Requiem for Man

“I’m Pascal 1751. When are you from?”

Kennet was confused, not only by the question but also by the young man standing in front of him. Physically he was just a teenager with green eyes and brown hair but his strange assortment of clothes was very confounding. He wore a conical bamboo hat, a plain linen shirt, and knee-length breeches with long stockings. His shoes were black and white, high-top sneakers that were obviously too big for him.

With his brain still a bit fuzzy, Kennet narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. He focused on the young man and asked, “What did you say?”

“When are you from?” repeated Pascal.

“I don’t know what you mean?”

Now it was Pascal’s turn to give Kennet a curious look.

The teen began walking around Kennet and carefully eyeing his clothes “Are you a colt?” demanded Pascal. “What year is it? Where were you before you were here?”

“What’s a colt?” Kennet asked.

“A colt, a tyro, a newbie,” said Pascal.

“What the hell is going on?” cried Kennet. “Who are you? Where am I?”

“Relax, relax. I’ll explain everything to you but first you’ve got to tell me your name and what year it is.”

“I’m Kennet Flanagan and it’s 2278. The last thing I remember is standing in the prep room at the hospital then suddenly I was here,” Kennet spun around looking at the flat desolate wasteland in all directions. “And where exactly is ‘here’?”

“You are a colt!” exclaimed Pascal. “I’ve never found one before. This is fantastic! Don’t worry. I know exactly what to do. The first thing is to take you straight to central verification. Come along. It’s that way.”

Pascal took Kennet’s arm and urged him along the narrow path that was worn into the dusty earth. As they walked through the barren wilderness, Kennet’s head began to clear and he assessed his surroundings. The path they were on was the only thing that distinguished their position and direction for as far as the eye could see. The sky was almost as grey as the ground beneath it. When he looked up Kennet could see the diffused light of the sun trying to break through the haze but it was failing miserably.

“Where on Earth are we?” asked Kennet.

“Oh, we’re not on Earth,” said Pascal. “Most of us call it Asphodel which is an old Greek word for the place in the underworld where ordinary people live after they die,” Pascal quickly added, “but we’re not dead. Well, actually, there’s a long running debate about that so I guess we could be. We’re all from Earth, different countries and times, but definitely from Earth. I’m from France in 1751”

The two of them walked along in the stillness of the barren land while Kennet ran through the thoughts and questions that were plaguing him. If he wasn’t dead, what was it? A dream? But how could it be a dream? Everything was so real, except for this kid in weird clothes.

“What’s the last thing you remember before being here?” asked Pascal.

“Like I said, I was standing in a room at the hospital talking to one of the nurses when...zap! The next thing I know I’m here.”

“Are you a medical doctor?”

“No,” said Kennet. “I’m a technician. I clean up after surgeries and such. Do you need a doctor?”

“No, it doesn’t matter,” said Pascal. “We don’t have any need for doctors here. No one ever gets sick or hurt.”

“How can that be?”

Pascal shook his head and laughed. “Kennet 2278, you have got so much to learn, but the good part is you’ve got forever to do it.”

“Why do you call me that?”

“That’s the way people are identified here. We use your first name and the year you arrived. There are several Pascals on Asphodel but I’m the only one from 1751.”

Kennet stopped and turned to the young man. “So you’re telling me that you’ve been here for five hundred years?”

“Yep, as best we can figure there’s at least one person for every year going back over 150,000 years. Of course, it’s nearly impossible to date the early arrivals, but over the years those that came later have assigned dates for them. You’re about to meet some of them.”

Pascal pointed to the horizon where a dark line had appeared in the distance.

“That’s Idolobha,” said the teen. “There’s about ten thousand there.”

As they got closer Kennet could see that the dark line was really a very large gathering of people. There were no buildings or other structures. It was just people. Men and women; young and old; people of all races, sizes and shapes. Most of them were sitting in small groups while others casually walked along established aisles or paths between them. All of them were talking at the same time which created a hum that filled the air.

The crowd noise was distracting but Kennet was even more startled by the mishmash of clothing the people wore. Fur hats, corsets, togas, leather belts, loincloths, baseball caps, sandals, kilts, tunics, high heels, and more. There were even some that had no clothes at all.

“I take it that all of you trade clothes,” said Kennet, “but don’t they eventually get worn and dirty?”

“No, just like we never get hurt or die, our clothes don’t wear out or get soiled.” said Pascal, “but you’re right about trading clothes. It’s one of our pastimes.”

“Pascal!” called an older woman from one of the nearby groups.

Pascal waved to the woman, pointed at Kennet, and yelled, “2278 colt!”

The woman smiled and gave a thumbs up.

“Who was that?” asked Kennet.

“A friend, Aino 1023. She teaches Finnish. Learning other languages is another popular pastime.”

