Homebound
[Approximately 24:00:00 to Red Dawn]
This is Lando Wilkins...
And this is Leslie Cartwright, signing off for the last time on this world. To any and all who have remained this close to the "Red Dawn", we remind you to keep track of the predicted end time and say "see you in the next--"
The TV cuts off abruptly, leaving the news anchors of channel 8's voices to reverberate throughout the confines of Ollie's tidy home. The TV folded in on itself like a flower blooming in reverse, then retracted into the electric blue wall panels opposite his old couch. He didn't remember turning it on but found he was annoyed by their voices very quickly. For all intensive purposes, "Ollie", as he was endearingly nicknamed by all but his parents, was ready. The necessities and clothes were all packed neatly into duffel bags separated into organized piles following some sort of system that only made sense to him. He paced quietly around his quarters while Ned his robotic companion, muted due to administrative override, followed close behind. Ned was a dear friend of Ollie's, with an accent implanted from Sweden, but he was a worrier-- which Ollie was not. At least not after scientists discovered that humanity's time on earth was coming to a close much sooner than originally anticipated. Ned was just as confused by that contradiction as Ollie's friends.
The augmentation implanted seamlessly into Ollie's wrist read 6:30 AM, glowing from below his olive skin. But the sun expressed no appreciation for patience or balance between night and day like it did just over a millennium ago. Through the milky reticence of the morning fog, he stared out at the celestial flame and glowing orange specks of asteroid that preceded the sun, glittering in spots where large mineral deposits caught the sun's light. Tongues of flame on a macro-level were beginning to pick up speed and lash out from the sun into the blackness it inhabited alone, save for a few rocks and astral debris. Earth, being one of those rocks of course. But Earth carries on seemingly oblivious to the ordeal. From the surface, something about the angle of the earth's tilt and rotation along it's axis, stretched out the flame like a faulty panorama and gave off the impression that the sun was reaching out to hug the earth. Humanity is clawing away from nature's embrace.
A hissing sound emerged from the kitchen. The scent of coffee bean flavored the air and Ollie could hear the clanging of Ned's feet approaching.
The clanging got very close and then stopped. Ned tugged gingerly at the grey hem of Ollie's sleeping shorts. Down by his knee, he could feel the steam of the coffee wafting through against his leg hair causing them to stand on end- goosebumps to follow. It was only then that he realized how cold his apartment was, or how he'd left the air conditioning on all night. He reached down to retrieve his coffee, and Ned climbed up the rail of the balcony to peer out at the same view. Minutes passed between quiet sips.
Ollie's gaze returned to the misty morning seeping through the slightly ajar balcony door and laughed to himself. All of it seemed funny to him, ironic even. He raised the mug with simple head tilt to Ned, then sucked his teeth before taking another sip.
In his mind, the world seemed pretty lifeless long before the sun started to go postal, but then the need for planetary evacuation perked the ear of mankind from Citadel to New Zambia. Civilization all of a sudden remembered what was important. Something about the world ticking down to inevitable heat-death made people begin to smile at each other in passing, or make eye contact when they rode the magnetic rail to work. He figured it was because the world finally had something in common: a home, heirlooms, an amalgamation of lifetimes of memories and full-blown histories all etched into the bones of a planet soon to be lost to the fire. At least that's what it felt like. So there they were, every nation and creed paying homage through merriment and the sharing of stories to their collective mother on her deathbed for a couple of months while awaiting the preparation of the colony in the next galaxy over. But the visitation hours were up... at least for anybody who wasn't Ollie. Instead of leaving with the rest, he remained there in that hospital room, flipping through the channels until settling for a cheesy 2800's sit-com and going to sleep in the uncomfortable chair nestled into the corner. He intended to soak up every last moment on earth before guileless calamity could pull the plug.
As he raised the mug to take another sip of coffee, he noticed a message on his "dub".
Ollie called it a "dub", like the shortened name for the letter "W", because he and people his age found it more conversational than "Wrist Augmentation Assembly". Just below the time now reading 6:45, he saw a notification. Ned was requesting another override so he could speak again. He met eyes with his 3-foot, bi-ped friend and granted his wish. Why not, he thought.
How much time do you think we have left, Oliver?
You know, I really don't know buddy... But I think I like it that way.
And why is that, sir?
I appreciate the social etiquette, but you're linked to my brain. I can't quite articulate the feeling into something verbal, but you know why.
Mind if I postulate something, sir?
I do, but go for it.
I reckon it's because each moment that passes with us postponing departure in our government issue evacuation pods is another that you can spend living in nostalgia. I hope you know that even your friends could tell when we met with them for dinner last night that you weren't-
I know buddy, I know. I'm-
You're not ready, Ned continued.
