THE LAST MAN
PART THREE
Despite assertions this is hardly a perfect society. It is imbued with all the miserable faults and foibles of the human heart. This desire for perfection, this impossible destination will certainly be the downfall of civilization, for in striving for perfection we become separate from ourselves. All the great literature, inspired thought, Art and music are the product of blessed insecurities, unrestrained passions and exalted perversions. They are unhinged anger, psychosis and guilt. Indeed, the greatest irony is that we were perhaps more perfect when we were much less perfect.
Freedom is a malleable alloy. There is no standard but what a man will or will not endure. Beyond that limit his freedom begins and ends. Within that closed room there is no consideration for anyone else’s freedom. Their freedom is an extravagance, a courtesy, not the divine sanctity of another’s solemn sovereignty. It can be bargained away. Though, in truth, the bargaining of one man’s freedom makes all other’s negotiable.
Ours was bargained away long ago. Freedom became defined more by security than by liberty. Few questioned those who blathered that the dead cannot be free, and so they bartered with the state that sovereign right for the weight of a few more breaths, a few more hours against eternity. It wasn’t wild specters that imperiled freedom, but freedom that imperiled the state. It imperiled the Corporation while it was still a small thing, while it might have been crushed and set aside among the other failed and forgotten ideologies, like fascism, and communism, feudalism and theism.
There were those who resisted Sentinel at first. Isolated and shunned by weak willed neighbors, they were quickly dealt with. Their ashes filled the sky from those first terribly crude reclamation centers. They were the lucky ones. They were the last of the truly free, the ones who would not go quietly. They cursed and stood defiant even as the flames devoured their flesh. I wonder if there were men and women like me among them. I wonder if they were the last. Perhaps they were the strongest, those most defiant. I wonder. That thought gives me strength.
It made perfect sense, on a childish level, to eliminate race from humanity. Centuries and millennia of strife, classism, racism and social stratification would be swept away. A new era of mankind, a grand step in evolution would be taken. Race was not the issue, but merely the symptom. A fool will raze the world before facing his own ignorance. The question remains of whether I represent the world or the fool?
I grew tall and lean, much taller than the other children. It was as though being black in a grayish-white world was not enough! My hair grew long and straight and stiff until I wove it into braids. My beard grew thick but short. And there I was, at first ashamed of features echoing my African ancestors.
Not that I only acknowledge that lineage. It was known even in the Twentieth Century that no man could rightly claim a single undiluted ancestry. The blessed diversity of the species was once scribbled through all races and all parts of the world. A melting pot or soup? Certainly a stew in which ingredients maintained a unique character while adding to the taste. How I must have appeared as a monster among all the rest. Now I am as a rare jewel; so proud and beautiful.
You might ask how the world came to be this way. Was it a deliberate process, or the accidental ignorance of our blind collective fate? A nation of good intentions can easily be swayed by the violent acts of a madman or a revolutionary. Broad passions about the rights of man are smothered. All the words of all the holy books ever written, all the best intentions of the enlightenment, the sanctity of the Reformation, or passions of the French revolution were rendered meaningless through the obfuscation of truth, lawyer-ism, and the collective abandonment of individual sovereignty. Hardly a revolution, it all happened with a whisper and over generations.
The Corporation had nothing to lose by putting me on trial. What they had to gain is certainly in question, for it would have been simpler just to send me to reclamation. No one would have known. There will never be any headlines and no programming concerning the trial. No Associate anywhere in the world will ever know. There will never be a popular uprising, no outrage and no curiosity. Perhaps it is a distraction from the burdens of time, or an implicit indication that some unknown and unseen autocrat in the Corporation has a conscience.
And so I was told of a secret archive where the last remaining references to the old world are kept. I was free to use them as I pleased to prepare my defense, as long as I did not take anything away. It was an incredible privilege, I understood, for I would have at my fingertips all that had become forbidden for centuries. Certain that my fate was sealed even before the trial I decided the archives would bring me closer to others like me, though they were long dead and gone.
