It has been one hundred years since the day I stood in the doorway with the wind clawing its fingers through my hair and turned, finally, into its hungry embrace, deciding then that I would never look back at you.

It is the anniversary of the day I fled into the woods surrounding our cottage, woods that used to protect me, but now suffocated me, the trees lashing their branches together and spitting water down upon my shoulders as if they mourned for me, but still could not let me go.

I ran until my feet tracked blood behind me along with the remains of my soul, unspooling from me like silver thread still caught between your fingers.

It has been one hundred years since I stumbled through the rain, and the edge of the chasm yawned before me, and I closed my eyes, expecting to feel the fall, but I never did. Instead, when I opened my eyes, the stars swam before me like rungs on a ladder, and I tangled my fingers around their sharp edges and pulled myself upward. Their light lodged beneath my fingernails and my blood stained some of them so red, the astronomers peered up in shock and could not explain their unexpected jump to supernova.

When I reached the overarching dome of the universe, I banged my fists on the glass, crying for entry, but I was just a soul trapped beneath the ice, and I couldn't climb any further. The dust of the cosmos lodged in my throat and with its bitter taste in my mouth, I swam back down towards where you waited.

I lived in the branches of the trees above where you walked, I wove the stems of flowers together into crowns to adorn my hair, just to have something mortal still about me. I watched you grow older from afar, watched the life bleed out of you naturally, not like mine, not like the knife wound in my shoulder the night I fled.

When your soul shed your body like snakeskin and, shaking itself, began its own upward climb, I watched the stars until their molten silver dripped onto my cheeks like paint, allowing me the facade of tears. I saw you swim through the dome that's trapped me for, now, one hundred years. Kneeling above the Milky Way, I knit crowns out of stars, and sometimes, when I'm moved to, I place the stars in the eyes of mortals who remind me of who I could have been.

It has been a hundred years since something interesting happened. Experts and scientists mistakenly predicted that humans would continue to evolve and become more creative with technology by their side. They have, instead, turned into dull creatures. Predictability and monotony are the proper characteristics to describe our modern human being. Their quality of life turned into something disappointing, as they slowly stumbled down from their pedestal of epicness into their current aridity. They abandoned their curiosity and abruptly turned into indifferent beings with purposeless lives.

By November 2018, the last human achievements were carried out, among them the discovery of immortality - the one cause for human’s decline into their insipidity. Humans were blinded by their abusive nature. One peek - one scent - of immortality, and they were inescapably drawn by its dangerous beauty, its wholesomeness, its promise for a life-changing adventure. By the end of 2018, humanity had already yielded to immortality. It was spread like a disease - a curious one, as a fact; an epidemic that didn’t kill, but kept you from dying. Which was worse, in so many ways.

2019 was the first year in which absolutely nothing happened. No more scientific discoveries needed to be made - they were not of immediate urgency anymore. Diseases required no cure, for they were no longer a threat. Funnily enough, when humans abolished death’s unpredictability, they turned the rest of their lives into a predictable set of events.

Whisper your promises

in echoes of life -

words filling cracks

in my mind.

A blissful shelter

calming my turmoil.

restless manifestations

that the sun

will ignite the heart,

flash future expectations.

symphonies of cardinals.

But the sun alienates

my fading emotions

in ephemeral transitory

brevity as life changes

and evolves and

metamorphoses into

molten red ball.

Life begins and ends,

ashes in the ground,

but flashes of

future expectations

vow growth

of new beginnings.

Flames of warmth

rekindle and ooze

through battered

cracks of façades

rekindling

manifest destiny -

to love and live

and wave hello

and goodbye

knowing that which

I have sowed

will continue

as my legacy

and I will

continue on,

a seed in

the fresh earth.

The waters were still that morning, and the water tapped gently on the sides of the boat as it swayed from side to side. The coast of New Washington was faintly visible to the east, dry black mountains fading into gray. She watched a fish as big as her leg swim by below, shadowed by a handful of smaller darters. The anchor chain disappeared into the gloom -- she imagined it descending until eventually its teeth locked into sand and rocks some thousand feet below.

