Creation 2.0

I posted this over two years ago but I feel it’s somehow more pertinent today.

CREATION 2.0

Another perfect day greets me as I rise from my slumber. Comfortably warm sunshine illuminates a brilliant blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. An abundance of both plant and animal life is evident everywhere. The only thing missing is other people. There were people, billions of them, but no more. The plague started small like many momentous events. Once unleashed, it grew in size and intensity, infecting humans, but leaving animals and plant life untouched. A small remote part of the globe would report an outbreak, then another and another, until after several years the whole planet was infected.

This was no zombie apocalypse as portrayed in the movies; people just got sick and died. As you might imagine, it takes time to eliminate a whole species, but in a couple of years eradication was complete. Except for me!

Who am I? This is a question I’ve been asking myself since the pandemic began. My days are pleasant, and as the sole survivor finding food and shelter is no problem. My nights are not nearly as serene—it’s the dreams. Horrible scenes of decay and destruction play out in vivid color. I know these dreams are connected to me and what I’ve done, but I can’t remember any of it. The dreams seem to chronicle a disjointed record of a past life—my past life.

Before the extinction, if you needed information all you had to say was “Okay Google, what is …?” Fortunately, I’m old-school enough to remember that libraries and museums hold vast quantities of knowledge. The answers to my questions must be hidden away in one of these institutions somewhere in the world. All I need to do is find the right building, book, ancient scroll, anything with answers. It’s a quest that could take years, but what else do I have to do?

Stashed in a backpack I carry is my old passport. Apparently, I was quite the world traveler. The document contains stamps from remote island nations plus all five continents. It shows my name is Gralen Green and my occupation is Forensic Archaeologist, which in normal speak means I study old dead organisms. Not a profession that movies are made about, but everyone has to make a living.

Looking over the old passport triggered a plan of sorts. I would retrace my steps, finding pieces of a past that would hopefully tell me how I survived and what the dreams are all about. There is also one unusual item in my pack, a small container made from fired clay, engraved with cuneiform writing. Normally I would have discarded it long ago, but there is some mysterious force that connects me to it.

Traveling around a recently deceased world isn’t as difficult as it might sound. If you need a car, jeep, or truck, just go to a dealership or manufacturing plant and take one. No, it’s not quite that simple, but with a little mechanical ability, and a manual pump to suck gas out of buried tanks at gas stations, I’m good to go.  So where to first? I glance at my strange little container and the oldest stamp in my passport and know immediately—Babylon, or in modern day parlance, Iraq. This makes perfect sense because after all, I am an archaeologist. Strange that I should be looking for answers to a modern problem at a place some consider to be the cradle of civilization, but I have to start somewhere, so it might as well be at the beginning.

I experience a feeling of satisfaction observing the earth healing itself. No people, equals no pollution, resulting in no increase in global warming, and nothing to negatively impact the environment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no tree hugger, just a scientist witnessing what positive changes can accomplish.

After weeks of traveling over diverse terrain, I arrive at the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon. It’s uncanny, but my intuition tells me I have reached the one place on earth that holds the answers. It’s late and I’m exhausted from the day’s journey. Locating a secure chamber, probably built over 3,000 years ago, I lay out my bedroll for a well-deserved rest.

The dream returns with an intensity I’ve never before experienced—I can see myself retrieving the sealed container from under an altar and wondering what it could possibly contain.  The dream switches, I’m walking through crowded bazaars and small fishing villages. I wander through cities large and small, hearing unfamiliar languages, and observing people from all races and cultures. As I travel, exotic diseases follow in my wake. I continue moving from place to place, only stopping long enough to rest and eat. Pestilence and death become my only companions. The world is being consumed—not with fire or nuclear radiation, but disease.

My eyes pop open and I sit up with a start. I’m covered with sweat and my head throbs. I have my answers. Nothing is what I perceived it to be, not even my name. Gralen is an anagram for Nergal, the god of death and pestilence, the fourth horseman of the apocalypse. I sit astride a pale green horse spreading man’s demise in my wake. Yes, I have been transformed into Death, and it’s my job to give earth the fresh start it deserves. From the decay and destruction, a new species will evolve, as man did after the extinction of the dinosaurs. Hopefully the next intelligent life form to inhabit the planet will be more caring to my creator, Mother Earth.