I dreamed of them for days, hardly sleeping from breathless excitement and fantasy. I would find these treasure and consume every word as a starving body consumes every morsel or drop of food-even the tasteless, colorless vita-wafers that suffices for sustenance for Associates. My mind filled with shelves filled with endless manuscripts, of breathing in the air and scent of them. What I discovered was something much different.
Sadly the archives were not in some ancient catacomb, or some neglected but still elegant old world ruin. There were no dusty windows leaking pale dim light upon towering shelves stacked with untold volumes. There were no sheets of cobwebs to swept aside in discovery of soulful treasure. The “archive,” was in the basement of a sub-basement of one of those massive towers along the coast. Indeed, it was nearly in the low city!
It was a long descent through long sparsely lit concrete passageways and down uneven, hastily crafted steps, as if this had all been an after-thought to the building above. The air grew heavy. The biting smell of cold sewage grew stronger with each step. There were sounds; the dripping of water, the rhythmic thumping of the waves upon the shore, the groan and settle of the building.
At last I came to a metal door. The hinges had rusted and it was with some effort that I finally managed to open it. There was no light inside. That paltry light from the hall fell on some strange shape, like a creature slumbering in its tomb which, now disturbed, would turn and devour me. I half believed, fear banging against the inside of my chest, that the Corporation had somehow tricked me into that bitter end.
There was a small lamp in my jacket. The light was pathetic, but just enough to reveal what was called an archive. In a single great heap, and a number of smaller ones, the wisdom and works of mankind rotted and moldered: Kish, Mandela, Plato, Ellison, Dostoevsky, Freud, Ovid, Sefi Atta, Castaneda, GuanZi, Twain and Dante.
Standing water made islands of each great mound. Obsidian black, the water appeared like some mirror to another world. Stagnate pools had rotted many of the volumes into formless mush. Many more had been devoured or ruined by insects and rats that swarmed in places. What remained was terribly fragile under anything but the most careful touch. How sad, as I sat upon this throne built from the rotting history, wisdom and confession of humanity, like some sad monarch of nothing.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Last Man: Part Two
It is wrong to assume anything akin to love between my parents. They were like the others, simple Associates and nothing more. I cannot even tell you their names. Their faces I know only from the case file, small two by two inch images without names or traceable numbers. Not that it would matter. There was no more thought to their coupling than a sneeze or a yawn, or the evacuation of a bladder. It was a release, the chemical fusion of egg and spermatozoa. It was a mandate, reproduction and production, the only measurable criteria for avoiding reclamation. There are only two things certain in life, they say; reclamation and the Corporation.
It is amusing to imagine the horror on the faces of the doctors as I was pulled brown and glorious from my mother’s womb. I can well imagine her horror as well. As if she was guilty of some misdeed, or felonious affront to society. There is no way of knowing, of course. There is nothing in the file. But my sense is that she and my father were sent to reclamation after that. Their files end abruptly the day I was born, and nothing more is heard from them again.
And so I charged headlong into the world, a stain on the conscience of man, an aberration that becomes the accusation. Of course that assumes that I was intended to survive at all. In a world where aberrations are extinguished, removed from the world by Section Twenty-one, reclaimed for spare parts and recycled bio-mass, I was saved. I was saved because of the color of my skin. I was saved to further the frontiers of genetic science.
A child must learn that the world is a dangerous place, and that life is always a fatal condition. The child evolves into recognizing the differences among people alternately as threats and blessings. Such things are taught as much as learned. From the youngest age my recollection was one of being segregated from the other children. Where they were channeled into conformity, parceled into channels and skills to benefit society and the Corporation, I was left alone. While they found community, I found that these thoughts, running so deep, were all that I could rely upon. While I as different was eschewed, they as the status quo were embraced.
I am certain, though I cannot prove, that I was slated for reclamation a hundred, perhaps a thousand times. The hidden hand of the Corporation was impotent in the face of the arrogance of science. And as I, by merely existing, had humiliated science, it’s pride could only be saved by proving I was a freak aberration and not something more. After all, the mere thought of individuality had been bred from humanity, and that which could not be bred out was socialized and marginalized. I should not have existed, and yet there I was, and that is what ultimately saved me.
