DNA India recently invited submissions for short stories as part of their Out of Print edition. The theme for this year's competition is Erosion. Aspiring contestants, this author included were given full freedom to interpret the topic in any manner we saw fit - from the erosion of political freedom and its impact on society and culture, or erosion of relationships that lose meaning in many ways over generations, or physical erosion of the environment due to man, or even the disintegrating emotional stabilities of the human psyche.
The only rule was that the stories needed to be in English, previously unpublished, and about 2000 words in length. The following post, should you choose to read more, is my attempt submitted for this competition. You can read the winning stories of last year's editions here, and also those of the other finalists, where the theme was Choice.
Al right then, let's get on with the story, shall we?
87 After Fall, The Unification Calendar
(Kaan’s School, Amadon)
So what tale would you like to hear today, kids?
What's that? The Fall, you ask? Well that was an eternity ago. The old calendar called it the 22nd century, I think. I was a just a wee little boy back then. I don't remember much about it. I remember the sky was clear and blue that day. Isn't it funny that my most distinct memory of that day, the day the world changed, is the sky? Which is appropriate, given how I haven’t seen that clear a sky since, in these eighty odd years. I wish I could see the clear blue of the sky once more before I join my family in the Nether. I wish for a lot of things, senile old me, as if I was a youngling with hopes and dreams. It was a happy sort of day, you know? I remember looking at the planes flying in the sky, eating my ice cream, sitting in the park with my father. It was a world of wonder. No these are not tales of fancy, as some of you younglings think. I have even sat inside one of these planes. Once, when we went to the islands. Flying in the sky, everything looked so far, with nothing but the sky to hold us up. Ice cream was real too. It was cold, tasted sweet, like happiness on a child’s face. It was bliss really.
Oh, what? Yes, I digress, senile old man that I am. I don’t remember much else, except for the light. All of a sudden there was light at the horizon, not natural like the sun but hotter and fiercer. The light came first, and the heat followed right behind it. I remember I felt wonder at this new light, perhaps another wonder of the age, but not my father. He was smart and insightful and resourceful. He grabbed my hand and challenged me to a race to the car. I grinned widely and ran, already forgetting the growing light. I remember I won, and my father was proud of me, even if he didn’t tell me. I got in, and put my seatbelt on. He made sure I was strapped tight, and then went to his seat. I wish I could remember what his face looked like in that last moment. Because before he could even open his door to enter, I flew again. Or rather the car flew on its own, turning and twisting. I remember feeling glee, and then sadness, I had dropped my ice cream. When I ended up side down, hanging by my seat belt, only then I wondered where father was. I think I spent hours shouting for him, crying, trying to get free before someone reached me to help me. I don’t remember much of the pain, although the medics did treat me for something.
I don’t need to tell you about the destruction, you have read the histories I imagine. That was the Fall. It lasted five years, all nations fighting one another, dropping nucleos on one another, humanity culling the world of itself. That was why it was called nucleo war, you know? Because only a remnant of us survived – we used to number in billions once it was said, yet we are now not even a full million of us. Humans as nations, divided by religion, region, race, and ideologies – we turned on each other and the Nether. And here we are all today. I suppose we are better off now, all as one people, living in Amadon.
“No one to fight, no one to die”, the Diktor, may she sleep peacefully in the Nether, said in her remembrance speech. She was a wise woman, like my father. Uniting us all, removing all our boundaries. Saving us from extinction. Remember that, younglings, No one to fight, no one to die.
* * *
122 AF, Unification Calendar
(Armed Guard Academy, Amadon)
Stand tall, recruits!
You know how proud Amadon is of your sacrifice! You will be the part of our victory over this threat our great entity. These foreigners, these aliens, are a threat to our perfect society. Your contribution will ensure that our empire will continue to prosper as it has since the Unification.
What’s that soldier? No, these alien scum are not one of us. Dismiss that thought from your minds right now! These aliens were not there during the Unification – when the Asian nations were united single handedly by the Diktor, Nether rest her soul, so they are not one of us. They are not led by the High Leadership Council, so they are not one of us. They do not believe in the everlasting peace of the Nether, so THEY. ARE. NOT. ONE. OF. US.
These aliens are nothing but cowards, hiding in their holes since the Fall, where they were defeated by the nations fighting together. These alien scum do nothing but divide people, just like they do with us, if we give in to this misplaced sense of oneness with them. Do not think of them as humans. They are scum, and need to be eradicated for our survival.
How do I know this? For one, this is what the High Leadership Council has told us all, and if you do not believe them, then you are as alien as those waiting to invade us, unless we attack first. And more than that, I have studied directly under Kaan, one of the Elder Gurus, in his school. He was there you know, during the Fall? And he told us about how the nucleos killed everyone and sowed dissention and broke humanity. Even living through those nightmare years, he did not know who was responsible for our Fall. Now we do.
These aliens have lived in their holes for long enough. We will eradicate them and avenge our ancestors. We will bring our world back to the glories it saw before the Fall.
