For those we left behind
By Stephen Moss-Ennis
Copyright 2015-07-09
This is a free short science fiction story that is to be given away without cost.
It is the end of my shift. By the time I reached my quarters the ships lights had dimmed so as to suggest that we were passing into our ‘night time,’ phase. A hot shower and a meal made me feel much better as I rested.
I often sit and look out of the viewing hatch at the stars as we travel from one colony to another. I wonder at all those worlds that we have yet to touch, all those places mankind has yet to discover.
This is the year of 2250 and mankind has come a long way in a short space of time. I do think of those we left behind when the change came, those who did not make it with us to the stars, those who will never see the colonies on those new frontiers.
It does make me sad to think of what happened to us, as a race, but without it we could never have come so far.
No historians can point to one event that caused the change in mankind. There was no spiritual leader, no rebel with a cause to follow, no dictator to hate for his lack of humanity. No wonder drug that caused us all to wake up and change. No earthquake or global disaster ever caused such a shift in thought as the one that came over one hundred years ago, to mankind. No computer overlord or new world order came forward to enforce the change that came.
It was as though everyone, well almost everyone, woke up one day and knew what had to be done. The human race chose to make that one decision that changed everything, that led us to the stars and beyond.
They seemed to know that by trying to save those who would not change, by dumbing down their own intelligence that it was only making things worse. By trying not to make those who would not advance and embrace change feel better, that they themselves harmed their own future.
One day that stopped. One day they stopped trying to save them from their obesity, their own stupidity and lack of thought. The common factors were there all along, this was not something that affected the poor or the rich or those in America or Great Britain or France or Africa but it was everywhere.
The people of those times had tried to help those who did not want help, to hope that they would change, when they knew that they would not. Then they stopped trying to help them. The hope that these people would become better faded and died.
Slowly over time, those who held back the rest were offered good jobs in better towns. Places where they could be watched over and monitored. Slowly these towns appeared in every country. Everyone from all walks of life would end up there, if they chose not to evolve and become more, to use their intelligence and seek to become better.
These were not death camps from history or enforced punishment prisons but rather a place where the shiny things where.
A place where people like you could live amongst other like-minded people, unaware that this is where you were being watched over.
No government group from any country or nation was ever identified as being responsible for the creation of these towns and villages. The people of the time knew what was happening because it had to happen.
Sooner or later the machines made by man would replace most of the manual jobs and simple work. Other industries were indeed affected by these machines and their robotic extensions as well. So as the jobs fell away, never to be replaced by similar work, it came down to a simple choice for everyone.
Either you used your mind to advance and improve yourself or you started to rot away from the inside out. Many, so it seems, chose to sit on their couch and watch live feeds on their televisions of people living in a house, where they were watched by cameras twenty-four hours a day, they even watched the occupants when they were sleeping and the watcher should have been.
It never occurred to these people that the act of putting a camera in front of someone changes what they say and how they act. So the live shows of real people were never just that and those who watched never saw this.
They watched shows where people confronted those they loved because they had cheated on them or done something awful to their emotional state for no good reason. Those we left behind never saw that these programmes were nothing more than mirrors into their own lives. The irony was lost on them.
Every country, every level of society, every culture had those people. The more extreme ends of that scale showed us the violent drunks and never ending victims that became parasites to everyone else. As that generation tried to lift them up above the waves of life they only pushed themselves further down into the darkness. Those being held aloft never seemed to care for the help being given or the cost that they would never pay for that assistance.
It was as though one day someone looked at the Pandas and said simply ‘No, no we wont artificially inseminate you anymore. If you don’t have the sense to continue your own race then we wont save you or interfere anymore.’ The Panda’s did indeed not breed anymore and they became lost to the world.
Were my ancestors bad for allowing that? They did not kill the Pandas but instead they just chose not to save them anymore. Did that make them murder’s? All they did was not interfere with nature, anymore.
There have never been any signs in the historical texts that the change made that generation some sort of emotionless robot or un-feeling alien race. This was the simple choice. To save your help for those who really needed it and leave those who did not to die.
But it was not enough to leave those to their own devices as these devices often included other people, who would get caught up and suffer.