The bulk of the family was belowdecks, but Esaiah sat looking out at the land, his white head turned away from her. In his gnarled hands he held a small but very thick book -- his fingers obscured the title, but she knew that it read Clive's Almanac, and in smaller letters, More Years Than You Could Ever Need -- Every Day of Every Month of Every Year Through 2120 -- This Book Will Outlive You -- See The Future Through the Days of the Week -- When Will Your 99th Birthday Fall?

"You good, baba?" she said, scooting down the deck towards him. Far away, a distant cormorant circled.

He sighed deeply. "Soon we'll reach the end of the almanac." The book's binding had almost entirely disintegrated, and what was left of the colorful paper color was held on by patches of duct tape that ran along the spine and wrapped around the back like a shield.

"Can't you just start over from the beginning? It's like the same thing for a billion pages."

He looked mournfully out at the water. "Each year is off by a few days from any other. We'll start to lose our place... Slowly, month by month, we'll lose track of time..."

"Ignore him," Emila said, slowly seating herself next to Memma with a groan. "My back is not pleased with me... Esaiah, don't be such a downer. Why do you even have that thing out here?"

"You," he said, pointing a nobbled finger at her nose, "Are a bad daughter. What would mother say?"

"Probably, 'Eat some fish, have a drink, forget the past,'" Emila snapped. "Don't test me. I know what day it is."

Memma looked from one to the other. "What day is it?"

"It's not actually important," Emila shrugged.

"On the contrary, it is the most important." Baba looked downright irked now. "Today is Fire Day. And not just any Fire Day, but the one hundredth anniversary of the first Fire Day."

Memma knew vaguely what Fire Day was, but Avin, her mother, was adamant that it wasn't a topic little girls should learn about.

"What happened on the first Fire Day?" she asked slyly.

Emila gave her a sideways glance, the corner of her mouth quirking up, and did a quick scan of the deck: Avin was nowhere to be seen.

"I don't know if I should..." Baba began hesitantly.

"Oh, tell her, Esaiah. She's practically as tall as you are."

"She is not," he said strictly. "Sunshine, it is not a nice story."

"I can handle it," she said, trying her best at a solemn expression.

"Well, just don't tell your mother." He sighed and resettled himself on the deck. "Can I have a pillow?"

Memma jumped up, pulled a pillow out of the storage chest, and threw it in his direction. It would have gone in the water had Emila not caught it, but as it was she settled it behind him and he prepared for the story.

"Many years ago, when this book was newly printed," he began, tapping the cover of the almanac, "Everything was going to shit. People were -- to say the least -- desperate and miserable. Communities were breaking down, people were killing each other, and even the land was shifting and collapsing into the sea. It was a bad, bad time."

"Was this when Gran was born?"

"Yes, Gran herself was a little girl when this was going on, god rest her soul. Now at this time -- this may be hard to believe, but I swear on the almanac it's true -- people were everywhere on the land. You could hardly walk ten miles without running into somebody. And they built mountains of metal needles to live in, and traveled a great deal. In some ways it was a great time. The things those people built, from what Gran told me..."

He drifted off into reflection for a moment. The water lapped at Memma's toes and she wiggled them impatiently, not wanting to interrupt and risk the story ending there.

"Fire Day," Emila prompted.

"Yes, right. So in this crowded land world, there came upon the land a great sickness. Some people call it the Fever, or Fire Fever, but that sounds like a dance craze in my opinion. In any case, a sort of plague began to spread person to person. And each of them and all of them developed a peculiar thirst to destroy what made them miserable.

"For a time it was contained: there was some low-level smashing and rioting, individual arson. But the farther it spread the more it grew, until hundreds of thousands took to the streets and set on fire anything that could burn. And still more people caught the sickness, and across the world the cities and towns and houses burned, and people dropped fire from the sky, and the very land caught aflame, and this passion gripped the people of the earth until everything that would burn had burned and the few still alive were left in an ashy blankness.

"Gran -- your mother's grandmother -- was only a little girl when all this came to pass. As the fever spread her mother and father brought as much food and water as they could and took to the ocean in a tiny boat, touching shore only when they needed to restock. In all of this the sea proved more fertile than the land, and eventually they learned to feed themselves and live only on the water. And so when the burning ended they shunned the desecrated coastline, and found others who had also survived on the water, and for decades we have prevailed -- right down to you, Memma.

