Once there was a planet that had no sun. It flew through deep space, not orbiting any star. There was life on this planet, but they had never seen daylight and they had no warmth. The people knew nothing of sunsets, sunny days, or warm summers. The planet was called simply The Planet. Millions of years passed. Generations of people and animals evolved. No light meant no plants, no flowers, no green. In fact the dim light they existed in came from cultivated bio-luminesecent fungus, and was too dim to reaveal colors to the human eye. So one day The Planet began to feel the remote tug of gravity from a yet distant star. No one on The Planet was aware of it yet. Soon people began to talk of the bright star in the sky. Each month it grew barely perceptably brighter until someone shouted "Whats that!" It was a shadow. No one had ever seen one before and people and animals were puzzled. One day a scream rang out, "Whats that?!" someone yelled. It was green. No one had ever seen color before. All the people began to enjoy seeing for the first time. Each other, where they live, where they are going, what color their clothes are. One day someone saw a giraffee. They couldn't stop laughing. That was also the first laugh. There is nothing to laugh at in the dark. Eventually The Planet got close enough to the star to feel warm. People took off their coats and looked at the ground. Small greenish white sprouts began to grow. Soon flowers of every kind were everywhere. After a while people got used to what they, their family, friends, pets, and world around them looked like. Then one day someone looked up a t a building. Seven strange letters were printed on the front. "Library". It was filled with books that no one had seen in 5 million generations. Eventually the people learned to read and discovered the rich past of their planet. They learned their planet was called Earth and it had once orbited around a star called the Sun, and had a friend called the Moon. Now they were comforably in orbit around their new star, they felt ok, ..but a little loney. A team of artists and scientists collaborated on construction of an artificial moon, complete with "man in the moon" face to fill the night sky. Once the moon was in place and the seasons established, people were happy. They almost remembered the the good old days of Earth, Sun, and Moon. The only problem was that no one had written down any of the history of the Dark Millennia, and it was soon forgotten completely as the people embraced the past they never knew. They never knew the Truth. - 6/12/00 jp