Note: The following story is meant to be an exhortation to hope. However, it does deal with death, and is a bit dark in that it takes place in a post apocalyptic dying world. Please, feel free not to read if that isn’t something you want to engage with.
“What’s the point? What is the —“ he stopped himself, cursing would only make him more angry. “What is the point?”, the thought repeated “They had already given up on themselves and their future on this earth. Why continue burying them as though they had any dignity left. There would be no one to remember them anyway.”
Ignoring his own doubts he carried on digging the grave, hoping the body would provide some meager fertilizer for the seeds he would bury with it. “From dust to dust” he muttered, “and this dust may be just enough for the seeds to sprout.”
Everyone else, four of them, after the recent death, had given up entirely. Instead of continuing to try and find a solution to the blight they decided to tap into the dream facade, an all encompassing fake reality where their happiest memories could be relived or used to generate new happy moments to experience. They were aware it was fake, but the emotions were real. So instead of living in the reality of an earth that had been declared barren and biologically dead, unable to recover, they chose the temporal joy of the dream facade.
He was the only one who dared to hope, but his thoughts still plagued him. “What is the point? If they have all given up, why shouldn’t I?” The body thudded to the ground as he rolled it off the cart and into the shallow grave. She had died of old age while tapped into the dream facade. “She may have died happy, but what does that matter?”
It had been a long slow decline, the earth itself appeared to be dying, and the basic aspects of living became increasingly difficult. The small remnant of humanity worked for a decade strenuously trying to find a solution. Eventually the scientists concluded there was nothing left they could do, their best simulations agreed that there could be no recovery. They knew an anomaly or some unknown variable could render their models wrong, but without the specific knowledge of that unknown thing, they chose to give up hope, concluding that there could be no recovery.
Slowly the last of the crops and the rest of earth’s plant life died off. The remaining survivors gave up entirely. They stopped working to find ways to stop the damage, and instead started to just take care of themselves. The only remaining food was what had been stored, even though it could last three generations the survivors decided that any future generation would be doomed from the start. With humanity shrunken to only twenty, their hopelessness was unbearable. They concluded the only course of action was to enjoy the rest of their lives as best they could in the dream facade.
He was the only one who refused to enter the dream facade. He wasn’t a scientist and didn’t disagree with the models. However, he didn’t want to give up on the possibility of some unknown variable that might allow the earth to recover. His refusal to accept the apparent fate of the world would have bothered the others, as a reminder of their decision to give up. However, someone had to stay outside the dream facade to maintain it. With him outside, they wouldn’t have to take turns returning to the dismal reality to maintain the dream facade systems. They could forget their plight, fully abandoning themselves to the facade.
Then, as they began dying, he took up the task of burying them. When 15 were left, he had the idea to put seeds in the graves. He hoped there was a chance that the bodies could provide nutrients for the seeds even though the models indicated there were not enough nutrients to grow anything. So, with each body, he planted a few of the remaining seeds, hoping that maybe some fresh growth could actually be achieved. Yet, as each one died and no seeds sprouted he started losing hope.
He finished covering the body and seeds with dirt, grabbed his cart, and headed back inside. Upon entering the building the dim lights turned on automatically, illuminating the large room where the dream facade beds were kept. Most of the beds were now empty, but those that were still in use safely protected their occupants from any external threat. Entombed in metal and concrete the inhabitants of the beds lay in a perfect climate controlled environment, safely tucked in the fetal position. They were safe, their best memories, happy memories, were being forced back to their consciousness at all times, leaving no room for fear, sorrow, pain or any other thoughts that would allow them to encounter the true nature of their existence let alone the state of the small remnants of mankind to which they belonged. Only joy was allowed. The dismal reality outside couldn’t touch them and they didn’t have to extend effort maintaining enough hope to exist in it. The only sign of their existence to the maintainer was a small display showing their status on two lines:
[ ALIVE ]
[ DREAMING ]
Only if their status was DEAD or AWAKE would he need to take action, otherwise the system could take care of all their needs.
