Faith


Harmonic Demonic Denotation Demarcation Marking Demon Harmonies Noting a Dead Melody; Marking the Death of a songbird singing, swinging sailing…


She’s dead


My Eyes are Searching, Scouring- not Seeing; it’s Sad…


She’s dead


She was Swimming, Sailing, Flailing, Floundering, Falling, she Faltered…


 


for Fear, it’s Frightening for the Fall of Faith and the fall of Face and losing Face and losing Faith and losing the peoples’ best Grace… their Graces, their faces, their faith…


for Fear’s best face; not Graceful.


the Fear of Failing kills Gracefulness and Gratefulness and the Great Faith


the Great Faith in living for Herself, not the peoples’ Face…es


…Faith shouldn’t be the Faith in the Demons of Death; Death: better than Failing, yet Failing in Death and Death: inherent in Failing,


 


the Sad Singing Melody fell to Death’s Door; three knocks and you’re out, about, away, gone,


You’re Dead, she’s Dead.


I said she’s Dead.


I told you she Tried, I tried, I tried Death because I Failed and it killed her, it’s killing me…


I no longer follow Faith.


One knock…


Two knocks…


Almost three…


Almost there…


Death: the truest Enemy.

Some Books


Certainly the best job to have in the year 3514 AD is a librarian. It apparently also is the only job available. In this day and age, librarians run the whole system; computer programming, system maintenance, the handling of dead bodies, the whole shebang. They keep all 3 million of the world’s population hooked up to their books and running.


Librarians also happen to be a group of specifically genetically modified and selected individuals representing the best traits of the human race: dark skin, eyes, and hair; robust body type, good vision and hearing, resistance to disease, agility, high IQ and knowledge retention, etc. They’re the representatives chosen to lead the human race into the next era on a completely decimated planet Earth.


As a librarian, Alan’s job has been eased quite a bit by the development of new code by programmers. He doesn’t have to drag dead bodies of people who’ve finished their books out of their life support any longer; a newly installed conveyor does the trick. Alan’s not really the programmer or engineer type, but he’s super agile and great at handiwork that requires concentration. Like most of the other librarians, he has black hair, brown eyes, and tannish skin. He’s tall as well, and skinny. These days, Alan chats with the other librarians online. But today his best friend has chosen to visit him.


“Alaaaan,” hoots Henrik from outside Alan’s cubicle.


Alan rolls down the blinds to reveal his friend standing at the doorway and steels himself for social interaction. “H-How’s it going, Henrik?”


“Pretty good. I’ve contacted a couple people from the other side of our block to come too.” It was Henrik’s idea to have a meetup of librarians on an off day just to talk in person all at once. Henrik short with slicked back blond hair and constantly moving blue eyes, an anomaly amongst librarians, but he was so smart it was scary. He wears the standard: blue tunic similar to a hospital gown, with waterproof outside and insulated sterile inside, and long pants with sneakers.


The project compound is made of auto tinting glass, 30 stories tall and extremely wide. Every other floor contains the living and working spaces of 20 librarians; 300 in total. The floors below the librarian floors have glass ceilings that reveal endless streams of people tightly packed on slowly moving conveyer belts. They’re all reading books. The whole place is cold and featureless, smells like antiseptic and blood. Alan and Henrik are on the 10th floor.


Alan pushes his black hair out of his eyes. “And I’ve got the people to the west, so that’s everyone.”


“Great,” says Henrik. His eyes gleam. “I look forward to seeing everyone next week!”


Alan salutes weakly. “Aye aye, team leader.”


Alan was first drawn to Henrik because of a brief history summary he posted, which goes as follows:


It was essentially genetic modification that ruined life on Earth. Humans became genetically modified organisms; breeding humans was becoming a common practice and the common public didn’t always select the greatest balance of traits for their kids. The technology to alter peoples’ genes before they were born extended into the black market as well, and the slave market boomed. Extremely cheap or free labor and corruption was present in nearly all manufacturing companies. They used extremely skilled individuals who died extremely early. Prostitution existed too, of course; infertile kids who were engineered to go through massive painful growth spurts, finish puberty at 10, and die at 27. All of these combined effects served to, through a long and complicated process; subvert the world’s economy and management. This led to bad handling of situations and worse decision making. Genetically modified plant organisms replaced all natural crops, and a new disease came up that scientists couldn’t science fast enough to cure, so that ate up most of the GMO crops. The last remaining seeds at the seed banks were planted in a hurry, and there happened to be a drought that year, and the plants couldn’t survive that. Extreme overpopulation spread disease and stretched the food supply to the thinnest. And of course animals and humans died of famine. But behind the scenes, the scientists of the world were busy creating the superhuman guardians of Earth and a revolutionary new revamp of the long-antiquated autobiography. Another thing that the public didn’t know was that every time a genetically engineered baby was created, an information chip planted in each one would track a first person account of everything the child experienced from the time of implantation until death and send it to a massive database containing the information of billions of peoples’ experiences.  A complete rendition of a person’s life would be the autobiography, or just commonly, the book. At first, books were sold for a fortune- which meant only the rich could buy them. This was important so the project could gain more funding. It was a great deal- you’re put on simple life support for the duration of the book, and you get to live the life of a more privileged person with the simple implantation of a microchip. There was a catch, though. you go in as a completely different person and you’d die when the book ended. You live your life as the subject of the book, and their decisions are now yours and vice versa. It’s a bit like virtual reality in that you’re experiencing things that aren’t actually there. When it became possible, people started at the age they began the biography. For example, if John Doe takes up John Smith’s bio at age 30, he’d become virtual 30 year old John Smith. The apparatus that carries all this life information looks like a hardcover book with lines of code instead of sentences. All of this- life support, debugging, etc. is maintained by the librarians. After the succession of natural disasters, these apparatuses were made publicly affordable and available as a way to ease out of life.