But life is not merely survival. To survive, to truly survive depends upon so much more. There were caregivers, teachers, doctors, and even scientists who were kind. Nothing overt, but those rare moments of kindness and mercy came as a sudden downpour over the desert of my young heart. I collected them, held each one as though it was a precious jewel.
I think that is where I began to believe that I was special, altogether different from all the rest. Not just because of my color, but because I was saved, because I was rescued from death. There were children who could not or would not conform.. Some would fight, asserting their independence, or cry uncontrollably. All of them were removed from the group and sent away for reclamation. Some simply passed away in the night. The Corporation has no use for the weak. A few escaped, probably to the low city and to an unknown fate.
The hours and days and years I have struggled to understand why I was saved. Not by virtue of the Corporation’s benevolence, Science’s egotism or Section Twenty-one’s oversight, but by something eternally and intrinsically human. It was my obsession, but mercy and decency and hope defy science and cynicism. Not that any of those were the intention of the Corporation. They are random acts, imponderables that bely our humanity, and by quirk or by fate have not entirely been erased from humanity.
For fear of endangering one such Associate I will relate a story here. Do I fear for her safety? Absolutely, but then I console my guilty conscience with the knowledge that after so many years surely she has gone to reclamation by now. The decrepit and unproductive are obsolete and a burden on society. Certainly her ashes have long ago been thrown into the wind. This is how I assuage my guilt over relating this story .Rationalism, the most dangerous characteristic of the human heart, for it is the lie every man employs to hide the truth even from himself.
My earliest recollection is of the Channels. It would be wrong here to suppose anything akin to the once practiced sort of education children were once subjected to in the Twenty-first or even the Twenty-second Century. To be sure it was a step in the evolution of the Channels. Manual dexterity meant a life in data entry, electronics or production. A strong constitution guaranteed physical labor. Agility predicted a life in the service, or among the ranks of Section Twenty-one. The weakest and slowest were ignored, left to starve until they died or were scheduled for reclamation. The most obstinate escaped to the low city to live and die like scavenging vermin. Not even the Corporation or Section Twenty-one venture into the Low city.
In the Channels I was neither slow nor weak. I was nothing, which was altogether worse. If there is hope a body will fight for every moment of existence, a hypocrisy in the face of eternity. But there comes a time when even the most obstinate and independent child comprehends the futility of life. That may be nothing more than a confluence of loneliness and loss of hope
These brave words, my defiance might have been extinguished forever. The possibility (or impossibility) of me, of these moments might have been reshuffled among the infinite card deck of possibilities. That single understanding reveals the true nature of fate, but also of hope.
I recall that I was terribly young. I would say five or six solar years of age. It is impossible to say for certain as those records are the property of the Corporation. The months and years pass uncounted in the seemingly endless Arctic days and nights. To the Associate, time has no more relevance than a passing sneeze. Time is a character of the individual, and that was long ago erased.
Centuries ago, in the folklore of the time, people believed in angels. Did angels ever really exist? Were they real or an amalgam of all that is good in the human species? As history has been erased as irrelevant, except in my case, and only to satisfy the Corporation’s illusion of fairness. Who can say? For my part I believe in angels, at least the earthly sort. It is the reason that I offer this defense, this rebellion, this subversion.
“You must eat this, child. “ The woman’s voice was almost at a whisper, very soft and low. Her face was obscured in shadow. She was daring Sentinel, but apparently the Corporation was uncertain on how to deal with me. The other children were asleep. Their rhythmic breaths rose as a chorus through the hall. A thousand, ten thousand beds, and I alone was dying among that sea.
I can still feel the concern and humanity in her voice, as clearly as if she was in the room with me now. Her hand gently cradled my head, lifting to a spoon and salty warm liquid. Most of that first spoonful dripped down my chin. It was the first human contact I had ever known, save for the other children who would dare each other to run and touch me. Every night she would visit me for food and her saving touch. Sometimes the smallest mercy can change the world.
