The last name on Earth
Humanity will perish in the cloud of its own arrogance.
I’m sitting alone. As if the last man in the world could do otherwise? It’s over. It’s all over. I’m waiting for the sun to rise again and end my existence.
Sun- Once the greatest giver of life and today its guillotine.
The human race was its own judge, jury, and executioner. We destroyed our world, and it had returned the kindness.
First, we polluted all the water.
We have washed our filth in the rivers and oceans. After a while, there was not a drop of clean water left. This is when the acid rains started.
Our toxicity rained upon us. Soon all vegetation, all wildlife died out.
But humanity remained. We raised domes above our cities and built artificial gardens. We had what we needed to survive and thrive.
Once again humanity has adapted and mastered it’s surrounding.
This is what we wanted to believe, this was the popular narrative.
The polluted water was treated in large factories and the poison was dumped to the rivers and seas.
We never cared about the planet. Humanity never had any interest in preserving all life on Earth.
We were only ever interested in saving humanity. Everything else belonged in a zoo or a garden.
To maintain these cities took an abnormal amount of energy. So we built power plants. Everything out of the domes was already dead, so why should it matter anyway. There was no more environment to watch for, and we needed power.
Now it could be produced even cheaper and sold more expensive than ever.
Power plants polluted the environment further. There was barely any breathable atmosphere. The sun’s radiation was so unbearable that a few days of exposure led to death from burns or the slow death of cancer. And that is only if you survive the poisonous air.
And whenever things turn from bad to worst, our leaders are there to calm the populous.
They claimed that there was no cause for fear. The domes we built can withstand radiation. The filters will be able to clean our water and air forever.
The scientific community tried to rebel. They were silenced immediately.
The corporations would always dig out some long-forgotten or discredited scientist to support them.
In the end, they claimed they were lying for the “greater good”, helping to maintain society and the economy.
Corporations wanted to keep the profit, politicians wanted to keep the power. No one cared if the majority of the world population dies, or if no one has seen a whale for over a hundred years. They were on the top of the food chain, and everyone else was, well… food.
Power plants began to fail first. Nuclear disaster after disaster. City after city fell, and with them, billions of deaths.
It all started to fall apart.
In the end, what remained of the world came together in one single city. We tried to survive somehow in a world that decided to get rid of us.
For a while, it went ok. Near extinction has united people of different cultures, religions, and languages. Everything looked idyllic and utopian. We thought salvation is near when we finally started using solar power exclusively.
We managed to find a way to clean the pollutants and to restore clean water to the world. It was a slow process but the acid rains became rearer. The sun was still a danger, but for the first time in centuries, humanity had hope for a brighter future.
It was in that bright moment that I was born.
At the age of thirty, I became a teacher.
I was a teacher of history, philosophy, old languages, and music.
I tried to pass on whatever knowledge I had. I tried to create a better world by educating the next generation.
My parents thought me that knowledge is sacred. Ignorance and arrogance were what brought us to the brink of annihilation. They told me that love would change the world.
Father used to tell me how the world was entrusted to humanity to be its caretaker, to love it, and make it perfect. God created man in His image, creative, to complete the world, to decorate it, and to model it for eternity. Once humanity departed from God, it lost the eternal blueprint. Humanity continued to cultivate and refine the world alone. We continued to create the world in our image. The image of the imperfect, and mortal.
If Humanity can find that image of eternity again, we could save the world.
The only eternal feature in the mortal world is love.
I am not much of a pious man, and that story is more metaphorical for me, but it was a good idea. There is no need for rules or laws if you have love. It was a great ideal to strive for, and I believed him.
We should not seek order. We should not seek perfection. We should not seek justice. We should only strive to love.
Love is unjust. It is the same for the innocent and the guilty. It is the same for the beautiful and the ugly, for the powerful and the week. Love is chaos, but it brings balance.
I still believe him, even though I sit alone at the twilight of all life, and the dawn of my death. The last man. The last human being in the world.
By now you realize that we have failed. As so many times in history, humanity kicked itself in the teeth. We have succumbed to greed, envy, and power lust. Soon people wished they had a better home than others, a better view, a greater reputation. Instead of sharing love, they competed in piety and morality. The “moral elders” emerged, judging over others, deciding on the good and the bad. Their word and judgment were not be doubted.
My father couldn’t bear it. He died. His last words were interpreted by many as prophetic, but I know it was a simple statement of facts.
He only said: “It will fail again.”
He was not a prophet, but a man who knew that fear is the biggest motivator for making stupid decisions. I guess that it is hard to find love when facing extinction, so fear took over.
Once fear takes over, you give up on everything just to feel safe again.
You pray upon the week. You seek justice from the powerful ones.
Once fear takes over, love is gone.
We went back to the old ways. We began to exploit and destroy in the name of progress. To kill one another in the name of justice and life, to hate one another in the name of love.
I couldn’t believe what was going on. I tried to be “the voice screaming in the desert”, but this time the desert was too big and my voice got lost.
On the day of the earthquakes, the last hope for humanity was crumbling down. The city collapsed. The protective dome crumbled above our heads. The sky was falling.
For the past 40 years, we managed to rollback all the good that was accomplished in the past century.
There was no chance for survival.
Those who did not perish in the rubble died from the effects of the poisonous air and water or solar radiation.
I watched them all die.
I took no pleasure in their deaths. “I told you so” did not seem like a proper response.
A few days ago, She left too.
I am completely alone.
She was the love of my life and my companion. These last months, my desire to protect her has kept me alive. Now I don’t have that anymore. I have nothing.
It is funny now to remember how many times in my life did I run away from people and just wanted to be completely alone. I wished as a kid that there is no dome to restrain me. I wanted to abandon all the people, their malice, and fear.
Now I’ve been sitting alone for days waiting for the dawn of death with a cup of coffee.
I don’t even know how, but I managed to save some roasted coffee.
We always used to start our day together, drinking morning coffee in silence. Every morning I would fall in love with her again. She always gave herself up to everything she did. When she was reading that was all she was. When drinking coffee she would give her self to the sensation completely. When she made love she was the embodiment of passion.
That black coffee was never bitter, it never burned my tongue, it was the best coffee in the world.
This coffee tears my throat. It splits atoms of my body and roasts my soul.
Finally, the sun is rising in the east.
I hope that it is finally over.
I do not wish for death, but when a man is completely alone, as only the last living being on the planet can be, is he truly alive.
Is man a person if he is alone?
All I am now is a couple of letters on a paper.
I do not need a name anymore, I have no one to distinguish myself from.
I write these lines even though I know no one will read them, but I have to remind myself that I still have a voice.
I must remember them all, for as long as I can.
I must remember her.
If there is any other life in the universe and if anyone ever finds these words, you do not have to preserve them.
Just say my name.
Bring me back into existence for a second.
For the duration of that single sound, release me from this curse, grant me eternity.
Remember me.
My name is ADAM.