“Ah, that’s why you speak such fluent English even though you’re from 18 ^th century France.”

“I speak five languages,” said Pascal proudly. “We do a lot of teaching and learning here. There’s not much else to do.”

After winding their way around several groups and past lots of walkers, they reached an open area where two people were sitting on the ground. Pascal respectfully approached an older man with long gray hair and dressed in a cloth robe. Beside the man sat a very young Asian girl in denim overalls.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Pascal. “I am Pascal 1751. I believe I’ve found a colt. This is Kennet 2278.”

“We shall see,” said the old man. “Sit. Let’s talk. I’m Hamilcar 359B and this is Jiang 1904. Has Pascal told you about our naming system here?”

Kennet sat in the dirt in front of the man and said, “Yes, but he didn’t tell me about the ‘B’. Does that mean BCE?”

“It does,” said Hamilcar. “We’ve adopted the Gregorian calendar and done our best to convert all the other dating methods to that system. Now tell me what you remember before you arrived here.”

Kennet thought for a few seconds then began, “I work at a hospital in Toronto as a technician. There’s nothing special about what I do. The morning was quite normal until I got to the prep room for Surgery 3. I was right in the middle of a conversation with one of the nurses when suddenly I wasn’t there anymore. Instead, I was standing in a gray dusty desert with nothing for miles around.”

“Do you have anything in your pockets or on your person?” asked Hamilcar. “Wallet, money, watch, electronic devices?”

From his green shirt Kennet removed his ID badge and placed it in front of Hamilcar. Then reaching into one pocket of his loose-fitting pants, he pulled out a few coins which he also put on the ground.

“Most of the time I’d be wearing my yoctoprojector bracelet,” said Kennet, “which connects to the global net. But they aren’t allowed in the hospital. It could have given us all kinds of information.”

“We’re familiar with those devices from other colts that arrived in the last few years. Unfortunately, all electrical devices don’t work here. The prevailing theory is that we’re being constantly bombarded by massive amounts of gamma rays.”

“Gamma rays?” questioned Kennet. “That would kill all of us.”

“Well, obviously that’s not true,” said Hamilcar. “There are people that have been here over a hundred millennia and they’ve never been sick, bruised, cut, or even come down with a headache. You’ll also notice that no one eats, drinks, sleeps, or even gets tired.”

The girl in overalls picked up the badge and coins. She examined them closely, sat them back down, and nodded to Hamilcar and the three others standing behind him.

“Jiang 1904 is a very special girl. She has hyperthymesia which means she can remember the details of every day of her life. Here on Asphodel she and others like her act as a means of recording information. She’s compared the items you’ve shown us, the information you’ve given, and the clothing you’re wearing to that of others that have come just before you. It’s all consistent with your time period so we are verifying your date. You are now officially Kennet 2278.”

“Yes!” cheered Pascal with a big smile, “and I found him!”

“You did,” said Hamilcar. “Now you must take on the responsibility of mentoring him for the next year. Show him the ropes, answer his questions, and accompany him to Xot for presentation to the Elders.”

“And I get a time piece?” asked Pascal anxiously.

A tall, thin man standing behind Hamilcar introduced himself, “I’m Ajbit 101. I’m the timekeeper for Idolobha.” Nodding to Jiang, “Let it be noted that Pascal 1751 is receiving a time piece that he shall keep for one full year.”

Ajbit raised the sleeve on his robe to reveal four watches strapped to his forearm. He took one off and passed it to Pascal who quickly put it on his own wrist.

“This is fantastic!” said Pascal. “Look! It’s got a picture of a mouse in the middle of it! This is the best! Thank you.”

“A watch? I thought electronics didn’t work here,” said Kennet.

“These are mechanical,” Ajbit said. “The parts never wear out and the time pieces never have to be wound.”

“Do you have any questions, Kennet?” asked Hamilcar.

“I’ve got a ton of questions but I guess answering them will now be up to Pascal.”

As soon as Kennet stood, he was mobbed by people that had been standing around listening to the proceedings. They patted him on the back, shook his hand, and pledged their support. Pascal received congratulations too but people mostly wanted to see his watch and learn where he had found the new colt. By the time it was all done the teen had parlayed his newfound fame into trades for a 1930’s Yankee cap and a T-shirt with a prism logo on it.

As the crowd diminished Pascal lead Kennet along the path that they had arrived by and past the little groups that were learning languages and history. Soon they were on the outskirts of Idolobha and heading away from the community. For several miles they walked in silence because Pascal was totally captivated by his watch. He listened to it tick and he watched the hands move. Kennet understood the teen’s fascination and didn’t interrupt the silence until he happened on a smooth transition.

