back to index or more, why not?
Perhaps it was a random mutation, perhaps an escapee from an
overfunded lab
somewhere in Scotland or the Ukraine or the West Coast, some
anonymous
squat brick building with one too many open windows. Perhaps it
was a
message from our impatient deity, bored with the short, untidy
history of
man and anxious to get on with whatever came next. None of the
explanations
exclude the others. None of this matters.
The virus spread effectively, quickly, unseen. Not for it the
uncertain,
hit-or-miss vectoring of HIV, not for it the brief flowering of
influenza,
bless you. This one lived long and prospered. Immortal,
invincible, God
only knows; it hopped from man to woman to child to spinster to
priest to
thug to king, those that work by day and those that scheme by
night.
You knew you had it from the following: two four hour fevers
spaced exactly
thirty hours apart, slight memory loss, increased acuity of sight
and
hearing, a simplification of speech and reduction of vocabulary.
You came
out of it a hero, slow, strong, good as gold and gentle as
granny.
Fear, hunger, cruelty. They gave them all back to the animals,
whence they
came. For the first time, mankind's affairs were in order, the
population
stable, the great unseemly scrabble ended. A new effect, so
natural that
nobody gave it a second thought; the colours, noses, eyes, ears,
differences of race and area began to flow together, slowly at
first and
then faster. Nobody bothered counting the years, but four,
perhaps five
generations went past and now they were indistingushable.
Absolute heros,
every one, a light brown tinge to the skin, not much of a jaw,
grey eyes
atop an impressive nose.
They worked in the warm summer breeze, the ordered pulse of their
society
the heartbeat of a sleeping baby, or the blink of an old man
watching dry
leaves blow.
The sun changed, and their eyes burned out. With it changed the
world, the
winds, the cycle of time. They starved, were ill, had fearsome
plagues that
our long-forgotten medicine could not have helped; towards the
end the few
that were left grew tired with burying the dead and tending the
dying. They
turned to the huge, impassive, abandoned museums, the reminders
of the age
of chaos, and there found release. One last act of defiance, a
brief burst
of power more mighty than the thieving light from our angry
turncoat star.
Below me, the Earth lies. They all but forgot me and my kind, yet
we gave
them the one last gift of a child's love. Should anyone come, we
will show
that they died as heros, choosing the time and the way of their
passing.
What more could there ever be?
(c) rg
back to index or more, why not?