After quickly scanning the room to check that all the beds were stable he found his way back to the shower to wash off the dirt from digging the grave. “What is the point?” started looping again in his mind. “What is the point?” His thoughts raced with hopeless questions: “Why dig the grave? Why bury them? Why plant the seeds in the dirt that humanity deemed useless? Why take a shower to get off the useless dirt? Why be clean at all? Why continue living a life that according to all man’s projections was doomed to end with me and my dreaming friends becoming extinct?” He looked in the direction of the beds, “My friends have left me, those are just beds to be monitored.”
While anger and frustration ran his mind, habit ran his body, and he angrily took a shower. But the shower helped, the act of taking care of his hygiene had hope in it, and he could feel it. He dried off and put his clothes in the wash, then changed into a fresh set.
He made dinner and sat down to eat with a quieter, calmer mind. But the calmness quickly left as his mind met the earlier question with another, “Did they know?”
Questions started spinning through his mind again. ”Did the scientists actually know all the relevant facts, every single variable necessary to predict accurately the demise of this earth, and man with it? Surely there could be some unknown variable that would yield a possibility of restoration. Did they really know there was no more reason to try? Did the last of society know all the facts when we decided to give up? There has to be something we didn’t think of.” He paused for a moment to consider what could have been missed. “What if there was no anomaly? No undiscovered path that could lead to a recovery and a fruitful future? Why should I continue to fight for a future if humanities end is inevitable. Me and those sleepers are the last of humankind. After we die, humanity will be nothing but a memory.” His thoughts faded into silence as he continued eating.
He switched back and forth between taking a bite and staring at the blank concrete wall in front of him. Eventually his thoughts broke his meditative eating. “They couldn’t possibly know everything,” he contemplated, “no one knows everything. Even when we all work together things get missed and mistakes get made. The science is solid and the scientists tried to find a way to fix the earth, but maybe they gave up a day too soon. Do I even need to know that it’s possible in order to keep trying to find a way forward?” He paused for a moment, trying to find an answer to his own question. ”What about soldiers? Why do they keep fighting when facing insurmountable odds? Why fight a disease that appears to have already won? Why,” he paused, “and how? How did enslaved peoples find the will to keep waking up and do back breaking work while being mistreated? How, with impossible torture or death as the likely rewards, did they find the will to escape?”
He remembered a story of an enslaved man he heard growing up: “That man taught himself at great risk. Against the efforts of his enslavers to keep him uneducated and therefore enslaved. He didn’t even participate in the drinking and merry making they were encouraged to participate in on rare rest days. He saw that it was intended to keep them from pondering an escape, and more would cause them to think, in their subsequent hangovers, that freedom wasn’t worth the trouble of seeking it. Instead, if he was able, he would visit his loved ones or educated himself and others. But, even after educating himself, and using his time wisely, his escape and ability to remain free wasn’t guaranteed. He couldn’t have known the future, and even knowing the significant risks he persisted in pursuing freedom.”1
Taking another bite of his dinner his thoughts returned to his own situation. With resignation he spoke out loud to himself: “Today is bleak, a hopeless nightmare. So what’s the point? I should just join the others in their pods and resign myself to the predicted end. At least I’d be happy, being force fed joyful thoughts and memories by the dream bed.”
“No!” he yelled, slamming his fists on the table as he stood up, his dinner scattering on the table. He half hoped for a response from the sleepers in the pods, but they remained complicit, hopelessly isolated from the outside world, including his outburst. His anger overwhelmed him as he continued yelling into the echo of the concrete walls. “Just because today is bleak, I can’t give up on tomorrow! I just can’t!”
Beginning to pace in an attempt to relieve his anger, he counseled himself. “Everything looks bleak, and the future seems impossible. The future can be predicted but, it can’t be known. I may not know as much as the experts but, I know enough that maybe,” he paused as he turned in his pacing. “Maybe planting the seeds could start a new growth. There’s the possibility, apparently slim, of something unknown that could allow the seeds to sprout and for the earth to start again. There is a time for moving on, when things really have ended. But the only reason everyone has given up this time is because they can’t foresee a future that’s good, because all they’ve known is difficulty and they can’t guarantee or foresee a good future. So they’ve given up trying to find a way to make it happen.”
