The Story Of My Life And Their Death

For a race of intelligent beings, humanity is not all that smart. We were never too logical, nor too practical and while we were busy unraveling the world, we forgot to unravel ourselves. So when science caught up with us and then forged ahead we were caught unawares and unable to handle it. Only if we had invested even half the amount of effort on people that we had invested on creating technology, the world would still exist.

Wait. I am wrong. The world exists. It's the people who don't exist anymore. When I was young, the folks were obsessed with saving the world. They had movements and laws to prevent global warming and to clean up the air. They should have told the truth. It was themselves they were trying to save and not the world. The world would have shrugged a bit and gone back to a pretty fine existence for all the polluting we could do.

They were worried about bombs too. Never a week went by when some global leader or such-thing wouldn't stand up and tell everybody else that it was evil to have those bombs and then go right back to creating some more of his own. They had really big bombs. Big, nuclear bombs. Everybody thought we were going to die of them. That some fine morning a slightly crazy idiot elected by even crazier idiots would drop one somewhere and we would all go up in flames. They were wrong. When were they ever right?

Bombs couldn't do in the world. All they could do was destroy some buildings and kill some people and that too not for long. In a hundred years any place that was bombed would be teeming with life and civilization right again. Those dopes were too easily swayed awesomeness. The bigger it is, the louder it is, the more dangerous it ought to be. The thing that took down our world struck silently.

It wasn't due to a war, or terrorism, or sabotage or even one tiny shred of malice. It was just one small act of negligence. One slightly overlooked rule in an eagerness to please the superiors. It was common-cold that killed the human species.

I still cannot figure out why those guys thought we needed a vaccine for common-cold, and I can't figure out why they thought it was important enough to disregard the safety procedures established for vaccine development. People weren't dying for the want of a common-cold vaccine. Were they? Maybe that was the reason. They didn't think they needed to follow safety procedures for common-cold. After all, people weren't dying.

The most common trick to develop a vaccine for a viral disease is to use the dead, weakened or mutated forms of the virus that causes the disease. That way the immune system of the human body becomes familiar with the virus and develops anti-bodies to fight it. So when the real virus arrives, the body is prepared.

They had built a mutation that they thought was safe for a vaccine. Then they tried it on people and it worked. It worked so well that the executives were thrilled even more than the scientists, and they greased palms more vigorously than usual to bring the vaccine to the market.

Usually a drug or vaccine takes years to reach the market from clinical trials. But in that particular case it was done within a year. Fast work for the common good of the people and the politicians.

Viruses work in unpredictable fashion. Some sit in the victim's guts for years. Then they wake up suddenly and strike him down like HIV. Some have finite gestation periods. That virus had a gestation period of slightly more than a year. So right about the time when reports of the deaths of the patients who were used for the clinical-trial started pouring in 5 million people had already been inoculated. The rest got it through the usual airborne route. The virus had already spread before they could contain it.

That was an exciting year for sure. I think humanity reached the peak of its social evolution then. We moved quickly from horror, to denial, to acceptance and to action. Wars were forgotten, feuds buried. Researchers from all the nations worked together, people volunteered for tests, weapons-money was spent on scientific research. With teamwork like that we could have reached the stars. But it wasn't enough to beat that common-cold.

All that was four years ago. I used to live in a big-bustling-town that had high-rise buildings and was full of people. The stench was terrible. I tried staying as long as I could to help dispose of the dead, but when I couldn't stand the stench any longer, and the number of people who turned up to help became lesser and lesser I quit to the forest taking all that I needed from the empty homes.

Wilderness is exciting, but it can only keep one entertained for so long. So when I finally got over being surprised every day that I was still alive, I came back to the city.

I was hoping I would find other survivors like me. People who had lived through it. But there were none. It seems so grossly unjust. How could I be still living when everybody else was so profoundly dead?  What strange immunity do I have? A mutation of genes that prevented the virus from activating? I can only suspect but never find out for sure cause I don't have the training or knowledge.

Maybe there are others who live like me, but I have not found any yet. I could be the only one left alive.  I used to have a radio set to watch for transmissions earlier on. But the static depressed me and when I felt I couldn't cope anymore I switched it off permanently.

The Internet is gone too. But I have electricity from the generators and all the diesel I can ever use.

I live in a mall now. In a big furniture showroom, with all the provisions I can need nearby. I watch movies on a big plasma tv that I could never posses earlier. I wear clothes from that designer's shop I always admired. When I want, I ride around the town in a big car, going as fast as I can with the stereo turned up. I exercise daily at the mall's gym. I even shave every day.

I have taught myself some electronics and machine-works so that I can repair or replace things that stop working. These days I am studying medicine and I've built a cache of life-saving drugs. 

I do everything very carefully.  I am the last member of my species. The only thing I want to allow to kill me is old age.

That much I owe humanity.