This is why the towns were prepared for them. They had to ensure the safety of others whilst allowing the death of those they were leaving behind.
It did not take long before those in control of the world-wide religions to notice that their flocks were beginning to thin out. Fewer and fewer men and woman came to train as priests. There was no longer a desire or need to believe in something greater than themselves.
For all those in control of God’s word tried it soon became impossible to maintain control as people fell away. People became inspired by the belief in themselves and grew stronger from this belief.
Those in political office shifted uneasily at this notion and the accompanying news that the religions no longer had control over the masses. The historians say that many diaries found from the time show mention of the fear that the politicians had when they read between the lines and knew what was going to come.
The chance to change had always been there for everyone. Most embraced the change, the others clung to their shrinking power and moved to the towns where people would still listen to them, where they thought they still had influence.
Were those towns prisons? Those places were that the generation herded the others into, were they fenced off? There was never any proof of guard towers or machine-gun pits to keep the locals in. It seems it was enough to offer those they were leaving behind, a clean, safe place, with all the common comforts that they shared with each other.
Large screen televisions, karaoke bars, spars and bars with late night openings was the beginning of the shiny things that were offered. Every now and then something new and shiny was added to ensure that they never focused on what was coming for long. The towns would grow smaller in time as the people that were being left behind poisoned themselves with their fast food and lack of thought or caring about themselves.
The television sets they were given only showed their favourite channels and all of their soap operas were available twenty-four hours a day, special news channel came into being that only showed certain world events and did not report on things that would cause concern to t
hose in the special towns. For them the world had changed for the better and for everyone else the same occurred.
No longer made to feel ashamed of brilliance and intelligence, no longer shackled to religion or politics man and woman explored their minds and helped others do the same. This was no commune of those claiming to be spiritual but rather a real step forward for that generation.
Mankind freed from those that held them back.
As I sit back on my large, plush chair and ease my aching bones, I sip my coffee and puff away on my pipe and look out at those stars as the faster than light drive begins to work those stars become streaks of light as we pass them at terrific speeds.
My mind wonders again about my ancestors and that moment when it all changed. When they changed themselves and the future of the human race.
When they embraced the intelligence and common sense and saved not just themselves but a greater future for us all.
How the global companies were powerless to stop everyone from ignoring their demands to consume the food that poisoned them, to question everything they did and why they did it, to take power from them.
The history texts say that the bankers tried to take control, telling people that they had to use their services and as such they had a very large say in how this new world would be run. Or at least that is how it might have gone had people not simply asked to be paid in cash at the end of every month. Debts were settled, mortgages were paid off and people saved their money without the help of the banks, during this time of change and transition. The banks soon became another idea that mankind could live without. The bankers, like so many before them, had forgotten that you only have power over someone if they allow you to and people simply did not allow them that privilege anymore.
I have no doubt that there is much that is missing from our history texts from that time of change. Whilst it does seem to have been peaceful I have no doubt that many of those who were being left behind will not have gone quietly into the night. Those towns with their happy populace that were simply allowed to die, to fade away, to grow smaller and smaller over time, to dwindle to nothing.
The stars have begun to blur into yellow streaks of light as our ship continues onto its next colony further out into the stars. We have many colonies to visit and many people who want to visit the new worlds. For most of the passengers this is the first time on a spaceship and the thrill is all too evident as they grin on boarding the ship.
We have come so very far, many diseases cured, world hunger solved, education is world wide and free to all of any age who want it. It is hard for me to imagine those times when mankind was shackled to those we left behind. That it was the caring for the uncaring that nearly killed us all.
Was this choice a good one? Was it something that mankind had to do in order to survive? Yes, I think that it was, we are not perfect and perhaps we never will be, as a race, but at least we all strive towards bettering ourselves. We know that perfection is the road beneath our feet and not a final destination. So we stumble and fall here and there but we always get back up and walk on.
The blurs of light, that I can see from my window, are becoming a series of lines with short breaks in between them. I have refilled my pipe, and a small brandy has replaced my coffee. The streaking light serves to highlight my own reflection as I stare out into space. I smile as I see myself and raise my glass to the stars as I give a final salute of remembrance to those we left behind.
The End