Xylanthia the Last Hope I-III

Xylanthia, the Last HopeBook One

A Journalist’s Diary

prologue

The year 2029 on Earth

8.9 billion human beings from the different genetic origin, Caucasian white, black, Asian, Indian, tribal people, and aborigines were living on Earth, the planet which seems to be a fragile blue sphere from the window of the International Space Station, ISS orbiting around it. 

The human race, called Homo Sapiens had at least 260 million-year history from the first step of walking, staring upon the sky in the night and wondering about the hundreds of bright stars above him.

And there came the first settlement, the first civilisation, the first empire, the first war and not speaking of the first astonishment upon blazes of fire. The first drawing, the first letter, the first alphabet was invented, our written history can only be traced back just 7-8 thousand years B.C.

Ancient pyramids in Egypt, Hebrew, Mesopotamian, African civilisations followed each other but it was in 2029 when mankind did not see its future, though technically the 21st century proved to be a dramatic era. 

6 billion people were connected to the Internet with different devices, smart TVs, mobile phones, watches, tablets and computers, even intelligent clothes, shoes, and electronic ankle strips, for example.

On 1st January 2029 a manmade space device, the New Horizons space capsule reached the the mysterios Planet X in the Kuypier Belt and began to transmit the first data to the NASA centre at the speed of only 1 Kbyte/sec.

This image was sent to the artificial satellites and ISS orbiting the Earth and soon 6.7 billion humans were able to watch it by different electronic gadgets, such as smart mobiles, tablets, watches, hologram, and amoled tellies, which were all connected to the wide range speed internet. The image came from 40 AU (Astronomical Unit), about 6 billion km distance from the centre of our solar system.

A new world became visible in this way, structures of great rocks and wide dry canyons could be noticed of an unknown planet.

Fortunate habitats of our planet were able to wonder about this new object and could feel somewhat pride about mankind’s achievement in science, like in July 1969, when Neil Armstrong was speaking about a small step for him and a giant leap in human history, touching the surface of the Moon for the first time.

2.2 billion people around the world did not know about this significant event. The total population of the Earth was estimated to 8.9 billion humans and the planet was divided into two main parts: a high-tech, rich, middle, and upper-class part and a poor one. This part of mankind - billions of people - was a lack of clean water, nutritious food, energy, physical and mental health. They had no devices like a smart wristwatch, Google-specs and they had not heard of Virtual Reality Nausea, they were living outside the welfare Western-type societies and countries. Floods, hurricanes, tsunamis had been quite frequent in the 21st century, especially from the year of 2012. Climate change, earthquakes, erosion, worldwide pollution were the main reasons why life started to become unbearable for billions of men, women, and children.

Science reached its highest peak, for example, the quantum computer was created, which had been invented several years before, not speaking about the experiments in CERN, Switzerland, where scientists proved the evidence of the Higgs-boson in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2015, an essential ingredient of the famous ‘dark matter’, which was considered to be responsible for 78 percent of our Universe.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory Project in the US also examined the existence of dark matter and dark energy. Thousand of inventions, explorations, discoveries could be mentioned but human character, personality, attitude remained as mysterious as the Holy Grail to be found by no one in history, even King Arthur and his knights had failed to find it in the dim past.

Venice, St. Mark’s Square was under water, only the roof of the Clock Tower could be noticed from the magical city, full of canals, churches, chapels, narrow streets, bridges, and legendary history. No honeymoon couples could stay there for a romantic weekend or a vacation anymore...

Chapter one

He ordered a ristretto and a bottle of mineral water and was sitting on a comfortable wooden chair waiting for the waitress to fetch them. András Berzeviczy was thinking about the meaning of happiness in the meantime. Soon he tasted the bittersweet coffee, had some water, and gazed into the distance. He was sitting on the terrace, outside the Neptune Café. The view was splendid, a strong wind came from North-West, it made huge waves in the Bay which had white peaks, drops of water torn by one of the ancient forces like air, fire, earth, and the 5th element, the soul which once he had seen in the movie in the 1990s with Bruce Willies in the main role. How one of our ancestors could be astonished by looking at blazes of fire, he must surely have been happy, when he was able to roast some meat for diner for his family.

Sipping again into the cup with tasty coffee, he put a question to himself, ‘What is absolute happiness?’, sipping again into the cup he felt had had only very short periods which he would have classified as peaceful, content periods or happy eras.

Merely, he realised he had some moments in life, magical seconds, or minutes resembling pure harmony or happiness. One of these moments was vivid when he was sitting on a bench with his girlfriend, slowly reaching each other’s hands, touching and caressing their little fingers, holding them firmly, and András smelt the sweet scent of Bernie, and they kissed each other, saying nothing. 

