the story teller

I wrote this originally as a movie script concept or a novel but I liked the 

narrative tale into which it turned. 

It reads, to me, exactly as something told around a campfire.

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My name is Della and my age is 395 full seasons. I am the last of the elders and the last of those who remember. I have asked that this story be told as I say it. It is my fault; it is my doing that it is as it is. I can’t ask for forgiveness. I can’t even ask for understanding. I can just tell it the way it was and that’s all.

At the time of the First Conflagration I was 32 and called a scientist for that was my duty and my training.

The thing happened this way. In my youth people lived in nations not villages. The nations were lines drawn in the minds of men and agreed on in the old days. Wars were fought to create the agreements .The killing was mostly called civilized; one side stood up tall up against the other. They died for a hill. They died to change the lines. They died over agreements broken. For gold not paid or to take the gold from another nation. They died because others were the wrong color. They died because of what god the others worshipped. They died because they worshipped the same god in a different way. They died because they were stronger. They died because they were weak. They died to remove a terrible leader. And they died at the hands of those who tried to free them.

In the end they would no longer stand up one against the other. They killed and died without the benefit of some ancient honor. They killed and died over the smallest difference. One bomb fell because the hatred finally became alive. It had tried since the beginning of time to breathe, live and render the petty squabbles forever done so that it may rule in a grander form. Two bombs fell; it was said to end a war and to end all wars. Hate lied but for a time war was won by grander machines and even antiseptic. People sat in their homes and watched on TV boxes, that way there could be no doubting whom to hate.

The third bomb fell on the desert people called ‘ heathens’. Hate told them that naming them made it easy. It was easy. But these pagans thought they knew god, they had bombs too and they fell in retaliation on those who say they loved their god above hatred. And the bombs and nations fell one after another. It is still hard to remember just how many people there were. Everywhere and every place there were people. So many people in the thousand thousands, in the million millions and still ore beyond count. People covered the Earth. In seven months and seven days the bombs fell small terrible bombs and grand horrific bombs that fell of there own accord, killing six of every ten persons. Then there was the miasma made where we twisted the smallest of living things into the largest of monsters.

I made the monsters with people like me. We made the bugs and released them on the rest of an already lost world. As if the explosive effect on a body wasn’t enough for 'Hate.' We made them suffer with vile illness; they were made then to die drowning in their own bodily fluids.

My husband died in a nation that was mostly desert. My three children died from the miasma made by others like myself. Along with one-half of those on the Earth who had lived through the bombs.

Then I in a determined madness and some insane genius invented a serum that protected people from the miasma and the radiance left behind by the bombs. Most of the world was dead in the wake. My teams of guilt motivated scientists and I traveled the world to dispense the blessed liquid. I believe now we sought redemption. We found none. Whole communities, who had survived, had taken their own lives rather than face the ruined world. Others were dying slowly beyond our help. Others gathered under monstrous men who protected and terrorized their wards. The world had reverted to feudalism, nobility claimed in brutality. For a time Hate was the new god.

We went home, having judged who should have the elixir and who should not. We were the sadder for it. Yet we did vaccinate many thousands and they were given the vaccine for thousands more.

Years past and more died. The patience of the Earth was at an end. She shook and spewed ash and fire from hundreds of volcanoes. And again in that protracted night one-half the people died. In time the total people of the Earth was no more than 150,000. The god of hate was cast out and from a profound loneliness, each sought the company of the other. And so it was, we settled in villages located in lower South America.

There was an another sorrow. Women outnumbered man 6 to 1. These men were good men but tired and defeated deep in their souls. This depression had another effect. For the most part they were functionally impotent and their sperm weakly viable. It was the men’s decision to have women rule. They were content to husband the farms and coupled only when forward and demanding women insisted. There were pregnancies and some of the babies survived although not as many as to replace those adults who died. The men lived apart on the farms and the women lived in communal centers and cared for the children together. For generations it was this way.

As you may have guessed those who took my serum lived very long but only women and most of them died violently. The men who survived all died of cancer although most lived to their seventies a great feat in these times. All the injected were sterile. We women, who survived, were eventually revered and almost worshipped. The average life span of a human in this time was 45 years and they died of old age. In time we elder women began to rule, living separately and waited on. Not because we wanted it but because it was prudent and the people demanded it. We taught reading, writing and arithmetic. English was decided on as the language but words of other language’s crept in and a common language formed separate from the formal language that was spoken to we elders. True English was sanctified and the common language was foreign to us. To our horror we had become a religion. Some of us took our own lives and some of us just wondered off never to be seen again. Then we elder women were only ten. The race of humans thinned further in each decade.

Then they came. They were not human. They came from another star that died and killed their world. These were the Viyens. They arrived 1100 here approximately three males to one female. So many who dared to hope died in the planet drop, burned up in the atmosphere. The intact drop ships were useless. They were truly stranded and wretched. They were beautiful in their way with skin of orange-gold and a grand plume of red hair across their heads. Eyes of emerald green and tall. The common height was seven feet and slight even feminine in manner. We welcomed them. They settled in a valley of their own, away from the human villages. We elders did our best to learn their language and they with ease learned ours. All visitations were formal and in English.

Then trouble in the alien settlement ensued. The females of their race became sick from what faint miasma still wafted in the air. We could do nothing even after the surprising realization that their physiology was not that much different than ours. We found that although antibiotics were useless against the already tortured immune systems of humans it did prove somewhat helpful to the visitors. If their females survived they were sterile. We elders decided to inject those females with the concoction I had invented and in time they joined our governing group. They were 10 in number the rest had died. They and we often cried. The visiting males sought comfort for their loss and there were human females interested, curious and willing. The issues of these joining were strong vital, beautiful and came to full term in 7 months. These children were a splendid hybrid of intelligence, strength and grew quite quickly. The alien males took them and raised them. These blended children male and females of equal number thrived and contributed to the whole of both communities. They were honored and loved by both races. In time human males were no longer sought for sex. The human males were relieved to be released from that duty. And created a type of monastic life meditating, working and seeking forgiveness from a male god who they so completely failed. We left them alone and often cried.

There seemed to be a balance for generations. The alien males lived long and were amorous. The blended folk mated only amongst themselves and it proved to be a blessing. The children were exactly the same as the parents. A new race was on the Earth.

And so we come to the time of this writing. There are no more Humans except we ten. There are no more Viyens except the ten we injected. The new race worships us as goddesses. We Humans who tried to destroy our world. And the terrible secret carried by the Viyens, they arrogantly tried to alter a dying sun and instead hastened its destruction by millennia. We were not ones to worship. The last thing we will not say is a forgotten bit of information. In orbit around the planet is a huge Viyen ship and in the mountains of Old Colorado we hid repaired escape vehicles that will reach that ship. We pray that in time this new race that know they are sons and daughters of Humans and Viyens, knowledge ‘a knowing’ we placed in their DNA, will avoid war and hatred and find this ship to seek others to befriend.

Our need is past, we twenty ancient Human and Viyen, and so we have decided to end our long and weary lives. We have already taken a poison that will painlessly put us to sleep. If there is a god or goddess we come to be held and comforted.

End

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