Sitting back down in front of his plate, he began collecting the scattered dinner back onto his plate. “I may not know that my efforts will succeed, but if I give up then I’ve died already, like the rest of the sleepers.” He started eating again, returning to his internal thoughts, “I’ll just take things a day at a time. Doing my best with what I do know, and I’ll fight for a good future. It may not be fun, but one day at a time I’ll find joy in what I have to do that day, hoping and striving for a better future, even if it is an uncertain one. I can’t change the world, but I’ll do the small things I can.”
He finished his dinner calmly, holding onto the small spark of hope and contentment he had fought for. He washed the dishes and returned to his quarters, contemplating the state of his life. The earth was doomed before his life had began, and he had never experienced what had been, only what was now. The past was full of forests and dark brown dirt brimming with life. There were vast fields full of corn, carrots, onions, and all manner of other food bearing plants. But to him it was all a myth. It had been generations since such things existed. All that was left of a fruitful earth was his small collection of seeds. Labeled only in latin, he had no idea what they were.
He laid down in bed. “What’s the point?” The thought returned. He retorted, “the future’s not known, just take it one day at a time.”
A few years later the screen on the last occupied dream bed stated coldly: DEAD. He knew his own time was coming soon as well. The automated health system had diagnosed him with a terminal illness, giving him only 1 week to live.
As he opened the bed of the recently deceased and pulled them onto his cart, he could tell that his time would be soon, his strength was waining. “What is the point?” still recurring in his mind, no longer his own thought, it was like the horrible interjection of a demon. “They may not have accounted for everything!” he retorted, angry more that the thought wouldn’t leave him than at the questions implication. “One day at a time, I’ll do what I can.” he thought, more calmly. Mustering his remaining strength he lifted the body onto the cart and pulled it outside. He dug the shallow grave and laid the body in it. Then scattering in the grave the remaining seeds, save one, he filled it with dirt.
He could tell his strength was leaving so, after shortly pausing in silence to pay some respect, he began digging the final grave, for himself. Most of his life had been consumed with burying the dead, laying down seeds before covering them with lifeless dirt, long absolved of nutrients. Now, as he dug his own grave he struggled with hope, knowing none of seeds had yet sprouted. His mind, reaching for some rest from the struggle to hold onto hope, echoed again “What is the point?” This time he left the question unanswered, instead turning his mind to what would accompany him in the grave, his last and favorite seed. It was the largest seed and had an intricate pattern that he found beautiful. It gave him a small amount of joy amidst all the pain, so he had saved it for his own grave.
He finished digging and went back inside to clean up.
A few days passed, and with his strength waining, he could tell his death was near. With the last seed clutched in his hand, he slowly walked, then crawled, to his own grave. “What was the point? If they’re all dead, and I’m about to be, then what was the point? Why hold onto hope? Why keep trying?”
He laid down next to the shallow grave he had dug for himself, pondering the apparent pointlessness of his efforts. Breathing slowly, tired from the journey to his grave, he looked over the other graves one last time.
His eye caught a small anomaly. ”Surely not” he thought “is that…” his thoughts trailed off as he stared intently at what looked like a small green sprout. He looked at it for a long time. Over and over again he took his eyes away from it and found it again, trying to verify that what he saw was real and not a manifestation of his desperate mind.
“It’s real. There is a way. Some possibility for the earth to grow again.” Suddenly his amazement and joy were consumed with bitter grief “I’m about to die! The last person on earth. So what was the point?”
He stared into the sky as his strength gradually diminished. His thoughts circled around the sprout, his own death, and his existence as the last of mankind. Knowing he would die soon, with the last of his strength, he pushed himself over into his grave, still clasping his favorite seed.
With the last of his energy he thought to himself, “I’ve done my part, I did the work that was in front of me. I held onto hope. The future isn’t mine to know or have. Maybe there is still someone out there, forgotten or unknown to us, that can make use of what the sprouts become.” He placed his favorite seed between him and the dirt, hoping it too might sprout.
With a small spark of hope, he closed his eyes and breathed his last.
- Douglass, Frederick, et al. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself: Authoritative Text Contexts Criticism. Second edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.