This chapter follows a little from my So This Is Christmas chapter reveal, but it gives a good view of how different life on the Earth appears to Julia, who has only known life on the Moon for comparison.

Although Melody Harper’s Moon (book one) has a villain front-and-centre, the rest of the books lack a main front-and-centre baddie. There are hurt people doing the wrong thing, there are selfish people, there are people who do shocking things to impress others and, of course, the racists who are the Knight Crusaders.

And then there’s the purely petty evil of people like Joan (from So This Is Christmas) and Mike McManus here and the ways they’re given agency. Joan has an absolutely abhorrent attitude for someone working at a charity mission, and Mike McManus here is allowed some really awful views and given a platform ‘because it’s popular and in the name of balance’.

Essentially Julia says in her piece ‘wouldn’t it be nice if society cared more’, and Mike McManus takes exception to that.

As a writer, you’ll often have people approach you and say ‘well people like Jane and Mike being in the positions they’re in just isn’t realistic’. And yet we see it all the time.

I often feel in my writing I can’t fix all of society’s ills, but I can fix some, and shine a light on what I can’t.

And in that way publications don’t really care, Mike McManus’s free speech eventually almost costs Julia her life. Such agitation always has a cost…

So this is Christmas?

22:18 Friday 7th January 2084

So they published the article I wrote for Roza yesterday, Violet.

Last night, in bed, I proudly read it out to Melody,

Over Christmas, I was asked to put together an opinion piece around how I’ve found living in England. But what makes me special for my perspective to be particularly noteworthy?

I moved to Derbyshire recently to support my partner in her last stages of pregnancy. What makes this unusual is I’m one of over a thousand people who make up the Shackleton colony on the Moon. In fact, I’m one of a generation who has known no other home than on the Moon.

I’ve frequently gazed up from my home at this colourful marble in space, and wondered what life here was like, my only clues coming from experiencing your culture through movies and similar media.

Life on the Moon is harsh, we’re taught this from an early age—it’s a barren, airless world, and we cling onto life living mainly beneath the surface. The fragility of this existence came home to many of us during the Hub Crash, in which I lost two of my closest friends.

Probably the first thing to strike me on arrival on Earth (apart from the increased gravity) was the sky, a blue sky. I’m used to even the sunniest day to involve a black sky. But here the sky is so changeable, and you even get water from the sky, where we have to dig deep for the slightest moisture.

Then there is the flora and fauna, it’s found everywhere on this planet and in so much diversity. And not once have I taken a trip wondering if I have enough oxygen for my return trip.

It would seem that Earth is a planet of abundance compared to the place I call home. However, there’s one area it falls uncomfortably short.

Within my first few days on the planet, I saw someone homeless and sleeping rough outside of a supermarket. On the Moon we are a community, we don’t have much but there is a place to sleep and food for all. How could a society like Earth where there is so much abundance have people struggling for the basics of survival?

I have to admit, it’s been a source of disappointment. I’d hoped the world I’d dreamed about from afar was was better than this.

My partner wanted to show me society here can be better, getting us to volunteer at the Christmas mission; it was without doubt an amazing experience. However, I’m also painfully aware it was just one day.

In the absence of this special day, I’m told it’s up to social services, charity and individual kindness to take up the slack. But if that was effective and working we’d see no homeless; it’s all too obvious they don’t.

I know there are no simple answers or solutions. But everything starts with this, asking if you want to be a part of a society where everybody matters, or one where it’s too easy to turn a blind eye.

The article then broke into mentioning several charities that Roza had suggested where people could donate to if they wanted to make a difference.

At the end of reading it I asked Melody what she thought, expecting a shower of praise, but instead she pulled her face a little telling me, “Look, I get where you’re coming from. And you’re right, some things about the society we both call home now are amazing. But I’m just aware that the Moon has its dark side too; I mean, look how badly everything around James was handled. And…”

She trailed off her words as if thinking better of it.

“What is it?” I asked.