"This day, Fire Day, marks the day one hundred years ago when the fever began to spread."

Memma looked out at the distant black mountains. It was difficult to image the blasted terrain of New Washington full of dry green seaweed and fish that walked like people.

"Well," Memma said hesitantly after a moment, "It seems like we're doing pretty good, all things considered."

Baba flicked the back of her head. "We prevail. Don't tell your mother."

The distant cormorant swooped and rose again with a fish thrashing wildly in its beak. What was it like, she wondered, to hate the world so much that you burned all you could to ash?

11-18-2119

Happy Birthday myself! (That exclamation point is a liar. Believe me, I say this sentence with as much grudging, sarcastic, un-excitedness with which a human being could ever say anything. Perhaps even with a hint of longing and loathing.)

So, Yaaay! Happy Birthday!

How does it feel to be a hundred?

I dunno. Fake.

Today is not only my hundredth birthday, but also the hundredth birthday of a little product called Necata, derived from the latin “nec aetas” meaning “no age.” The scientists behind it had been doing underground research on it for years before the product started to surface in 2019. The official release date just happened to be the date I was also released into the world.

An anti-aging medication. But this time it wasn’t a cream that softened skin and smoothed out wrinkles. It wasn’t some cringy homemade herbal remedy. No. It was the real deal. Necata, “The nectar of life.” Certified, Approved, Authorized, Endorsed, Guaranteed, by anyone and everyone whose medical opinions were of value to the public. Necata was ready to be bought, and used by everyone right away. Starting with babies.

If you were pregnant, and your due date was November 18th, you had better start saving your money to buy your newborn baby’s immortality. Necata’s advertising campaign was geared mostly towards parents who could provide this for their kids. I mean, come on. What mom and dad don’t want to give their baby the gift of eternal life? And my parents were no different. . .

You don’t know how many times I’ve wished I was a preemie. Or a few days late.

So the nurses roll in, with a shiny shot needle, inject Necata into the infant, and boom! Just like that! The kid’s immortal.

Not quite.

Turns out Necata’s “top scientists” who had been developing the product for years, still hadn’t worked out all the kinks. They were just so in debt from their research, that they desperately needed profits. And so, decided to launch the unfinished medication hoping for the best.

Instead of staying a perfectly preserved bundle of newborn joy, complete with sunshine and rainbows, the Necata babies aged. We aged fast. By the time most kids were learning how to crawl around, I had the body of a tween. I also had mental disorders, speech disorders, learning disorders, and growth pains like you wouldn’t believe!

Yeah. I remember it. I was conscious, just didn’t know quite what to do with my brain yet.

Our growth started to slow just before we hit age two. By then, we looked like 20-year-olds.

And then we stopped.

Necata was banned from being sold or administered, and thank heaven above, no one else suffered the same fate. But the world was left with a few hundred thousand two-year-olds who looked like 20-year-olds, who had been injected in the first few days of the product’s launch. Programs were instituted. Special schools and therapy facilities. Weird enough, after we got past the disorders, we learned really well. And extremely fast. Like genius-level fast. I finished kindergarten through 12th grade in four years.

But it became pretty obvious, pretty quickly that we weren’t going to age after that. We’d hit our prime, and that was it.

So here I am. I’ve outlived my parents, my older sibling, and my younger one. The product worked. I haven’t aged. I haven’t died. Which is partially Necata’s fault, and partly my own. I haven’t killed myself yet. I don’t know why. Almost every day, I wish I would hurry up and die, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Quite a few members of “Generation Infinity”, as the government nicknamed us, discovered that they couldn’t die from old age, but they could be killed. Suicide rates went through the roof right after that.

Maybe that’s why I choose to stick around. To make sure no one else makes the same mistakes. To ensure that as long as I live (which I am betting will be quite long) that no one in the universe will have to suffer like I have. Like we have. Mortality is meant to be temporary. Living forever is almost worse than not living at all. It’s good to grow, to age, and yes, to die. Eventually. When you’ve lived a full life, and are ready to escape.

So I think I will save this blog entry/rant, and share and preserve it. Don’t play God. He’s much better at it than we are.

"Everything smells so delicious," Mindy said as she helped her mother get their table ready for supper. "Tell me again what was the world like when you were my age?"

