another. The main character, a cute, single-celled blob that has a pair of antennas, as well as arms and legs, narrates the whole story.

An asteroid crashes onto the planet, flinging Mr. Narrator and friends into space, but on different pieces of rock. He finds himself alone as his friends get blasted towards different directions. The narration continues: It was lonely, but what did it matter. I was king of the pebble! Among other things to keep me busy, I would count my trips around the Sun. After three, I got bored and decided it was a silly thing to do anyway, so naturally, after that, I took a short nap. He crawls into a crack in the pebble and goes to sleep. 2.3 billion years later, he crashes onto another planet. We later find out that it is Venus. He misses his friends. Suddenly, we hear loud mechanical sounds, and we see a man-made spacecraft. Mr. Narrator walks around and notices a message from his friends inscribed on it: Hi. Val became a horse. I became a Ukrainian. How are you?

A horse? Wow. I never had such vision. I always knew Val was the smart one. No one could do that here, become a horse. I wonder where they landed.

Was I meant to become something better? I kept wondering if it was all the fluke of statistical probabilities that brought me here, an inconceivably improbable accident. Or, was there some fundamental force of nature at work; something or some power beyond my comprehension that brought me here for some great, grand purpose, a purpose intimately involving me with the overall destiny of the whole universe?

Disappointed and disillusioned, he decides to go home. He climbs onto an active volcano that blasts him out of the Venusian atmosphere and into space. Finally, on my way home. The surprise comes when he realizes that he is flying towards the Sun, rather than towards Mars. As impending doom approaches, he ponders about life, other possibilities and fate. I knew that within me, somewhere deep down was a magnificent, flying creature; something fantastic, large, beautiful… I dreamed that I had giant wings and I could fly. The music grows louder and dreamier as we see his visions of a flying creature flying in space toward Mars. As the vision fades, we see him flapping his tiny little arms as he continues to dream a futile dream, floating nearer and nearer to the Sun. There is nothing he can do, except to wait… and to dream of home… But even dreaming, it wasn’t like I remembered. Maybe it wasn’t home. But then, I saw it better. Not like how it was when I left it, or what it had become. But how it will be when the others make it back. I wonder if they’ll still remember me when they get there… All those horses…

And the screen turns white. The music fades.

The entire clip is beautiful beyond words. It leaves me feeling awed and melancholic. There is a little irony in it all, yet we get a feeling of peace and calmness. The mysteries of the universe are unfathomable. Amidst the cute and humorous moments, like when the narrator farts and burps, the video clip raises very profound questions… Questions about the meaning of it all, as well as the ironies of life…