Melody grimaced a little before continuing, “Well… you come across a little high-handed. People are a bit weird, they’ll know something isn’t working, but the moment an outsider criticises, they’ll fall over themselves to defend it, because they suddenly feel under attack.”

“Well, it’s a good job I’m not planning to settle here then. When did you become so expert on human relations?” I asked her.

Melody did an innocent shrug and said, “Well, I guess last year when I arrived on the Moon, I could have been more diplomatic. But to be fair, you could have been a whole lot nicer to me as well.”

I had to laugh at that, but Melody put her arms around me, looked into my eyes with an all-too-serious look, and told me, “Just people can get mean when they’re called out on something, and you’ve told some uncomfortable truths.”

It turned out to be prophetic words. This morning Ernie told me he’d seen some responses to my piece.

“Honestly, I’d rather you didn’t look. People always get off with being extra vile in the comments,” he warned me.

I probably should have listened to his advice, but I felt a need to look. There were a few people voicing support for what I’d said, but some really vile stuff in response.

They’d printed one opinion article in particular, which really got to me,

Yesterday we had a guest article from Julia Waring, a resident of the Shackleton Lunar colony who discussed the surprises she’d encountered living on Earth for the first time.

In the interest of balance, our regular opinion columnist, Mike McManus, has written the following response piece.

‘Welcome to Earth, nice planet, shame about the people’ would probably have been a better title for Ms Waring’s article yesterday. She started talking about how she’d loved living on Earth, just to take some low blows at society, without suggesting any actual solutions.

Like many, I’ve often wondered what kind of of community was evolving out on the colonies of Mars and the Moon, and Ms Waring answered this question for us. It seems when you arrive on the Moon there should be an enormous billboard proclaiming, ‘Welcome to the planet of the Space Communists’.

Ms Waring described a world where no matter how little you worked, you were provided bed and board and lived the high life. How would such a world produce the motivation to excel? Perhaps that’s why we’ve not heard of any famous Lunar writer or singer-songwriter. They’re probably too busy breathi

ng the opium of leftist socialism to bother, comrade. And why should they bother? The funding provided by the Consortium is big dollars, and it comes out of our taxes. And how do we benefit from the Lunar colony? That’s the awkward question Ms Waring doesn’t want you asking.

‘It’s for the science’ you might claim, but we’ve been there for thirty years now. How much more science do we need?

‘We’re looking for Helium-3 to power the world’ was another claim of my youth, but since the disastrous Selene-5 expedition we’ve known the levels to be insufficient to viably sustain the cost of such a colony. Besides, the success of Aldercorp in artificially creating Helium-3 has undermined any need to seek for this resource in space, while defining the Consortium as the world’s rightful energy superpower.

Last year after the tragedy of the Hub Crash, we had an opportunity to bring to a close a failed venture and shut down the Lunar colony, but our spend-loving politicians decided against.

Before venturing further criticism about life in the Consortium, I suggest she spend a week in the Pan Asian Block for comparison. Although by the look of her, she might prefer to stay there.

I read that last line out aloud to Ernie, not being able to quite believe I’d read it, “Who the fuck is this guy?”

“McManus is not a favourite of mine. Elsie worked on the publication for a while, and they had quite the enmity,” he explained. “He says a lot of vile things but champions his opinions, saying they’re the opinions of the silenced. And there are a disappointing number of people who support his rhetoric.”

“Do you mean the Knight Crusaders?” I asked, just even thinking of the thugs made me want to shudder.

“Yes, and more than that. Sadly, there are many people who probably think of themselves as decent people,” explained Ernie. “But deep down, they’re just as opinionated and narrow minded through and through.”

I gave a sigh, “I just feel ambushed. Roza talked me into this article, and it feels it was just a way to whip up people into a frenzied mob.”

“Sadly, our local publication is all about riling people up, because it gets people reading and engaged and sells advertising,” Ernie sighed.

“I feel like I should set up a rival publication when I get back to the Moon and try to run Roza’s into the ground,” I said with a snarl.

Ernie told me I was being a little dramatic, and I needed a cup of tea.

But I fumed about this all day long.