The Fate of Mankind

The spirit drifted down to the once lush planet, now just a cold grey rock drifting aimlessly in the cosmos. It made its way down to what once used to be a village; he began to sadly reminisce on what had been called mankind by those that used to live on this desolate sphere. They had thrived long ago when it was populated by many more organisms, really quite beautiful in its chaotic harmony. The rules of nature created it, just as it had been destroyed. Man liked to believe that the creator was a loving and compassionate being, obviously they were wrong. Nature had given them life and helped them grow, but when it came time for the child to leave its parent, it was not strong enough to survive and thus perished, but unlike a loving parent, nature did not even consider a blink at its child's death.

The ruins of the village had been shattered by war, likely as a result of man's tendency to choose a common enemy to blame for all society's recognized troubles. One could not even begin to guess who the Satan was when this village had been destroyed. Possibly it might have been a new nation attempting to rise above as the global warming was beginning to decimate the borders of the financially weaker countries; but this would appear as a threat to those attempting to ignore the coming apocalypse, and therefore it must be eliminated. The spirit sighed, the last moments of mankind's existence were truly depressing sights; they give one an image of the great things man could achieve if they worked together, but unfortunately they had been completely without direction and would therefore create selfishly and the products proved to be more harmful than beneficial.

The spirit moved onwards towards the great city. It had been totally preserved in the ash, very little large destruction occurred during the time before its instant demise. The bodies of the people were also totally preserved, much like those that the men would study in Pompeii. The spirit drifted past apartments, countless obese forms could be seen through the windows, resting upon their stone couches intent upon their stone boxes several feet away. Near the end of man's life these boxes used to emit obnoxious lights and would help to provide a distraction from the many miseries that accompanied the lives of these late humans. They had other devices as well which helped to ease the self-inflicted pain of modernization, but this was by far the most favored. Often he would lose up to a quarter or more of his life with this frivolous pastime.

The spirit lowered himself down to the streets, all along which could be seen the forms of men running with frozen plastic objects taken from the homes and stores of their brothers. An interesting thing to note about man is that there are many cases in which he will only act a certain way if there is any consequence for acting the way he would prefer. Many are born with what they like to call a conscience, which is nature's way to get men to aid each other and therefore have more successful chances for survival as a whole, but unfortunately when man instituted what he likes to call "laws," he had eliminated nature's strategy in selection and the selfish ones would remain in a society because they now knew how to manipulate the system to better suit their personal needs. With a tear and a chuckle the spirit thought over the hilarity of this race, still with the selfish material mindset that had caused their inevitable apocalypse, even at the point of death.

As the spirit was observing the lonely city, in which all that remains are the memories of what once was and what could've been, something else had caught his eye. It was the ocean, now totally still and frozen. He glided over to its solid icy surface, another symbol of what man has missed in his mistakes to add to the spirit's sadness. Man never had the chance to explore the many wonders of its depths. This reminded the spirit of all the many amazing discoveries that were still there for humans to stumble upon and then analyze with their meager sciences and comically feeble rationalizations. If they had held off global warming for just a short time longer they might've discovered the civilization long buried beneath the dark seas; they could've learned from the past mistakes of their ancient forefathers and received yet another chance for success, but it is unlikely that would've learned anything even if they had discovered the city; they seemed to learn nothing of Rome.

The spirit drifted ever onward, now to what had once been a forest. There was nothing left, global warming had taken all plant life in the last moments, except for the algae, which provided just enough oxygen for man to suffer and hopefully to understand his folly in the last moments. The algae would've inevitably been doomed as well at the point that the forests had disappeared, but the bombs had preserved everything in the ash stasis before that time. As the spirit passed through the grey desert that used to be a thin mysterious path leading into a mystical green dreamland, he began to sadly remember the humans' pathetic excuses. There were several who suggested the possibility that the global warming was one of earth's natural cycles, or at the very least not man-made. Naturally man loved this theory because it would not mean any change in his comfortable way of life. When confronted with the problem he would shrug his shoulders and state that if man is too small to create the problem then naturally there is nothing he could do to fix it, then he would proceed to throw his beer can onto the already-tainted soil, then hop into his gas-guzzling SUV and drive down the block to buy another six-pack.

Man favored this theory, and therefore made little effort to fix this problem, in fact they would rarely even consider it; they had more important things going on such as killing Saddam, firing pedophile senators, listening to 50-cent, and getting drunk. When issues such as global warming arose, the politicians and scientists would say that they'd focus their efforts when they're done with the more important tasks, humanity might be doomed but first we must make sure that gays can't get married and whores maintain their rights to abortion.

The spirit floated along the flat grey landscape and thought upon what had made humanity great, art, love, philosophy. Humanity had many chances to survive but the mob rule attitude had dominated their senses. Nature chose for them to become extinct, along with the rest of their planet, they were not fit to survive and the universe would belong to the more capable species from far off exotic galaxies. Mankind, now not even worthy of study by any of the other great races from these distant worlds, would be gone from the universe, failing in its priceless opportunities. Many individual men screamed for their brethren to wake up and help save their existence, but they were too few, and were eliminated for threatening the popular way of life. Perhaps if man had turned around at that time they might've been able to save themselves, but it is too late now...