and being woken up in the middle of the night by Dickie, the youngest of the bunch, standing over me with a pitcher of slime water. I screamed so loud that I woke the whole house up. Before he could dump the sludge on me his father appeared out of the shadows and grabbed his ass. He got the beating of his life and never dared bother us again.
We could hear him getting yelled at, spanked and crying in the next room over. Mr. Taylor came out with the red faced boy afterward and politely apologized for the drama. Dickie also told me that he was sorry, while holding back his tears.
I learned later on that Mr. Taylor had been doing double shifts at the dairy he worked at for extra money and was not getting much sleep lately. He apparently warned all four boys to not wake him up or there’d be Hell to pay. I guess Dickie did not believe him or forgot. He was not the brightest bulb in their family.
I liked going to their house because they had better Internet access. Granny was not a big fan of the Internet. The woman was always suspicious of it and thought people should not be so dependent on it. She refused to apply for additional data rations (even though she was qualified to) and only subscribed to the cheapest service so that I could do my schoolwork which meant that streaming video did not work well at our house.
The Taylor girls preferred spending time at my place because it was air-conditioned; one of the few luxuries my Grandmother chose to afford.
My room was small and pretty plain but I loved it. I spent many hours in there studying and thinking about life.
The walls were painted light pink. I had one window that looked over Granny’s flower garden (She loved sunflowers and gerbera daisies). My twin bed was covered by a hand sewn patch work quilt. There was a purple shag throw rug at the foot of my bed. The night stand next to my bed had a small clock radio and an old refurbished brass lamp shaped like a cherub. I had a desk and chair but never used it because I usually just worked on my tablet computer while sitting on my mattress or the floor.
Nighttime, after dinner, before I went to bed, was my favorite time as a child. Granny would sit down in her chair with her embroidery and tell me all the stories she grew up hearing.
I learned about Uncle Remus and Briar Rabbit, Aesop’s Fables, Mickey Mouse, The Knights of the Round Table, Frodo Baggins, Rocky and Bullwinkle, H.R. Pufinstuf and someone called Batman just to name a few. Sitting quietly and listening to her narrate a seemingly endless supply of fairytales was a gift for me. The only string she attached to the occasion was that I was not to repeat what I heard to anyone until she had passed away.
Initially she acted like the stories were magic and that I could not tell them to anyone until I had kids or else their special powers would be lost but as I got older I realized that a lot of what she told me was considered questionable in the post-Plague world and that she did not want her or I to get into any trouble. I respected her wishes.
More History
A number of studies were conducted by the International Center for Disease Study and Control between 2021 and 2026. It was determined that all Plague survivors had or developed immunity to the deadly organism, causing it to essentially die off in the end. However, the details of those investigations were never published so it’s not very clear how or why officials came to that conclusion.
Interestingly enough, the counties of the world most devastated by The Plague were way overpopulated anyway. The crisis was almost a blessing in disguise for the planet.
Because of the astronomical death toll in places like China, India and the West Coast of Africa there was not enough time to bury or even burn the dead. Survivors were forced to just flee those regions, especially cities, before other serious health problems associated with endless piles decomposing bodies could prevent them from leaving.
Thousands of locations were quarantined. No one was allowed to re-enter them until over a decade later in some cases when it was deemed safe to clean up and rebuild.
Humanity got a grip back on itself between the years of 2020-21, but it still took another fifteen years or so before all the civil unrest elapsed and economies healed. Throughout the Redemption Period (2020-2035) governments united then reorganized themselves. Order was slowly reinstated, putting Society back on track, similar to what happened after the period between 1945 and the early 1960’s during the previous century.
To boost citizen morale, government and religious leaders redirected everyone’s attention towards the stars, instead of the past.
Several undisclosed multi-national exploration posts were established on both the Moon and Mars during the early 1990’s. The governments of Russia, China and the United States quietly sent soldiers, geologists and engineers to those locations for over twenty-five years before anyone credible noticed.
In late 2015 a large natural gas field was detected underneath the Martian surface. The availability of fuel made it feasible to send more than a handful of people to live there.
The Plague occurred during a very inopportune time. Everything fell apart several weeks after the findings were made public. The discoveries on Mars were quickly overshadowed by the chaos on Earth. Misfortune put a wrench in Earth’s colonization efforts and brought planetary travel to a standstill for almost five years.
By the late-Summer of 2020, soon after The Plague ended, new private and publicly funded programs were hastily created and existing ones augmented to expand those military-science bases into fully functioning colonies.
Sending humans (and other life) to Mars and the Moon became just as important to world leaders as rebuilding the Earth because everyone knew that the human race would not endure a similar blow. We needed to inhabit other places besides our home planet to guarantee long-term survival of the species.
By 2026 regularly scheduled supply flights were launched every six months from Earth to off-planet communities. A year after that transport ships where being sent to the moon annually and then Mars every eighteen months to two years, when the two planets are closest to each other.
I’ve always been wary of humans living in outer space. The idea sounds reasonable in theory but becomes problematic when practiced. It makes me wonder if we are just another form of invasive species within the context of the universe.
Thoughts
In biology class we learned that many of the creatures that currently live in the Florida Everglades and Louisiana Swamps are not native to those regions. Exotic pet owners released their snakes, lizards and monkeys there after they became too much of a hassle to properly care for. Those abandoned animals easily adapted to their new homes, killed off native species and thrived.
Did something similar happen with us? What if humans didn’t originate on Earth? Did ignorant aliens dump a bunch of people off on Earth after becoming overwhelmed by the responsibility of keeping them captive?
The deed would be equivalent to leaving an unneutered cat on a farm in the country.
Allowing a healthy pet to continue living is easier on the conscience than euthanasia. Former owners often trick themselves into believing that their opportunistic felines will simply live out the rest of its life as an idyllic barn cat catching nuisance rodents, not fathering lots of feral kittens, suffering from malnutrition and serving as a host for infected fleas and ticks.
After being left behind to fend for them-selves humans multiplied and overran the planet, forcing native life to adjust to those changes or become extinct.
Humans are also naturally curious and very ambitious, given enough time they will figure stuff out. Technology, science and civilization advanced together over time causing humans to eventually outgrow Earth and start looking towards the heavens for new opportunities and endeavors.
My crazy theory proves that both science and religion (Evolution and the stories in the Bible) are simultaneously true in a symbolic sense but I’d never dare say anything because it would cause too much controversy.
In Half-Truths We
Trust
History lectures are a fundamental part of elementary school, along with math science and some universal skills like cooking and sewing. Anchorpeople and journalists reporting on the news also discuss the past regularly. The average person has little choice but to trust what they are told.
Sometimes though I can’t help but to wonder if a lot of the footage posted on View-Tube is just propaganda fabricated by the government to quash scrutiny and panic after fifteen years of uncertainty.
The First Council of Elders
Only a quarter of the world’s population over thirty survived The Plague after all was said and done. Of that number more than half were women.
Those individuals, by default, became acknowledged by the honorary title Elder or Elders (for more than one) and the ten oldest members of that group were deemed the Council of Elders or the Council for short.
Some believe that our Elders survived because of good genes, others claim it was just blind luck. The Religious Leaders of The Four Recognized Faiths insist it was the will of God or Fate.
A lot of people depended on their guidance. It didn’t matter whether it was nature, chance, providence or destiny because in the end the task of rebuilding the world was left up to them. Circumstances obligated that elite group of men and women to figure out