Mindy's mother gave a small laugh, setting a rather large roast on the dinner table.

"It was a much, much different time, Min," she said. "Back then, people were dying of all kinds of disease and there were wars and pollution and racism and sexism." Mindy cringed at the thought.

“And people killed animals for meat??” she asked incredulously.

"Yes, can you believe it? Things looked extremely dire back then. Most everyone I knew had given up hope."

“But then came Darius!” exclaimed Ash, Mindy’s younger brother.

“Yes, that’s right,” replied their mother. “Darius M. He was the scientist who came up with the exact formula that would set not just our country, but the whole world on a new, better track.”

“And tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of his discovery?” said Mindy as they all sat down to eat.

Mindy’s mom nodded, reaching forward to slice the roast with a knife. “Yes it is. We are now able to use the sun to power everything that used to run on gas and coal and electricity. Take this knife for instance. We use lasers for common everyday tasks now to precisely cut meat and bread and cheese and you never run the risk of slicing your finger or anything. When I was a child people were constantly running to hospitals to get stitches from all sorts of inflicted injuries.”

“What’s a ‘hospital?’” Ash asked with a mouth full of food.

Mindy laughed and said, “Haven’t you learned about hospitals in school yet, Ash?” He shook his head while continuing to chew.

“Hospitals are where people would go if they were sick or hurt,” explained their mother.

“I know it is hard to imagine, but there was a time when the earth was not safe and human life was fragile. A child your age could become deathly ill or die in a car accident or starve from not having access to any food. We are so lucky that none of these things happen anymore. And we have Darius M. mostly to thank for that.”

“It’s sad to think he will be gone in fifty years,” said Mindy after a bit of silence.

“Where will he go?” asked Ash.

Mindy’s mother tried her best to explain this as gently as she could to a seven-year-old. “Do you remember when Grandma turned 150?” He nodded. “And we had that party for her and she danced with you and then you saw her get that injection that made her go to sleep?” He nodded some more. “Since the amazing advancements in medicine and technology were making it so that people lived longer and longer, the world was becoming too crowded.”

“So, a world vote was taken,” Mindy took over explaining, “and people decided that at the age of 150 every man and woman of that age would be laid to rest with a humane injection that would put them to sleep peacefully and with dignity.”

“So, Darius will be dead in fifty years?” Ash asked looking a bit worried.

“Yes, but that isn’t anything you have to worry about for a very, very long time,” said their mother. “Although it is still possible for people to die before that age, it is very, very rare, Ash. So, you and your sister don’t have anything to worry about. There is a peace that comes with knowing exactly when your time here on earth will be up...and a lot of wonderful things can happen in 150 years.”

#scifi #sciencefiction #future #futuristic #family

Gas masks? Check.

Nylon suits? Check.

Headlamps? Check.

Two men in white walked along Route 66, now abandoned and thick with dust. Their heads swiveled left and right, blindly scanning their gray surroundings. The dust thinned as they reached the end of the old highway.

"Hey, Micah?"

"Yes, George?"

"Ain't it funny how this here road was famous back in the day?"

"Oh? Back in your day?"

"..."

"Thought so. Now keep looking. We don't have time to waste before the cap'n leaves us on this hell of a planet."

The two struggled on through the sideways storm, searching every street and building for anything - anything that could have survived the great storm of '50. Finally, they stumbled upon a small shack on what once could have been a grassy hill. The door, which had somehow remained closed and intact all these years, revealed an old tool shed. Now empty and forgotten, the shed only contained mounds of filth and rubbish. A cloud of the dust enveloped Micah as he scooped through each mound, hoping that his gloved hand would make contact with something. Anything.

Meanwhile, George dug in the shed's corners, silent as to not distract his partner. His hand touched something hard. A yell of shock and surprise escaped his lips as he unearthed a small, dusty jar. Micah rushed to him and they shouted Eureka to the heavens as they playfully tossed the jar back and forth, back and forth. After twenty gleeful tosses, enough dust had fallen off the jar to reveal faded markings. Catching the jar one last time, George brought it to his goggled eyes to get a closer look.

Clover Honey. Manufactured 05-01-19.

"Hey Micah?"