‘Let us leave scientific classification to philosophers, such as Heidegger and Plato or Kant. Happiness should be as simple as love, as about 1996 years ago when Jesus, the Son of God was speaking about it to his followers, it can be read in the Holy Bible. I had plenty of moments of happiness, also sad moments such as realising the fact of unrequited love. At the moment he was single, his Bernie had told him to delete her phone number saying ‘Do not give me a call anymore and forget me forever.’

It was 21st June 2029, the first morning of his paid holiday, fortunately, he had been offered a new job with significant perks. He remembered when on 3rd February he had managed to get this job as a journalist of a monthly, called Life & Science, published in Budapest, the capital of Hungary.

‘Kékkút mineral water, l’eau de vie’, well, he was still contemplating. He had ancestor, near Lake Balaton, a pearl of her country. His grand-grand father moved to a small village, namely to Vigánt and hired eighty acres of land and with hard work, efforts, tears, and wounds his family had a better life in the 1930s, in the 20th century, somewhere in the Valley of Bakony Mountains. A sound of low music he was listening to, it was a Hungarian singer, called Rúzsa Magdi, András also remembered its title, April.

He was extremely fond of music, especially when a female voice was heard in a song. Avril Lavigne, a Canadian singer was one of his favourites, not speaking about his ‘Beetlemania’ teenage period. He liked several bands of lads as well, like the Queen. The most important factor for him was the quality of a tune. Actual hits, like young Hungarian bands in the 2010s, 2020s, music of Y-generation inspired him also. Pop, jazz, folk, funky, country, even alternative, and classic music also helped to soothe his soul.

After having had a good time in the café for a quarter of an hour, he gave one euro tip for the pretty brunette girl, the waitress, who rushed back to the premise inside. András paid by his mobile phone, a swift movement to the waitress’s gadget was enough, by NFC function. People generally used credit and debit cards as well with pay-pass function, but banknotes and coins were out of fashion and were used for little value payments. Online buying, ordering, and delivering electronic goods, food, clothes, medicine was estimated to 89 percent of trading in Hungary, like in the EU countries and US, UK, South Korea, Japan, or even in Siberia and big cities of Russia. Twenty years passed since the UK stepped out of the EU on 31st Decembre 2020 enforced by a referendum in 2017. After the Brexit, a lot of changes occurred. The economy of Hungary and other Western states seemed to be stable, the stock exchange index of Budapest, the BUX showed a 2.9 point rise on that Saturday of June. FTSE, NYSE, Dow Jones index, DAX, CAC in Paris increased 3 to 5 percent. Euro was introduced in Hungary from 1st January 2025. On one side of one euro coin, the Hungarian coat of arms with the Saint Crown was engraved. András considered himself a proud Hungarian citizen, his country in the Carpathian Basin was located and this member of EEU continued to grow into the direction of a real welfare state.

The political situation outside the EEU and around the world varied according to country and country. But local wars continued in Africa, Asia, Central, and Southern America.

This turmoil strengthened from 11th September 2001, when the two highjacked jets demolished the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. Actually, the modernised part of the planet was guarded by concrete walls, bribed NATO fences, infrared cameras, drones, and security forces both on the ground and throughout the coastline of seas and oceans. He remembered and had regretful feelings about Venice which had almost sunk in the Mediterranean Sea. He had visited this magical city five times, when he was in the twenties, thirties, once in his forties, in 2013. This city, a symbol of European civilization, a jackpot of pairs in love disappeared from the map of Italy, seawater spread Venice, villages off the coast, and half of the great plains of river Po. 

He rushed to his car with a petrol-fuelled engine, though electric Tesla cars, hybrid vehicles, even BMW-Intel made autonomous motorcars, which did not need any drivers, were available. In the Netherlands, lorries carried loads of supplies each day and they were controlled by artificial intelligence and sensors, no drivers were needed.

It was before Brexit, when the UK left the EU in 2019, when British MP, Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death in 2016. Her political idea was that the UK should stay in Europe and an extremist killed her. Fanatic political views from the left to the right, terrorism, the opposition of Christians and so-called warriors of IS, the Islamic State, a religious-military terror organisation threatened the so-called Western-type societies, where GDP was usually above at least 4000 USD, like in the US and its allies. On 12th June 2016 a gunman shot 49 people in an Orlando gay nightclub, it was one of the worst mass shootings in US history, and several high school shootings were followed by a dramatic number of killed youngsters. World, in its complexity, was going to a direction of hatred, racism, segregation, poverty, new problems arose day by day since the planet was overpopulated but our human character had not changed basically. The world began to alter, so many conflicts, problems arose, it proved to be a difficult task to forecast what would happen the following year, month, and even day. The EU was divided into two, WEU and EEU, Western and Eastern European Union, likewise when the Roman Empire was divided into two parts with centres of Rome and Constantinople after 476 A.D. Brussels, the capital of WEU, Budapest, the capital of EEU were the main centres of a dived Europe.

