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May 19th, 2078 — Somewhere in North America

It is an odd notion to keep a journal that no one will read. Words are meant to be shared? Thoughts are meant to be spoken? What could is a story if there is no audience to hear it? I must confess these and many other questions have troubled me for several days now. The only thing I have managed to resolve with some surety is that staring into the void alone is a fate worse than death. No deeper well of desolation exists, I’m afraid, and I should know. So, in view of preserving the last dredges of my own sanity in these final days, I will imagine you, reader, the one I see in my dreams, as an arbiter of what comes next, a scion of rebirth. And if, dear one, you would entertain me for a moment, I want you to consider this the last missive from the time before.

I know you’d prefer to hear some story about my life that could give you some measure of satisfaction, one about a hero overcoming odds and triumphing in the face of immeasurable conflict, one that could give you some form of hope. The truth is my life was rather unremarkable. My parents got divorced when I was young, a choice that ultimately made them both happier. I stayed with my mother, growing up in a religious house but never oppressively so. The moment I took my first step into the wider world, I realized how narrow my world was growing up, acknowledging for the first time the amazing breadth of humanity. All the colors and personality and conflict and restoration wrapped in one. I’m afraid things were never simple with our species, dear one, but that’s part of the fun, no?

I left high school, slacked off, got in debt, went to college, experimented, found the heights of love, graduated, went to work, had my heart broken, felt pride, got buried in hurt, endured great pain, and bathed in joy. I wouldn’t say my life was ever dull, but in the vast cosmos, I find myself utterly remarkable in the sea of human experience. I never ascended to the top of my field. No one is alive to remember me. There is no proof of my existence, no monuments to my accomplishments nor books written about my exploits. There is no impression that I ever lived on this earth. All of it was merely a flash in the pan, a bright light that has now vanished.

I would’ve liked to believe that the end we had all imagined was possible, that our collective history could have had a fitting conclusion. It pains me to tell you that is not the case. Our great leaders, visionaries, and luminaries did not go proudly into the night but instead died silently, not with a bang but with a fading whimper, our totems, and idols the only thing left, fading into dust as well. I can say this because I am the last one left. Everything else is dead. Every plant. Every tree. Every animal. All of it. There is only dust and me, dear one, and once I’m gone, there will truly be nothing left. All life will have ended, and humanity’s great run will be over. 

My hands tremble at the very thought. I feel compelled to say something, pen a magnificent obituary to life to be tossed into the void after my passing, but I feel exceedingly unqualified to speak for anyone let alone myself. How can an unremarkable capture something so remarkable? Much has been said about the human spirit and our capacity of consciousness and empathy and ingenuity. Conversely, what also set us apart was our capacity for cruelty and indiscriminate violence. Even the most powerful man has called out for help in the dark. Even the happiest soul, felt alone. Even the most pristine relationship falls apart. As it turns out humanity had a lot of contradictions.

I imagine that we could have survived in some alternative universe where things went different. The thing that’s sometimes forgotten, dear one, is how durable humans are as a collective. The lowly cockroach got a bad rap, but humans and cockroaches aren’t that dissimilar. We could persevere when we wanted to, even in the face of extraordinary hardships. We are adamant, always have been. Never did it cross our minds that we would fail. The thought never broached my consciousness, nor my father’s, nor his. We always assumed that life would go on living. Maybe our fatal flaw was thinking that there ever was a purpose? Having a reason for our existence demands a destination, something we were striving towards either in this life or the next, both collectively and individually. I always thought it was to better ourselves, to evolve into something greater than what we were. That’s what life does, right? Evolve? I realize now how naive that thought was. Nature doesn’t evolve. It survives. We were never meant to be better. We were only meant to survive, and now we’ve failed even at that, a botched experiment forced back into the primordial cauldron, whatever flicker of life we thought we saw in the dark was merely an illusion, a chemical trick perpetrated upon us by our defective biology.

It’s no coincidence that you, dear one, appeared to me in my dreams five days ago as the dreaded plague of sorrow advanced, claiming my wife, my firstborn, and my second. It pains me to say that I never got to say goodbye to any of them so if you’ll allow me just a moment to say goodbye properly, I would like that very much and maybe in some small way that can be my mark, my impression on this world, allowing an unremarkable to became remarkable in his own way.

To my wife, Leonora: Know that I love you deeply. We’ve had our ups and downs, our trials and tribulations but I wouldn’t trade away any minute with you fighting those battles. You are the light in a dreadfully dark world, and I am blessed to have had the privilege to step into that light for even a moment.

To my eldest, Grantham: You are so so strong. Far more a warrior than I will ever be. I used to imagine all the things you would have accomplished had you had the chance to grow up, but even being on this earth for thirteen years you made the deepest marks on me and your mother. Rest well, son.

To my second, Fredrik: Clever bunny, you? You had wisdom far beyond your age. You would have broken open intellectual vaults, revealing the universe’s darkest secrets had you the chance. In lieu of that, you opened my mind to all the wonders of the earth once again. You are at peace, my son.

To the void: Here lies mankind, a roiling mass of ingenuity, reason, and chaos that built just as much as it destroyed. This was a species that routinely defied nature a lived to tell the tale. Most importantly, though, this was a species that felt love, pain, despair, and affection, a species that by its own right was remarkable, and bestowed that birthright onto its many members, whether they knew it or not. As it turns out, just being human is enough. So as the dust rises and the monuments fade away, an age of stillness will have commenced in humanity’s wake. How long it will last? I have no idea. For all we know, it might last an eternity. Maybe longer, but even then, that spark will start again, a blind thrust in the dark, breaking the calm and bringing on new life. 

Hey everyone,

Sorry for being a little off the radar this week. I’m in the middle of a move across the country, so it’s been busy. Anyway, thanks again to everyone who has subscribed so far and I hope you all have a good rest of the week.

Cheers,

Robert