View from a New World

The Earth had exploded, and a new, smaller planet had formed in the solar system.  A small group of children and I were the only survivors, and we had managed to somehow migrate to this new planet.  We lived simply, in tents and around campfires.  All the skills of humanity would have to be relearned.  The oldest child was named Adam.  He had a bright smile and a dark face and curly hair.  I called him aside from the rest of the camp to show him the cosmos and our new place in it.  We could see it all laid out at our feet.  The sun was more distant than before, and the broken remnants of the Earth had formed into a halo of debris around it.  It was like an obscurely glowing bulb shaded in a cloud of dust.  

But the orbit of this new planet was more elliptical, almost like that of a comet, and as we gazed at the cosmos, we watched ourselves fall in towards the sun.  It brightened as we approached, and the sky lightened to blue and then almost white, and the trees around us shot suddenly into full bloom, ranging through the seasons in moments.  We could almost feel the planet shift under our feet, and the sun tilted in the sky, and then we were flung back out away into the darkness of the solar system.  The planet rolled on its axis and the dimming sun fell below the horizon.