Ollie sighed deeply.
What's wrong, master?
Ned... What is your angle, here? You know the answer to that too. And please don't call me "master". We talked about that. If you're trying to lead me to some sort of point, let's not take the scenic route.
Very well, sir. I ask questions because to pull them straight from your brain robs you of your humanity-- a humanity that intrigues me to no end, sir. Do with that what you will. As for the procrastination for the inevitable, waiting longer doesn't change what is going to happen. If you want closure, find it soon.
---------------------------------------------------------
[Approximately 48:00:00 to Red Dawn]
Up and down the residential sector, a maze of artificially grown foliage and alloys layering upon themselves were peppered with remnants of life. Confetti, crushed drink vessels and droopy decorations tumbled and waved slowly in the wind, catching light from the coming sun. He could almost hear the festivities of the night before still raging on, fondue fountains still bubbling. He showed his face at plenty of the End of the World parties and shook hands with plenty of "rando's" before retreating to his home where sleep never found him.
Instead with whiskey in hand and panel-room set to an opacity of zero, he watched the pulse of Earth slow with each flight of evacuation pods. Unless tinkered with, they were set to leave in increments that randomly aligned with other departures-- so that no person landed on New Earth alone. To that sentiment Ollie whispered to himself "better late than never" and took another sip of whiskey. Like one last firework show, the pods embellished with paint matching the nationalities within them, fired off like birds that soon became glittering lances against the night.
I've never seen so many stars, Ned joked.
Ollie agreed with the slightest hint of laughter in the corner of his mouth.
In one last tilt of the glass, Ollie engulfed the last swig of whiskey and chewed the remaining ice, setting the sweating glass on a coaster just within reach. The two of then sat for some time there, just like that, watching the parade of lights fire off into a new life without them.
---------------------------------------------------------
[Approximately 23:40:00 to Red Dawn]
Ollie, might I suggest something?
Of course.
I understand that it will only make the goodbye harder, but could we see the world one last time?From one gearbox to a human, it would mean...well, the world to me. You cut off my connection to The Chord, so my knowledge is limited to that of my own experiences and... I'd like to see it all for myself before it is no more.
Ollie understood in his gut that Ned was onto something, though he wasn't sure what yet. Ned was a crafty little Swede.
And thus, their day took flight to a realm derelict but new from before Ned's entrance into Ollie's life. They hiked through foot hills formed by deposition atop the husks of bombs and obsolete tanks. Landmines from hundreds of years before we're nothing more than metallic pebbles crunched and thumped by Ollie's boots and Ned's childlike curiosity.
Ollie was a tinkerer, taking a fascination in all things mechanical: big or small, full system or minute function, since his youth. It, as a matter of fact, was the source of much of his knowledge more presently. School was never his thing, but despite all of his introversion, few things got his romantic heart throbbing like genuine connection- to people or places. He wouldn't be able to recall what he had for dinner the day before, or what time he went to sleep, but give him an instant and he could pull forth the exact dress a friend wore, their conversation and the location like it was a piece of him that he kept in his pocket... Or a simple, significant truth that he'd always known...Because to him, everything was significant. It's why he reprogrammed Ned to set him up for a personable IQ level and lack of forced responses to human emotional indicators. For all intensive purposes, the friendship between Ned and his master is the most organic piece within that wired, pseudo-organism. He was naive like a human would be, and found himself in awe of the world that was still inexplicable to him. Impulsively he produced his teleportation device from his packed up belongings and dropped them into the first place he could think of. If you were an on-call robot companion doctor for Citadel, or RBC, the authorities would assign you one.. which Ollie never turned back in upon the inevitable heat-death of the world-- it was pointless, after all.
Chemicals and other "planet sustainers" had over time altered the development of nearly every creature save that of humans, but none of it detracted from nature's beauty.
Nature always prevails, huh Ned?
Weeds still grew unapologetically. Tree seeds still injected themselves into the radiation and acid-rain borne pores of rock. Creatures of every mutated size and color still scampered instinctively within the forests they had been sequestered to by mankind, beginning way back in the 2500's. Bear-like beasts still caught Salmon-like fish swimming upward through clamorous rapids that by some late miracle were beginning to run blue. Birds still filled the air with their song and flowers still billowed in the breeze. The brashness of mother nature away from temperature controlled Citadel excited the two adventurers as they tarried on. True sweat and thirst were friends from his youth that Ollie didn't realize he had missed.
With the last few charges in his teleportation device, the two saw the world over.
With each footfall on a new stretch of Earth, behind waterfalls and across empty prairies, Ollie continued to build within himself a heart of gratefulness and pain.