András twisted the ignition key clockwise, pushed the clutch, released the handbrake and put some force to the accelerator pedal. He pushed the radio button and the engine started to roar, music was in the air, Radio Petőfi’s old hit from 2013 was played, a Hungarian singer, Odett’s song was heard.

He was driving home with half-opened windows, and some fresh air got into the car, he thought it might be a moment of happiness, but long-range harmony seemed to be a difficult task to achieve for him. ‘I should find somebody, a girl as a real partner’, but he still was woeful after his past love affair with Bernie, a 24-year old assistant, who had travelled to London in February. Their relationship broke up on 1st January 2029 when András was refused and she said, ‘You’re a kind man but I’m celebrating New Year’s Eve with my friends, sorry to say.’

András knew that was a final decision, and this sentence had ruined his dreams about her. He felt a strong emotion of desire and this answer dashed his hope about their mutual future. 

András Berzeviczy, aged 59 had skills of languages, teaching, webpage design, computer programming and was fond of jobs around the house. He was living with his elderly parents. His father, 79, his mother 77 had several health problems but the most important fact it was three of them loved each other apart from periods of short quarrels and disputes.

During his lifetime he had indeed been able to pin his hope on a girl just thrice, eventually, every relationship with ladies went wrong somehow.

‘Voulez-vous venire au cinema ce soir?’ he asked Katalin when he was a first-year student at the university in the 1990s but he was too shy, his voice trembled a little bit. He rued that moment in his life when Katalin refused him, as Berni did on New Year’s Eve in 2028.

According to his age, he was twenty years younger than Colin Firth but his face radiated a hidden sorrow. ‘It would be good to smile at her again or to be able to smile from inside, thus if you smile at someone, he or she will smile at you, do not forget’, he thought.

Colin Forth was born in 1960, András was born in 1969, when a man stepped on the ground of the Moon, as JFK planned and promised to US people, though his assassination in 1963 remained an unsolved crime till today.

After a 10-minute drive home, he arrived at the cottage in the vicinity of the shore of the North-East region of Lake Balaton. Then the radio was playing Sigala’s song, a high-pitched voice was heard, ’Love is as easy as ABC’, he put the gearshift to rear level and switched the music off in the garage beside his house.

He had a quick lunch at 11.30 a.m., namely some cheese, ham, tomato slices on two pieces of bread, and also drank some diet coke what he preferred. One of his colleagues told him once, ‘If you put a human tooth into a bottle of coke with sugar it will be dissolved by tomorrow.’ She had a dentist's husband so she must have been right. 

A bad feature of his personality was that he was not always able to live like a close friend of him, who gave him advice on 7th January 2000, ‘Just take it easy, don’t worry be happy.’ In 2029 his friend managed to open a café in Sydney, Australia from the amount of AUD he had been earning in the past eleven years working as a waiter in a restaurant of Hungarian owner. ‘He must be 64 with a nice wife’, he knew and thought that he might have the last chance to find his other part in a girl or woman with whom he would be able to live till death.

He was a too romantic type of character, somebody remarked about him as a hero of Don Quixote, Knight of la Mancha referring to his idealistic ideas. Basically, he was an honest and sincere person with some spleen attitudes in his twenties, and he was not as humble as in his teenage period. Blazes of anger, jealousy, misanthropy appeared in András’ soul but he tried to overcome his bad part of his personality. Actually, he believed in God but he did not go to the local church every Sunday in his former lifetime but in 2025 and 2029 he did so. He wanted to be Christened at Easter Monday but life is like a game of cards, he was taken to hospital at that time with a double fracture in his shoulder bone. On 13th February 2029 he got into the hospital, one guy had a radio in the ward and he heard Berni’s sweet laughing voice on the radio before Valentine’s Day, ‘ You’ve won the title of the best couple with Krisztián today’, and it was one hundred percent sure for him that he had lost her, as easy as ABC was... 

This story is dedicated to those in heaven and for those

who live on Earth in peace in their hearts, especially to my family and friends, who can believe in me

To the memory of K.H. and grandpa, grandma, to those who have lost someone special, especially to my Dad

who passed away on 25 July 2017

‘Mankind has moved forward in spite of not realising it

by Imre Madách

h’.,.,

Dedicationlising it’

by Imre Madách, the Last Hope

Dedication

This story is dedicated to those in heaven and for those,

who live on Earth in peace in their hearts, especially to my family and friends, who can believe in me.

To the memory of K.H. and grandpa, grandma, to those who have lost someone special, especially to my Dad,

who passed away on 25 July 2017.

‘Mankind has moved forward in spite of not realising it’

by Imre Madách