Diomede

CHAPTER 40 – II

Located in the middle of the Bering Strait, two neighboring islands separated east from west. The bigger one was known as Tomorrow Island. The smaller was known as Yesterday Island. This is where the final convulsions of the human era played out. Roughly 25,000 years prior, humans crossed from one half of the world to another over a frozen land bridge, cementing humanity’s dominance over the earth.

The present day version of the two islands were capable of experiencing all types of weather. The world was now experiencing warmer temperatures and violently fluctuating extremes. Tomorrow Island was the more arid of the two, rugged and expansive across its vast plains. Yesterday Island boasted lush vegetation, supported by rain and storms due to its grand mountain peaks, yielding coastal abundance. Summers for both were oppressively hot, with eternal days that never lost the sun. Winters were bitterly cold with eternal nights that never found the sun. During the cold months the water between the islands would freeze over, joining them as one. In previous generations, when human populations were more sturdy, war between the two islands was a constant. Naval battles dominated the summer; land battles the winter.

The last man on earth was a woman. She was all that remained of the human race. Fleeing the murderous new species of cyborgs that were spreading across the southern lands, Last Woman and her husband landed their boat on Tomorrow Island. Unfortunately for them, the virus unleashed by The Few had beat them there and was finishing off the island’s last inhabitants. The couple then sailed for Yesterday Island, only to find that the endlessly advancing A.I. released by The Many had created an island utterly inhospitable to animal life.

The last couple had no way of knowing that they were the last two humans on earth. And even if they had been of reproduction age – which they were not – prolonging the species was not an option given how inhospitable the world was toward their kind. Left with nowhere else to go, the husband gave up the fight.

After struggling and eking through these final days
Never questioning the yearn toward tomorrow
Realizing now that it no longer holds uncertainty
Definitiveness brings peace…
And a complete rejection of everything that made me an animal of this earth

After kissing his wife one last time, the literal last man walked toward the coastal mountains. The wife’s concluding image of her husband was of him was his descent from the rock face that overlooked the bay that was their home. Last Woman could not do the same. Last Woman, true to the First (Wo)Man, could not transcend what made her a byproduct of the earth, spawned from the dawn of time, incapable of doing anything but looking toward the future.

Last Woman walked inland – not toward the rock face, but to engage with that which wanted her dead.

No fool…I know
What is all but certain
All but

Past-Future
Saving up for a someday
“Remember when…” when there’s nothing left to say
Preset mindsets beset by frets and regrets
Life is just a game we play