[Approximately 05:25:00 to Red Dawn]
The day as they used to understand it far too long ago, before the rapid onset decay of the sun, was winding down. Dusk was befalling the land languidly in a celestial splash of deep purple and cherry-red. The darkness by comparison amplified the glow of Ollie's "dub" and the subtle green fuse at the back of Ned's eyeball-like ocular receptor based at the top of his little rectangular torso.
His eyes adjusted to the gradual fade into what humanity of his time came to understand as night-- which was never truly dark. At least not in the city. Not pitch-black like the Mayans or even the colonial Americans would have known. All at once it happened. It was an odd change of heart for Ollie, the young man. All around in the dry tundra who's raspy wind whipped into even the deepest caves, he ran into it again. He felt out of place. The world was beautiful, but it was a world he was no longer part of.
What is that, Ollie? My internal pistons are firing quickly yet I'm not feeling excited.
What is... Oh. This feeling is... I don't have the quite the right word for it right now, but people tend to describe it as bittersweet. It's like a clash of contradictory things, because somehow all at once one can feel both happy and sad at the same time. It's a confusing thing, my friend.
Ned stood silently for some time, the whirring of his internal mechanisms lost completely in the wind.
I won't say that I like it, but I'm glad that I feel it.
My thoughts exactly.
[Approximately 03:15:00 to Red Dawn]
It's time for us to go, isn't it sir?
The sun was beginning to rear it's greedy, beautiful face once again. Thick, orange beams cut through blue daze of Earth's last morning.
With unnecessary politeness, the two walked quietly in the morning down the streets during what they knew were the final hours. They could feel it somehow. Ollie gathered his things quickly- he had packed most everything into a vacuum sealed dolly topped by government issue duffel bags.
It's not going to be so different, sir.
Can I have a second, Ned?
Of course, sir.
[Approximately 2:30:00 to Red Dawn]
Of course it couldn't be, Ollie thought to himself. This piece key to humanity's foundation is about to be kaput. Done. Gone forever and all the special things within it. Ned came back from loading the last duffel bag onto the dolly and then into the evacuation pod and propped himself atop the handrail. The balcony was hot- the temperature controls and heat shields around habitable Earth were failing.
I am afraid, Ned. The world, still has... or maybe had such an innocence to it. I don't want to lose that. That bumbling naivete too big for it's own britches and knowing nothing... yet assuming the opposite with reckless ambition. I don't want to lose sight of what we once were, at first proclaiming love via messenger bird, then by a dance under the spell of jazz, then onward to theatre reel switches... all the way up to robotic companions helping with wedding proposals. I fear for the loss of tragic failure that refined who humanity was- in every caved coal mine or defunct magnetic automobile. I don't love tragedy, but I love the imperfection of life and the beauty we found despite it. I love that our history is very human too.
But change doesn't have to be a bad thing sir. And you should know that by nature of your existence, life will always know the full gamete of emotion. Science will never devise how to systematically live a happy life and no business service could ever guarantee it. We may not see the old ruins of drive-ins anymore. Or waterfalls with bears as we know them. But we also won't see people waging wars for supremacy... at least for a while. Earth boasts the scars of humanity's decisions, but it by no means was an integral piece of mankind being faulty. "Funny how the end of the world brings everybody together". Life will continue to be complex, because it must be. Adolescents will still rebel against their parents inexplicably. Love will still fight against all odds and humanity will still dream- of what? I do not know. But I want you to see it. All of that imperfection, in and of itself, excites me. That truly is a beauty worth seeing.
Ollie looked out over the balcony one last time before boarding the pod and departing.
[--:--:--]
The sleepless nights finally caught up to him, but he awoke in time to see the Earth he loved engulfed in flame, lost in the eternal night of space. He saw the Citadel, a hodgepodge of cement and alloy, with glass panes lining walkways and glowing streets that directed traffic by color. He saw the exotic orchids he grew on his window sill and the cookouts. The animals and newspaper blurbs... The secondary academy love notes. And lunch breaks spent staring up at cerulean, cloud-filled skies... All burned away without a sound, against all of his hopes. He didn't even have the closure of an aftershock to wobble the pod. He rose out of the wall-installed cot and put a hand to the glass as Earth dissipated. The tears streaming down his face took him by surprise and he couldn't find it within himself to wipe them away. He remained there for some time before he felt Ned's eye on him.
When he finally turned, Ned was staring at a table, fiddling with a music device.
I've got to be annoying by now but level with me... Feel free to tell me if I am... But are things really going to be okay?
You know the answers to both of those questions, sir.
