some men go to Mars, others pay attention to the Earth

The first time I heard this story, I was in my late teens. I didn’t really share it with anyone else. Years passed, and I had almost forgotten about it when I was taking care of some children and needed to come up with a way to distract them. I asked them if they wanted to hear a rare story and they clamored yes.  

After sharing it, I remember the first child, who might’ve been about ten or eleven, immediately expressed his distrust that the story was really true, and he declared my grandfather was probably playing a trick. 

I acknowledged this might be possible, even though I didn’t believe it myself. Then his younger brother interrupted. He asked me, “What do you mean he was cooking on a fire? Do you mean a stove?” I smiled and suggested to the first brother that there might be a different interpretation with which he could negotiate some kind of accord. His younger brother was not aware of a way to even cook food without the innovation of something like a stove.  

Perhaps this story is impossible, at this time and in these places in which it might be very difficult for some people to listen to a fire. But in places where people live in different configurations and with different everyday relationships, this story might be possible. Just like I said before he could cut in, “Certain things are only possible now that in the past few may have thought possible.