Down Train

“How did I get here?” He wonders, utterly confused.

“I remember leaving the city in a slow and dirty train.” he muses, “The scenes we passed were dismal and bleak, the very essence of the world we knew would come soon, which could have been avoided… and yet, we allowed, because we were so desperately in love with our own wealth, power, convenience and short-term profits!

He finds himself alone in the railway carriage.

The scene outside is of a wide, dry and yellow field.

Far in the distance, he spots… what? A patch of green?

He gets up, crosses the dirty and shoe-scarred carriage floor.

He opens, with some difficulty, the nearest door and descends…

The ground is gritty and dry. He cannot see people or other signs of life nearby. Except for the tired train and rusty rails, there are no man-made structures anywhere in sight.

“So, what do I do now?” he asks the empty space.

His eyes are, of necessity, drawn to the only sign of life, the distant green oasis in the parched and lonesome wasteland. He leaves the tragic train behind.

The stunted grass is more than dry, it is brittle; it turns to dusty powder under his ambling feet. The soil is dead and hard-baked by the sun. The sun itself seems beaten as it shines down on the wintry scene. The air itself is stale and acrid in his nose. There is no sound, but for the crunching of his soles.

For a while, it seems as if the verdant spot keeps on receding, fleeing from his slow approach. Eventually, he senses that he is getting closer to the landlocked isle. It is a little woodland, nestled in a narrowing gap between two rocky slopes, dominated by one slightly larger evergreen.

The space beneath its canopy is clear, with other trees and bushes forming a living screen around it. From the further side, he hears a soft and gurgling sound; a modest spring spills into a narrow ditch that disappears among the trees – Ah, what sanctuary!

After slaking his thirst with cool, refreshing water, he sits down at the fountain, studying this miracle of nature, this tiny stand and stronghold against a world gone stale and lifeless, killed by humanity.

“Now what?” he wonders, “It wouldn’t be the sorriest place to die… and feed the soil with my small store of minerals and moisture…”

He is not surprised or scared at hearing scuffling noises in the undergrowth. What he observe, however, rattles him to his bones. Entering the clearing is a band of creatures, neither animals nor human beings, as it seems – or both, or somewhere in between? The group of hominids, walking erect, but with a swinging gait, gathers around the tree. They do not see him, or if they do, do not care or worry much about him.

“What on earth is happening to me and to the world I’ve known?”

The apes (or early human beings?), whatever they may be, surround the tree and… sing? Or chant? Or pray? There is a sense of awe and adulation, but not directed towards the tree itself, he thinks, but… to some nature spirit? Perhaps. After a while, they end their sonorous worship? They sit down in groups to eat some nuts and berries and, what looks like pieces of dehydrated meat. Some go to the fountain with dry gourds, filling it with water for their kids and older folks. It is a joyful scene.

The… people (he decides to call them) communicate with grunts and noises, groom each other, showing the signs of close-knit clans or families. He is still wondering what to do himself, when a small child walks up to him and, without fear or any awkwardness, hand him a bunch of berries. When he silently starts to cry, she seems a bit perplexed, but not alarmed.

Later, they gradually disperse into the kloof, to caves and shelters, he assumes, to sleep and spend the night. He finds himself a sheltered hollow, with grass enough to cushion bumps and holes. His clothes protect him, in a fashion, against the cool night air. Sleep eludes him as his thoughts swing between the recent gloom-filled past and what he has seen today. Too young to have tasted ‘the good old days’, as his elders called it, but old enough to witness decades of ruination, he has seen humanity teetering on the edge, never quite plunging over, but much too close, and now… too late to turn around? Yet…

He is no scientist, but knows enough to recognise some signs, and wonder…

“What I have seen today is simply… impossible. The only ways to try and explain, is too fantastical. Time travel? If so, into the past or future? Brain damage with hallucinations? A crazy dream? Or real, as if ‘RESET’ was pressed to dial reality back to ‘Default Mode’?. Is Homo sapiens (or Homo whatever?) getting another chance to play this game? And if it is, what am I doing here? I’m more of a threat, than boon, to a successful second round…”.

He stares up to the stars, as clear as he had never seen them. No astronomer himself, he cannot be sure, it is even the same night sky?  

“Another universe? Or is it all a simple gift (if so, why me?) to witness and enjoy a simpler, truer time? Is there a world like this for everyone, a different kind of heaven than those we have imagined?”

Rising, after a belated, restful slumber, he enjoys a simple meal with his new-found clan. He attempts, through grunts and gestures of his own, to show his gratitude, then follows them while they forage for food, hunt small mammals or rest under the canopy of trees…

“What am I doing here? How can I help a clan that needs ten thousand years to grow into… what? A copy of ourselves? Heaven forbids! To teach them… what? It is too early for them to treasure the art and (better aspects of) culture of modern man. I cannot protect them or ‘improve’ their state (as some of our cultures had tried to do for the pitiful ‘uncivilised’!). There are a million ways to harm and corrupt them, though.”

Unable to fathom this mystery, he simply accepts his destiny and lives a simple life among them, learning from them, but holding back anything that might pollute their pristine state. In time, he formulates a theory, wrong or right, that satisfies his modern soul’s longing for sense and purpose.

“I am of little use. Potentially I’m toxic. I will not interfere. In most respects they are (objectively observed) better off than we have been, after our aeons of ‘improvement’ and civilisation’s long-term effects. They will, however, also ‘develop’, ‘change’, ‘evolve’ – that’s nature. The best that I can do, I guess, is be a kind of… ‘early warning system’…

“A little misstep now, may cause a similar deviation than ours 10 ooo years from now - or a fatal cul-de-sac. I’ll only be here for half a generation, but still… I may be able to serve and protect them – and future generations – in this way:

“By watching out for symptoms of those kinds of idiocracy, that may in time, lead to extinction, or worse, to them becoming just a bit TOO HUMAN!”