Laughter flung itself from Ollie's chest but then snagged itself on a little pang of pain.
Today is a new day, Oliver.
I suppose it is.
Ned fiddled around nervously.
You never showed me that... what was it... Soul music? Something about a Honey Datha-
Donny Hathaway he interjected, a smile betraying his fight to hold on to the past. Ollie shakily, anxiously, hopefully walked over to the device, selected Donny Hathaway - "Someday We'll All be Free" on the Greatest Hits album, maxed out the volume, and the two drifted onward into the infinite mystery of Tomorrow. Ollie reset his watch.
--------------------------
[Approximately 24:00:00 to New Earth]
Through the deafening blare of music, staring intensely through hot tears, Ollie mouthed-
Thank you.
I know sir.
The music continued to play.
I've never seen so many stars, Ned joked.
Ollie agreed with the slightest hint of laughter in the corner of his mouth.
In one last tilt of the glass, Ollie engulfed the last swig of whiskey and chewed the remaining ice, setting the sweating glass on a coaster just within reach. The two of then sat for some time there, just like that, watching the parade of lights fire off into a new life without them.
---------------------------------------------------------
[Approximately 23:40:00 to Red Dawn]
Ollie, might I suggest something?
Of course.
I understand that it will only make the goodbye harder, but could we see the world one last time?From one gearbox to a human, it would mean...well, the world to me. You cut off my connection to The Chord, so my knowledge is limited to that of my own experiences and... I'd like to see it all for myself before it is no more.
Ollie understood in his gut that Ned was onto something, though he wasn't sure what yet. Ned was a crafty little Swede.
And thus, their day took flight to a realm derelict but new from before Ned's entrance into Ollie's life. They hiked through foot hills formed by deposition atop the husks of bombs and obsolete tanks. Landmines from hundreds of years before we're nothing more than metallic pebbles crunched and thumped by Ollie's boots and Ned's childlike curiosity.
Ollie was a tinkerer, taking a fascination in all things mechanical: big or small, full system or minute function, since his youth. It, as a matter of fact, was the source of much of his knowledge more presently. School was never his thing, but despite all of his introversion, few things got his romantic heart throbbing like genuine connection- to people or places. He wouldn't be able to recall what he had for dinner the day before, or what time he went to sleep, but give him an instant and he could pull forth the exact dress a friend wore, their conversation and the location like it was a piece of him that he kept in his pocket... Or a simple, significant truth that he'd always known...Because to him, everything was significant. It's why he reprogrammed Ned to set him up for a personable IQ level and lack of forced responses to human emotional indicators. For all intensive purposes, the friendship between Ned and his master is the most organic piece within that wired, pseudo-organism. He was naive like a human would be, and found himself in awe of the world that was still inexplicable to him. Impulsively he produced his teleportation device from his packed up belongings and dropped them into the first place he could think of. If you were an on-call robot companion doctor for Citadel, or RBC, the authorities would assign you one.. which Ollie never turned back in upon the inevitable heat-death of the world-- it was pointless, after all.
Chemicals and other "planet sustainers" had over time altered the development of nearly every creature save that of humans, but none of it detracted from nature's beauty.
Nature always prevails, huh Ned?
Weeds still grew unapologetically. Tree seeds still injected themselves into the radiation and acid-rain borne pores of rock. Creatures of every mutated size and color still scampered instinctively within the forests they had been sequestered to by mankind, beginning way back in the 2500's. Bear-like beasts still caught Salmon-like fish swimming upward through clamorous rapids that by some late miracle were beginning to run blue. Birds still filled the air with their song and flowers still billowed in the breeze. The brashness of mother nature away from temperature controlled Citadel excited the two adventurers as they tarried on. True sweat and thirst were friends from his youth that Ollie didn't realize he had missed.
With the last few charges in his teleportation device, the two saw the world over.
With each footfall on a new stretch of Earth, behind waterfalls and across empty prairies, Ollie continued to build within himself a heart of gratefulness and pain.
[Approximately 05:25:00 to Red Dawn]
The day as they used to understand it far too long ago, before the rapid onset decay of the sun, was winding down. Dusk was befalling the land languidly in a celestial splash of deep purple and cherry-red. The darkness by comparison amplified the glow of Ollie's "dub" and the subtle green fuse at the back of Ned's eyeball-like ocular receptor based at the top of his little rectangular torso.
His eyes adjusted to the gradual fade into what humanity of his time came to understand as night-- which was never truly dark. At least not in the city. Not pitch-black like the Mayans or even the colonial Americans would have known. All at once it happened. It was an odd change of heart for Ollie, the young man. All around in the dry tundra who's raspy wind whipped into even the deepest caves, he ran into it again. He felt out of place. The world was beautiful, but it was a world he was no longer part of.