Remember recruits, they sleep now, unaware that we hear their treacherous hearts beating. They sleep, unaware that we know now of their existence. By the time I will have trained you and sent you to your postings, we will have begun the cleansing. You will be responsible for our everlasting victory over them. Do not fail Amadon. If we are to survive as a people, and not die out like a candle snuffed at day break, then we must break them so they cannot fight us. Remember what the Diktor, Nether rest her soul, taught us, “No one to fight, no one to die.”
* * *
169 AF, Unification Calendar
(Work Camp, Pudu Amadon)
Little citizen, you should not have come to the work camps. This is no place for a citizen. We are unworthy of your presence. We are, after all, Fight-scum.
You don’t know what that is? Surely your parents must have told you? No? We Fight-scum are the punished ones, little one. We pay for the crime of war. We fought with fellow humans, and killed fellow men. Yes, Little citizen, the Failing. We failed all you citizens, and hence we are punished with work.
No little one, it was not right. It is not right to harm a fellow human. By the time we realized that, and the war was called off to broker peace, we had no semblance of what side who was on. Humans are but a remnant of the world before the Failing, and we Fight-scum are responsible. And thus we work. Many of us were brave enough to accept what the Diktor, may she rule Nether forever, had predicted. They accepted her judgement, ‘No one to fight, no one to die.’, and that of the first Citizens of the Pudu Amadon. We had fought, so we had to die, for there to be peace. They were the noble ones, ending their lives, entering the Nether under the rule of the Diktor, freed of the Fight-scum title. We however, were not brave enough to embrace the Nether. So we pay the price, serve you citizens however we can.
You mistake me, little citizen, the war, it was no simple thing. It lasted a decade, and in the end, all citizens in Pudu Amadon together were less than a third of what Amadon had before we fought those who we thought were aliens, foreigners. We were so wrong, little citizen, I still cry in penance of the horrors I wrought in my youth.
I apologize, little citizen, you must not come close to me. I would not want to infect you. No I do not know what the disease is, but it is hardly something I would want you to get. It is gracious of you to suggest a hospice, little suggestion, you have a heart of gold. But hospices are forbidden to Fight-scum who did not value life, and I would not turn away from my penance. In any case, I have not heard any citizen defeating this disease, so perhaps there is no cure for what ails me. We hardly have the knowledge to perform the miracles they say we used to perform ages ago.
No little citizen, do not despair, but smile, for perhaps the Diktor is happy with my penance, and this is her way of embracing me into the Nether, where I shall at last be free of my guilt, my shame, and no longer be a Fight scum.
* * *
200 AF, Unification Calendar
(Unification Hospice, Pudu Amadon)
I, the Premiere of Pudu Amadon, am dying.
Perhaps I will perhaps evade the Diktor’s final embrace a few days, but I must assume that this is my last entry into this register, and thus must also serve as its introduction.
This work is my lifetime’s work researching human history, and I hope is someday found by someone, some human. Three quarters of a century ago we found a separate pocket of surviving humanity, but despite the mess we made of that discovery, it gives me hope that there might be other such surviving pockets to find what I have recorded, and know of our existence. Otherwise, this is the end of humanity.
It is hard to pick fact from fiction and legend and myth when all your sources are but a remnant of a remnant of your race. It is said that we come from long extinct creatures called monkeys. It is said that we have walked on top of the nether for more than a hundred thousand years. I have been able to verify at least, that we used to fly on crafts we built, and that we had magic: magic such as nucleos which were used to kill millions of people. It can also be reliably attributed to the aforementioned magic that the Fall occurred two centuries ago, where the race of billions of humans was reduced to a few hundred thousand, who united to form Amadon. They believed that they were the last of the humans.
This we now know was only a pocket of humanity, since the Amadon foragers found another pocket of humanity soon. Ill-conceived logic led to a war we today refer as The Failing, which had catastrophic results, with casualties piling up faster than they could be disposed of. I, once as a child, talked to a Fight-scum, who told me about the horrors of The Failing. By the time sense and logic reined and the fighting stopped, no one knew what side they were on, and the surviving few of us relocated to found Pudu Amadon. By now, our united Pudu Amadon had a population of a few tens of thousands, and we aimed to rule by the sword of peace.
It is said that the pre-Fall humans had magic that could cure any illness, but whatever it was got lost in the wars, and when we were struck by the plague of unknown disease, a mere 30 years past, we had no cure to stop the epidemic. Most of our population have died, and today I rule perhaps little more than a thousand humans. In a few days, I too shall embrace the Diktor and reach the Nether.
The Diktor is a Goddess and the basis of our belief in the Nether and in peace. She is attributed with establishing peace throughout history, though I have failed to find any account of Her existence in my research. So much is lost that I cannot fill every blank, yet the Diktor is one that has remained with us humans throughout these last centuries of strife.
The Diktor’s wisdom, “No one to fight, no one to die”, has been the last hope of humanity. We have put an end to the fighting, and we hope She ensures our species survives better than our purported ancestors did. Or perhaps her wisdom is more philosophical. Today, as I pen these last words, I end my fight against this disease. And thus the last of humanity and I surrender.
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