“I noticed that the sun doesn’t seem to be moving across the sky,” said Kennet. “How can you keep track of dates much less time?”

“You’re right,” said Pascal. “The rotational period for Asphodel is exactly the same as the orbital period in the same way as the Moon always faces the Earth. As to dates and time, well, the first arrivals didn’t even give it a thought but as civilizations on Earth developed calendars here became more important. Chinese, Egyptian, Mayan, Islamic, Persian, and Julian calendars were all tried for awhile. The arrivals from the 16 ^th century changed everything. They brought the first time pieces and the Gregorian calendar which was quickly adopted for all of Asphodel.”

“Slow down,” said Kennet. “You walk too fast.”

“What was life like in 2278?”

Kennet thought for a second then explained, “A lot of people were worried about the revolution in China and how it was disrupting the global economy. Millions of people in Florida were in danger due to levees failing. The Mars colonies just became self-sufficient. There was a universal information network that anyone could tap into. So, I guess, there were good things and bad.”

“What about you personally?” asked Pascal. “What was your life like? Were you married?”

“No, no... but there was this girl...Amy,” Kennet said nervously. “I was just about to ask her out when I was zapped to this place.”

“I’m sorry,” said Pascal. “It sounds like she was special to you.”

“Oh, yes...she has beautiful...blue eyes...and... long blonde... hair. I think...I should... sit for a... bit. I... feel faint.”

Kennet dropped to the dirt path and stared at the distant horizon.

“What is it?” pleaded Pascal. “You look ill but you can’t be, not here. Why do you have your hand on your chest?”

Kennet looked down at his hand and said, “My heart... is beating... rapidly. Give me... a moment.”

They dropped to the ground and sat together in the dirt. Despite his wide-eyed shock Pascal moved closer to Kennet and tried to calm him. Slowly the beating of his heart eased and Kennet recovered his breath.

“Arrhythmia,” whispered Kennet. “I was born with a heart problem. The rhythm of my heartbeat would suddenly go... wrong. The doctors put nanobots in me called pacers. Since then, they’ve controlled my heart to make it beat at a normal rate.”

“Until now,” said Pascal.

“Yep. I guess the gamma rays knocked them out so now I’m back to having an arrhythmia.”

“What can I do about it?” asked Pascal.

“You can step aside because there’s nothing you can do about it,” said a voice behind Pascal, “but I can.”

Kennet and Pascal turned to see a small, thin old man wearing a red flannel shirt and khaki pants. He moved past the teenager and looked Kennet in the eye.

“There,” the old man said, “You won’t have any more problems now.”

“Who are you?” asked Pascal as he stood to confront the man. “What’s your name? When are you from?”

“I have no name,” said the man, “and I’m not from a time on Earth. I exist in a higher dimension than yours.”

“What are you talking about?” Pascal’s face twisted with perplexity. “What did you just do to Kennet?”

“I fixed his heart. The arrhythmia is gone.”

“Thanks... I think,” said Kennet as he stood. “I do feel better. What do you mean you’re from another dimension? Are you some kind of alien?”

The old man shook his head and sighed. “Humans are so slow to understand. Listen closely. The dimensions in your universe are easily manipulated in my dimension so reshaping a faulty heart is easy.”

“But how do you do that by just looking at him?” asked Pascal.

“I could explain it but you wouldn’t understand.”

Suddenly Kennet did understand something. “Wait! Are you responsible for all of us being here?”

“Of course I am,” said the old man. “Now you’re starting to recognize the salient points. Sit down and I’ll explain it to you.”

The three of them sat on the ground and the man continued, “Okay, first you must understand that this is a project meant to preserve a meaningful record of the history of your species. All of these years I’ve carefully chosen the people that are here. Each of you represents a snapshot of Homo sapiens and collectively you show the evolution of mankind. And, frankly, I’m very disappointed.”

“So, we were pulled off of Earth in the middle of our lives,” said Pascal, “to spend eternity in this place just for some collection of yours.”

“Well, it’s not like you didn’t finish your lives on Earth,” the man said.

“I don’t understand,” said Pascal.

“I didn’t think you would.” The old man sighed again and continued, “You have to understand that time is different in my dimension. In your dimension time is consistent and flows in only one direction. But where I’m from time can be changed. It’s like a piece of string. It can be twisted or bent. It can be folded back and forth on top of itself. It can be cut into pieces and the pieces rearranged. But all that I did was to cut out one little piece... one split second... one cell frame in the movie of your lives. On Earth your lives continued on but all of those single cells, those little snippets of life that I collected each year, well, I put them right here. That’s what all of you are. You’re each a split second of your own lives.”

“That’s why no one dies,” said Kennet. “That’s why no one gets hurt or sick. But I did.”

“Okay, I made one small mistake,” the old man said reluctantly. “Hey, I fixed it. After all these years you can give me that one.”