"Yeah, George?" Micah wheezed, out of breath from his celebrations.

"What's today's date?"

"First of May."

"It says this honey was made on the first of May...a hundred years ago!"

"Ah geez, George. You gonna sing happy birthday to it now?"

"Not a birthday. Like an anniversary."

"Well, happy anniversary to your jar of honey, George, you sappy twig. Now let's get a move on. The winds are coming in fast."

"Yessir. On it, sir."

#honey

In October of 2019, the unthinkable happened.

The world finally united under the Utopian ideal of a unified Global Understanding.

The economic and social tensions of the countries comprising the United Nations underwent a final implosion, as the realization that life existed outside of Earth became painfully obvious.

On that day in October, the people of Earth looked into the sky to see something that had never before been glimpsed by humanity - 'The Tear'.

'The Tear' was a hole in the fabric of space-time; an artifact of a major upheaval in the physics of our Universe.

It showed us what was on the 'other side' of the sky.

The reality of 'The Tear' caused the world's leaders and inhabitants to question long-held beliefs and dogma.

There would no longer be doubt that there was indeed another force manipulating the lives of everyone on Earth.

One could plainly confirm this, merely by looking up.

The governments of the world briefly tried to motivate their citizens to some manner of action, but anyone could easily discern that there was no point to any aggressive activity.

One needed only to look at 'The Tear' to really see what the Truth was.

The religious leaders tried to work it into their ways of worship, futilely realizing within a few weeks just how ridiculous and outrageous it would be to try to form yet another theatre of the absurd, in the name of something large and mysterious.

Because, of course, 'The Tear' was right there, overhead.

Real. Tangible. Immutable and true.

Those who tried to convince others that it was just a trick, an illusion or mass hysteria were laughed at and ridiculed, and finally stopped any further attempts to manipulate their fellows, sensing their ruse of exclusivity was over.

The governments of the world similarly unraveled, as the new reality took hold.

People simply refused to do anything to further societies or civilizations that were obviously more attempts at controlling humanity.

Soldiers abandoned their posts; warships stood unmanned and floated in the seas, aimlessly.

Businesses simply ceased operating.

The airports of the world had stopped functioning.

The only thing that mattered was food, and even that was eventually discovered to be mere illusion.

As the real truth of Existence penetrated even the most dim of consciousness, everyone just stopped caring.

What was the point of going anywhere, now?

People looked up, and then either went home, or just sat down where they were.

It was evident.

Nothing was real; nothing mattered.

The ideas that Mankind had developed over the millenia were patently incorrect.

All the world's cultures had been so far off the mark, that the combined shame and embarrassment felt by everyone created a new respect for the individual.

Murderers were finally understood, the insane pardoned, and the mentally ill absolved by the understanding of how the Universe -really- worked, at last.

One hundred years later, the Earth still spun on its axis.

The Solar System rolled on to its entropic end.

The people of Earth simply waited for the inevitable.

Everyone could see through 'The Tear', as the finger of the Emperor of the World slowly pressed the giant RESET button in the sky.

What anniversary party?

That all humans died a hundred years ago. That’s a reason to celebrate?

No, that isn’t a reason at all.

But as sure as I sit on my throne I tell you now what the real celebration is about.

On this day, a hundred years after humans screwed up and blasted each other to pieces with their so-called masterful technology and advance weaponary, a hundred years after all humans turned into dust ... our 900 billionth baby rat was born and she was named Ratte’.

Now that is a reason to celebrate.

Yeah. You might get it now.

The mass hysteria and explosions mutated us into another higher-grade life form. And we are the only life form left on the planet, and amazingly, I am the Boss. Just as my fathet and Grandfather were. And when I die, my son will sit in my stead and rule.

What a life, I tell you. What a life.

This earth has fuel

that you should consider rare;

As it provides the means for ‘all’ to take care.

Use in moderation and ‘life’ you shall spare;

Abuse it and gain

a ‘half-life’ of despair.

For you are all my children so be aware;

That there’s a formula for all to be fair.

It’s the burden of choice that’s your hurdle to bear;

Where your rate of consumption shall feed how you fare.

And so I hereby un-earth this resourceful solution;

As the answer to the problem of resource pollution.

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