A New Paradise

  “Where’s your mask?”

  Leonard looked at Cheryl incredulously.

 “Mask? Why the hell would we need those things anymore? It’s the friggin’ apocalypse.”

  “Well, you don’t have to curse.”

  “I didn’t curse. I said ‘friggin.’”

  “All the same, you should wear one.”She looked out the jagged hole in the wall where a window had been. “The air may be tainted with lord knows what kind of germs.”

 He slowly turned to her and sighed. When he spoke, it was as if he were speaking to a stubborn child. 

  “Cheryl, no matter how tainted the air is, a piece of cloth on our faces isn’t gonna help. Not now. Not after...”

   Suddenly, there was a roar in the air, like an express train about to come through. They both felt a rumble at their feet, and what was left of the walls began to collapse around them. 

  “Earthquake! Run!”

 But where to run? They were the only humans left on Earth as far as they knew. The virus, to the shock of scientists and medical experts everywhere, began to mutate at an alarming rate, making it far more communicable, and far deadlier. No vaccine could quell it. It became worse than any other virus, worse than any flu. People died by the thousands, the millions, the billions. Civilizations collapsed like so many houses of cards, until there were no people left to bury the dead, no one left to morn a loved one. 

  Animals somehow remained unscathed. Not pets, of course. They sadly died along with their owners. But wild animals thrived, feasting on plants and carcasses. And plants, although scarcer, were somehow larger, more vibrant, producing juicier fruit.Then came the earthquakes and gigantic explosions, as if some godly or ungodly force, or the very earth itself, was rebelling against mankind. Against centuries of pollution, both malignant and careless, against violence and wars. Against hatred. Fighting fire with fire, so to speak. 

  Cheryl and Leonard ran from what was left of their house and scrambled over the broken terrain. They ran to what was once a stream, now dried up. In the crooked ditch there lay piles and piles of filthy masks. Cheryl, on seeing this, collapsed and began to sob. Leonard caught her in his arms, and they cried together. 

  “We did all the right things. We made sure we were socially distanced. We wore masks when out In public, we...

  “Shh. I know, I know. We did everything right. But the monster could not be stopped.”  

  They felt more rumbles underfoot as the earth cracked and swayed again. Leonard and Cheryl hung onto each other for dear life. As dusk approached, they were afraid to be eaten by wild animals, which were now everywhere and were more active, and hungrier, at night. At one point, they thought they heard the roar of a tiger or lion, but it was just a gust of wind whipping through the diseased landscape.

  “Maybe we should try to get back home,” said Cheryl. 

  “Why? What good is being at home? At least here we can eat fruits and vegetables to survive.”

  “And probably get eaten by a wild animal.”

  “Look, said Leonard. Let’s find a cave or something to take shelter under tonight, and see what happens after that.”

  Cheryl really felt hopeless about the whole situation, but she wanted to show courage for Leonard’s sake. She agreed to look for shelter for the night, and the couple pretty easily found a hiding place in the recess of a cracked boulder. They ate whatever plant materials nature provided. Leonard and Cheryl lived this way for three days, moving along by day and finding new hiding places by night. They almost began to like it, feeling like romantic explorers in a brave new world. 

 At dawn on the fourth day, Cheryl heard a strange sound, somewhere between a whistle and a sigh. She pointed it out to Leonard. They decided to follow the sound, cautiously. The sun was never bright now that the virus had taken over the world, so they crawled in the semi- fog toward whatever it was. They heard it again and again, beckoning. They wanted to find it before nightfall, before the beasts would emerge. After a time, they noticed a change in the landscape, subtle at first, then all- enveloping, until they found themselves walking on a velvety lawn. Slowly, they got to their feet. The sun was bright and the sky a brilliant blue! Trees were everywhere, of all kinds. It was like... corny as it sounded, a new Eden. A new start. A post- apocalyptic world. 

   They heard the sound again, louder this time. Suddenly, the earth began to tremble once more. The sound was more of a roar than a sigh now. The couple stared into the distance, and the happiness that they felt when they first came across this new Paradise quickly turned to panic, since  the sound that had enticed them from afar, that had drawn them to this brand new world, was now materializing into a brontosaurus. They were too frightened to move, knowing they were doomed no matter what they tried.  Because, clearly, Cheryl and Leonard had found a new Paradise. The difference was, this time, Paradise was reserved only for the animals of the non-human variety. 

   As they were standing there in terror, waiting for certain death, Leonard felt a terrible pain in his left rib, and crumpled to the ground. A moment later, Cheryl felt a pain in her right rib, and likewise crumpled. They lay in agony for a few moments, then something even stranger happened. The brontosaurus cane closer to them. He roared, and the pain disappeared. He roared again, and they were able to stand. But they weren’t the same. They magically, wondrously, were turned into dinosaurs. The brontosaurus roared once more, and they both heard him say, in human language:

  “You are among the righteous, so you deserve the honor of joining us. “ 

  That was the last time Cheryl and Leonard understood human language, or remembered that they had once been human. They were full-fledged beasts now, an honor bestowed on few humans of the past world. And they walked with pride and dignity with their own kind in this new Paradise.