The people with history information are often the most interesting and logical of the librarians. Alan is also drawn to Henrik’s theories about how humanity could have been saved through environmental preservation, and his work with research of how librarians could work to preserve the planet.


But one thing is clear: Henrik despises humans and human nature.


Alan truly liked Henrik’s thoughts and theories, but his cynicism and conflicting gung-ho attitude bothered Alan. Either way, the meetup was a calculated risk. The system could run on its own for one day without fail, and they were all there to better discuss how to improve the system. 


The next week, the meet goes well. Ideas are shared, and as projected by scientists long dead, these superhumans do indeed function best as a team. Alan listens and kind of half follows, while Henrik leads most of the discussions and somehow turns everything to support his own ideals. Henrik wants to cut off the book system, and work on returning Earth to its natural state instead. It’s a bit new to the other librarians, who are more familiar with working with the book system. After all, it’s their immediate purpose. But the nagging issue is what they’ll do in the future, which is not apparently immediately important to most. But inevitably, Henrik gets his largish cult of followers and Alan reluctantly follows.


That night, Alan cannot sleep. He hears footsteps outside of his living quarters, but it is pitch black. He hears sounds vaguely like liquid hitting solid ground. Carefully, Alan slips out of his cot, turns the tint off the glass, and turns on the light. It casts a warm glow from the ceiling, and he can see the people below him. He rubs his face with the back of his hand to clear his eyes. What he sees shocks him speechless. The quarters of his neighbor, Bella, is visible. She’s being held by the neck by Henrik, and her normally dark skin has gone paler. Her facial expression is that of pure terror. It’s clear she has stronger arms than Henrik, but he’s holding a knife to her neck. Bella mouths, “Help me!” and struggles against Henrik’s grip. Alan comes to his senses, grabs a fountain pen (the only remotely dangerous thing in sight) and bolts towards them. He slips on a trail of fresh blood outside his room, falls face first, and scrambles to get up. He spits the warm liquid from his mouth.


But it’s too late. Bella falls to the floor. 


Alan now notices that Henrik’s arms are coated with tendrils of red, and it’s easily noticeable in his hair as well. The front of his tunic is soaked in it.


“Alan!” Henrik beams maniacally.


“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Alan lunges for Henrik.


Henrik manages to sidestep but slips and falls. Alan grabs his collar and pins him to the floor in an instant. The conveyors below have stopped moving. A light in the hallway changes color, and bathes everything in crimson.


Henrik smiles again. “I’m tryna save the Earth, buddy. Wanna help?”


“You bastard,” Alan snarls and forces Henrik’s head to the ground. “You ain’t saving anything.”


“We got men on the moon, so what does it matter? They’re all dead, Alan.” Henrik smiles dreamily towards the ceiling. “I got the librarians. 298 of ‘em. I shut the system down too. Books are off and people are dead. These idiots, gathering all in one place! Guardians of the Earth? Don’t mess with me. The ones that agreed with me killed themselves too.” Henrik doesn’t resist when Alan takes the knife from him. “You’re gonna get numero 299, friend. Care to join?”


“Why are you doing this?” Alan brings the blade closer to Henrik’s throat. Alan can see that Henrik’s sharp features are shining with sweat.


“The only way to save the Earth is by letting Mother Nature herself take over. We have to pay for this damage. Gotta repent or something. Ain’t gonna happen if we’re here. Ain’t gonna happen if Bella, Henrik, Alan are here. Ain’t gonna happen if-”


“You crazy bastard.” Alan shoves the knife between Henrik’s ribs.


Henrik gasps, “Number 3 million, 3 hundred,” then goes limp.


Alan sits back on his heels and takes a deep breath.


He begins to cry.


He’s the last man left on Earth.


An hour later, his mind and limbs numb, Alan gets up and walks to his computer. He leaves bloody fingerprints on his keyboard as he searches for number 3 million, 3 hundred.


That’s his book. Alan.


He picks up the chip.


A week later, humans all on Mars and the Moon receive the message:




Lost contact with number 3,000,300



Lost contact with Earth