What is that, Ollie? My internal pistons are firing quickly yet I'm not feeling excited.
What is... Oh. This feeling is... I don't have the quite the right word for it right now, but people tend to describe it as bittersweet. It's like a clash of contradictory things, because somehow all at once one can feel both happy and sad at the same time. It's a confusing thing, my friend.
Ned stood silently for some time, the whirring of his internal mechanisms lost completely in the wind.
I won't say that I like it, but I'm glad that I feel it.
My thoughts exactly.
[Approximately 03:15:00 to Red Dawn]
It's time for us to go, isn't it sir?
The sun was beginning to rear it's greedy, beautiful face once again. Thick, orange beams cut through blue daze of Earth's last morning.
With unnecessary politeness, the two walked quietly in the morning down the streets during what they knew were the final hours. They could feel it somehow. Ollie gathered his things quickly- he had packed most everything into a vacuum sealed dolly topped by government issue duffel bags.
It's not going to be so different, sir.
Can I have a second, Ned?
Of course, sir.
[Approximately 2:30:00 to Red Dawn]
Of course it couldn't be, Ollie thought to himself. This piece key to humanity's foundation is about to be kaput. Done. Gone forever and all the special things within it. Ned came back from loading the last duffel bag onto the dolly and then into the evacuation pod and propped himself atop the handrail. The balcony was hot- the temperature controls and heat shields around habitable Earth were failing.
I am afraid, Ned. The world, still has... or maybe had such an innocence to it. I don't want to lose that. That bumbling naivete too big for it's own britches and knowing nothing... yet assuming the opposite with reckless ambition. I don't want to lose sight of what we once were, at first proclaiming love via messenger bird, then by a dance under the spell of jazz, then onward to theatre reel switches... all the way up to robotic companions helping with wedding proposals. I fear for the loss of tragic failure that refined who humanity was- in every caved coal mine or defunct magnetic automobile. I don't love tragedy, but I love the imperfection of life and the beauty we found despite it. I love that our history is very human too.
But change doesn't have to be a bad thing sir. And you should know that by nature of your existence, life will always know the full gamete of emotion. Science will never devise how to systematically live a happy life and no business service could ever guarantee it. We may not see the old ruins of drive-ins anymore. Or waterfalls with bears as we know them. But we also won't see people waging wars for supremacy... at least for a while. Earth boasts the scars of humanity's decisions, but it by no means was an integral piece of mankind being faulty. "Funny how the end of the world brings everybody together". Life will continue to be complex, because it must be. Adolescents will still rebel against their parents inexplicably. Love will still fight against all odds and humanity will still dream- of what? I do not know. But I want you to see it. All of that imperfection, in and of itself, excites me. That truly is a beauty worth seeing.
Ollie looked out over the balcony one last time before boarding the pod and departing.
[--:--:--]
The sleepless nights finally caught up to him, but he awoke in time to see the Earth he loved engulfed in flame, lost in the eternal night of space. He saw the Citadel, a hodgepodge of cement and alloy, with glass panes lining walkways and glowing streets that directed traffic by color. He saw the exotic orchids he grew on his window sill and the cookouts. The animals and newspaper blurbs... The secondary academy love notes. And lunch breaks spent staring up at cerulean, cloud-filled skies... All burned away without a sound, against all of his hopes. He didn't even have the closure of an aftershock to wobble the pod. He rose out of the wall-installed cot and put a hand to the glass as Earth dissipated. The tears streaming down his face took him by surprise and he couldn't find it within himself to wipe them away. He remained there for some time before he felt Ned's eye on him.
When he finally turned, Ned was staring at a table, fiddling with a music device.
I've got to be annoying by now but level with me... Feel free to tell me if I am... But are things really going to be okay?
You know the answers to both of those questions, sir.
Laughter flung itself from Ollie's chest but then snagged itself on a little pang of pain.
Today is a new day, Oliver.
I suppose it is.
Ned fiddled around nervously.
You never showed me that... what was it... Soul music? Something about a Honey Datha-
Donny Hathaway he interjected, a smile betraying his fight to hold on to the past. Ollie shakily, anxiously, hopefully walked over to the device, selected Donny Hathaway - "Someday We'll All be Free" on the Greatest Hits album, maxed out the volume, and the two drifted onward into the infinite mystery of Tomorrow. Ollie reset his watch.
--------------------------
[Approximately 24:00:00 to New Earth]
Through the deafening blare of music, staring intensely through hot tears, Ollie mouthed-
Thank you.
I know sir.
The music continued to play.
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