In time she would lay beside me, as if some part of her longed for a closeness long mandated out of existence. It was as though, despite science, socialization and the imperative s of the Corporation, part of our earlier history resonated within her. Could its productivity be measured? Certainly not, but to me, in that dark and quiet hall, it was beyond measure.
“Why?” I managed to ask her, my cheek pressed to the softness and warmth of her breath. I could feel the beating of her heart and felt so connected to the Universe. At that moment eternity was less a threat, and instead was to be pitied in its endless march. For in that march it was without the capacity to appreciate the beauty of a moment.
“I don’t know,” she said, staring at the ceiling. “Something I, I…you’re so very special.”
“Why am I different?”
She thought a moment, running her fingers over my hair. “You must fight them by fighting for yourself. Fight them every step and they will allow you to live, enough to challenge them, but never enough to frustrate them.”
“There is no other way?”
“I don’t know why you are different, but you are here, and that is all I can tell you. Just know that you are very special indeed.”
A tear fell across her cheek. She caught it and pressed her wet fingertips to my cheek. She held me tight, muffling a cry. In the morning when I awoke she was gone. Perhaps Section Twenty-one had taken her away for the offense of compassion. Maybe she realized her transgression or was reassigned. I took it in stride and took her words to heart, and never saw her again.
It is amusing to imagine the horror on the faces of the doctors as I was pulled brown and glorious from my mother’s womb. I can well imagine her horror as well. As if she was guilty of some misdeed, or felonious affront to society. There is no way of knowing, of course. There is nothing in the file. But my sense is that she and my father were sent to reclamation after that. Their files end abruptly the day I was born, and nothing more is heard from them again.
And so I charged headlong into the world, a stain on the conscience of man, an aberration that becomes the accusation. Of course that assumes that I was intended to survive at all. In a world where aberrations are extinguished, removed from the world by Section Twenty-one, reclaimed for spare parts and recycled bio-mass, I was saved. I was saved because of the color of my skin. I was saved to further the frontiers of genetic science.
A child must learn that the world is a dangerous place, and that life is always a fatal condition. The child evolves into recognizing the differences among people alternately as threats and blessings. Such things are taught as much as learned. From the youngest age my recollection was one of being segregated from the other children. Where they were channeled into conformity, parceled into channels and skills to benefit society and the Corporation, I was left alone. While they found community, I found that these thoughts, running so deep, were all that I could rely upon. While I as different was eschewed, they as the status quo were embraced.
I am certain, though I cannot prove, that I was slated for reclamation a hundred, perhaps a thousand times. The hidden hand of the Corporation was impotent in the face of the arrogance of science. And as I, by merely existing, had humiliated science, it’s pride could only be saved by proving I was a freak aberration and not something more. After all, the mere thought of individuality had been bred from humanity, and that which could not be bred out was socialized and marginalized. I should not have existed, and yet there I was, and that is what ultimately saved me.
But life is not merely survival. To survive, to truly survive depends upon so much more. There were caregivers, teachers, doctors, and even scientists who were kind. Nothing overt, but those rare moments of kindness and mercy came as a sudden downpour over the desert of my young heart. I collected them, held each one as though it was a precious jewel.
I think that is where I began to believe that I was special, altogether different from all the rest. Not just because of my color, but because I was saved, because I was rescued from death. There were children who could not or would not conform.. Some would fight, asserting their independence, or cry uncontrollably. All of them were removed from the group and sent away for reclamation. Some simply passed away in the night. The Corporation has no use for the weak. A few escaped, probably to the low city and to an unknown fate.
The hours and days and years I have struggled to understand why I was saved. Not by virtue of the Corporation’s benevolence, Science’s egotism or Section Twenty-one’s oversight, but by something eternally and intrinsically human. It was my obsession, but mercy and decency and hope defy science and cynicism. Not that any of those were the intention of the Corporation. They are random acts, imponderables that bely our humanity, and by quirk or by fate have not entirely been erased from humanity.
