Nobody answers. Where is everyone? Where have they gone? Why are the streets so empty? So silent that the silence is deafening, disconcerting. I went off last week to gather myself. To analyze my situation personally, as well as the situation of the world. I had no communication. Other than the arrangement to pick me up in one week, I had totally cut myself off from the world.
Its noise was too loud. It would ricochet inside my head. Making impossible any coherent thought. Let alone linking thoughts together in a way that made sense. Anyway, the man came, two days late, but it was not the man I had hired. Nor did it seem to me that the man was particularly sparking on all his spark plugs. Something was wrong. Something was missing. And why were there so many supplies jammed onto the deck and even below? What the Hell!!! Why would he not open his mouth to speak other than to confirm I was the man he was to pick up and bring back to the Port.
And speaking of the port, both sea and air, there was an eerie stillness. Emptiness. A raging silence. No planes in the sky. No boats in the water. No horns of the ocean liners blasting away. Come to think of it. Where were the liners? Where are their passengers? Wait! There are no dock workers, no kids and people selling touristy gimmicks and clothing, even begging. No one. Simply no one. As darkness descended from the skies, the sun disappearing, there were no lights and I found myself in the midst of an inky darkness. Silence.
Silence and fear.
What had happened over the past week? Could things have changed so quickly; the tension so taut that it had snapped? And in its snapping taken the world with it? Set off the disaster we had been expecting, dreading, yet denying? Why was only this man remaining? The only sign of life in a once bustling and hustling point of entry for islanders and tourists alike? A place ringing with life, now dead in the water - literally. Wait.
What was I hearing? I signed to the man to be still, but the voices continued. The sound of tinkling young voices. The cry of a baby. An older boy. A woman. A querulous confused voice of an elderly man. A voice calling out in screeching whispery voice demanding, pleading, for silence. And a very nervous character standing alongside me. On the deck. Taking sideways glances at me. Pondering. Wondering. Unasked question, many questions, from a person silenced by ...what?
What the hell had taken place within the past week? So drastic. Why had it never penetrated my refuge from the world? It could have been reached within a few hours by boat, as this man had done. Where was the world? Where? Was? The? World? With tentative gestures, I raised my hands. Palm out. Empty. I was no danger to him. Nor to those voices.... Which were emanating from ... Below decks, amid those supplies I has spotted before. Sending him a questioning look, face overflowing with curiosity and concern, along with an expression of confusion and fear. No mistake about it. I was afraid. This was not a normal situation. Far from it.
In broken English he managed to communicate to me, aided by pictures he drew. But he couldn't be right. It couldn't be. Surely there was no one dumb enough, uncaring enough, so ego obsessed, who in the throes of an ever developing and deepening state of dementia, a Madness overwhelming, had set off cataclysmic series of deeds and orders. These, in turn had activated another series of preset responses. Aided in fulfillment of its programmed duties, the AI creation, created just for this 'occasion', performed as directed, as expected.
Unimaginably, the very situation we had oh so carefully, diligently, prepared for, even as we KNEW, just knew, it would never get there. Unimaginably, countries near and far, advanced and not so much, had managed to find the funds to have their own system, misspending funds meant for succor rather than for shared erasure. All heads of nations joined in the "fun". So proud to be among the big boys. Almost as one, yet so tragically alone, each person standing in its own solitary place, no hugging, no farewells, simply fear, confusion and regret.
Each leader stepped forward in trepidation. Applying the code to the lock. And the door quietly, as if on air, opened and from within came forth a mysterious being. Almost, but not quite human, the most advanced AI manifestation to the very second of its awakening. Perhaps even eager to exit its cell and do the one thing for which it had been created. That was to press that glowing button on the console to the left. AI's very presence in the room meant the clarion last call for humanity, for from all these oh so many, too many, creations, mankind ensured its Doomsday.
From previously hidden exits spewed forth toxins impossible to stop. Impervious to all healing methodology. A Hail Mary for the entire world. Which evidently bypassed Mary.
Touchdown for the enemy - ourselves.
The beginning of a new era of .........
What?
There was nothing left out there.
Only a cold silence.
No signs of life.
No voices of humans.
No sounds of creatures.
Only this man.
And those he managed to rescue.
Random strays.
Alive.
For the moment.
In a dead world.
A World of No More.
A world bereft
of all yesterdays.
Of all todays.
Of all tomorrows.
And so, we await the inevitable, a modern version and fate of On the Beach.
And aren't we proud!
-------------------------------------------------------------- What are we doing? What are we creating for the world and its inhabitants or are we not creating, but merely enabling disaster?
On us, Folks, all on us.
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