“So you did all of this just to compile a history of humans?”

“It needs to be done,” said the man. “Your species is one of the few sentient ones in the universe. Unfortunately, you will probably be extinct soon.”

“Probably?” questioned Kennet. “I thought you could read our future?”

“No, no, no!” The man was notably irritated. “I can manipulate time but I can’t create it. It should be fairly obvious that humans are headed toward self-destruction.”

“How can you say that? What do you base that on?”

“The progress of your species has been very disappointing,” the man said. “At the best you’re underachievers. You’ve been around for hundreds of thousands of years yet you have little to show for it.”

“What about this,” said Pascal pointing to his watch.

“And my yoctoprojector bracelet,” Kennet added, “and the global net. And what about the huge advances we’ve made in technology, science, and medicine.”

“In the grand scheme of things that’s all kind of recent, isn’t it?” The old man sat in silence for a moment then as he calmed down a sadness crept across his face. “Yes, I thought for awhile that maybe Homo sapiens would be a late bloomer but then you took all of that good stuff and made it bad. War, torture, nuclear bombs, biological warfare, genocide.” He shrugged. “No matter how smart you become you can’t overcome the fear from your primal beginnings. Your knowledge has grown but your morality hasn’t evolved. You fear anything and anyone that happens to be different and fear easily translates to hate.”

“So you believe that humans are destined to destroy themselves—or just die out,” said Kennet. “Yet you continue to collect samples of us every year. Why? What’s the point?”

“After your species is gone all of you here will serve as a record of human existence.”

“Existence?” yelled Pascal who jumped up and angrily stomped in front of the old man. “You call this existing? I’ve been here two hundred years and some have been here a thousand times longer. I promise you, none of us consider this to be existence. It’s more like Dante’s Inferno. Sure, we’ve done the best we can with the little we have but all of us would trade immortality for the lives we left behind.”

“Pascal’s right,” said Kennet. “You have the power to change this. You should do something.”

“No, I don’t want to interfere in my projects. It wouldn’t be right to involve myself in the course of a species’ civilization.”

“So you would sit back and watch mankind destroy itself, and you would do nothing?” Pascal was getting worked up again. “That’s as cruel as what you’re doing to us here.”

“Maybe you would find more joy and interest in helping humans than just filing us away,” said Kennet. “You could play as big a role as you want in the future of mankind. At crucial moments you could nudge us in the right direction. You would have a stake in what happens to us.”

The old man slowly stood and crossed his arms behind his back. He stared at the sun’s faint light as he mulled all that Pascal and Kennet had said. Did he have the right to influence the course a species would take in its own history? He could lead them away from disaster and toward a safer, happier future. But what if his ideas for humans were wrong? He would bear a very significant responsibility.

“If I took on this new project,” said the man, “what would you have me do with all of you? Should I return you to your respective time slots?”

Kennet and Pascal turned to each other with wide eyes and simultaneously said, “You can do that?”

“Your innocence amazes me,” the man chuckled. “Of course I can send you back, but you won’t remember anything that happened here.”

******

“Kennet? Kennet?”

The blurry swirling of light and color slowly stabilized as Kennet focused on the face in front of him. He looked from side to side and realized he was lying on a bed in one of the hospital rooms.

“Dr. Patak? What happened?” asked Kennet.

“You fainted,” said the doctor. “How do you feel? Any pains?”

“I’m a little tired but aside from that I’m fine. Why did I faint?”

Dr. Patak looked at a monitor beside the bed. “It could have been lots of things so we ran some tests. You were fine except for one thing that I don’t understand. Your medical records say that you have an arrhythmia that’s controlled with nanos but the tests show that the nanos are gone and your heart is beating just fine. We’re going to keep you here until we figure this out. So just relax and I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

Shortly after Patak left a young blonde nurse with strikingly blue eyes poked her head into Kennet’s room.

“Are you awake?” she asked. “Can I come in?”

“Amy! Yes, yes. Come in.”

She approached his bedside and asked, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Patak says I’ll be out of here in a couple of days,” Suddenly Kennet’s face went blank. “Oh, my god! I just remembered. You were there. I was talking to you when I fainted.”

“I was there,” said Amy as she sat on the edge of his bed, “and the answer is yes.”

“What was the question?” Kennet asked with a quizzical look.

Amy put her hand in his and squeezed. “You finally asked me out.”

Kennet squeezed back and said, “This may be the beginning of a new and wonderful life.”

THE END

Bio: George Schaade is a retired history teacher that loves writing science fiction and humor. His stories often reflect the comic books and pulp magazines that he was raised on.

E-mail: George Schaade

Comment on this story in the Aphelion Forum

Return to Aphelion's Index page.