For fear of endangering one such Associate I will relate a story here. Do I fear for her safety? Absolutely, but then I console my guilty conscience with the knowledge that after so many years surely she has gone to reclamation by now. The decrepit and unproductive are obsolete and a burden on society. Certainly her ashes have long ago been thrown into the wind. This is how I assuage my guilt over relating this story .Rationalism, the most dangerous characteristic of the human heart, for it is the lie every man employs to hide the truth even from himself.
My earliest recollection is of the Channels. It would be wrong here to suppose anything akin to the once practiced sort of education children were once subjected to in the Twenty-first or even the Twenty-second Century. To be sure it was a step in the evolution of the Channels. Manual dexterity meant a life in data entry, electronics or production. A strong constitution guaranteed physical labor. Agility predicted a life in the service, or among the ranks of Section Twenty-one. The weakest and slowest were ignored, left to starve until they died or were scheduled for reclamation. The most obstinate escaped to the low city to live and die like scavenging vermin. Not even the Corporation or Section Twenty-one venture into the Low city.
In the Channels I was neither slow nor weak. I was nothing, which was altogether worse. If there is hope a body will fight for every moment of existence, a hypocrisy in the face of eternity. But there comes a time when even the most obstinate and independent child comprehends the futility of life. That may be nothing more than a confluence of loneliness and loss of hope
These brave words, my defiance might have been extinguished forever. The possibility (or impossibility) of me, of these moments might have been reshuffled among the infinite card deck of possibilities. That single understanding reveals the true nature of fate, but also of hope.
I recall that I was terribly young. I would say five or six solar years of age. It is impossible to say for certain as those records are the property of the Corporation. The months and years pass uncounted in the seemingly endless Arctic days and nights. To the Associate, time has no more relevance than a passing sneeze. Time is a character of the individual, and that was long ago erased.
Centuries ago, in the folklore of the time, people believed in angels. Did angels ever really exist? Were they real or an amalgam of all that is good in the human species? As history has been erased as irrelevant, except in my case, and only to satisfy the Corporation’s illusion of fairness. Who can say? For my part I believe in angels, at least the earthly sort. It is the reason that I offer this defense, this rebellion, this subversion.
“You must eat this, child. “ The woman’s voice was almost at a whisper, very soft and low. Her face was obscured in shadow. She was daring Sentinel, but apparently the Corporation was uncertain on how to deal with me. The other children were asleep. Their rhythmic breaths rose as a chorus through the hall. A thousand, ten thousand beds, and I alone was dying among that sea.
I can still feel the concern and humanity in her voice, as clearly as if she was in the room with me now. Her hand gently cradled my head, lifting to a spoon and salty warm liquid. Most of that first spoonful dripped down my chin. It was the first human contact I had ever known, save for the other children who would dare each other to run and touch me. Every night she would visit me for food and her saving touch. Sometimes the smallest mercy can change the world.
In time she would lay beside me, as if some part of her longed for a closeness long mandated out of existence. It was as though, despite science, socialization and the imperative s of the Corporation, part of our earlier history resonated within her. Could its productivity be measured? Certainly not, but to me, in that dark and quiet hall, it was beyond measure.
“Why?” I managed to ask her, my cheek pressed to the softness and warmth of her breath. I could feel the beating of her heart and felt so connected to the Universe. At that moment eternity was less a threat, and instead was to be pitied in its endless march. For in that march it was without the capacity to appreciate the beauty of a moment.
“I don’t know,” she said, staring at the ceiling. “Something I, I…you’re so very special.”
“Why am I different?”
She thought a moment, running her fingers over my hair. “You must fight them by fighting for yourself. Fight them every step and they will allow you to live, enough to challenge them, but never enough to frustrate them.”
“There is no other way?”
“I don’t know why you are different, but you are here, and that is all I can tell you. Just know that you are very special indeed.”
A tear fell across her cheek. She caught it and pressed her wet fingertips to my cheek. She held me tight, muffling a cry. In the morning when I awoke she was gone. Perhaps Section Twenty-one had taken her away for the offense of compassion. Maybe she realized her transgression or was reassigned. I took it in stride and took her words to heart, and never saw her again.
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