Learning How to Save the World

“What will you do once you’ve ended this war with your enemies and their families?”
Teil couldn’t help but be filled with incredulity “What will I do with them? What would they do to us? They’ve pillaged, raped, murdered and destroyed any of the villages that stood in their path during their terrible march why should we give them quarter? Should we as a species extend our hand in friendship only to see it cut off at the wrist?”
A knifing pain, sharp as any blade, left him feeling as if his lungs were filling with blood. Accompanying this pain were several images. Whole villages of Brune children and families enjoying their lives in a civilized manner much like humans do. With astonishment Teil realized that their habits were not so different from his own from the way that they set the table for every dinner to the way they gathered in large groups for merriment and celebration. “I understand your intentions spirit you show me that the Brune’s are not so different after all in some regards. However coming to you now all I have known is a world where the Brune are our hated enemies. I have seen hundreds of small, helpless villages converted into steaming heaps of ashen bodies and burnt homes.  Thousands of years of human history and civilization have been brought haphazardly to the brink of ruin and there is no rhyme or reason for it. Why are the Brune’s pardoned for attacking us and we are punished for defense? You condemn me spirit for my ignorance and yet rather than teach me a better way you lash out like a spoiled child and seek to destroy my very soul? Spirit help me! Help my world! You must know that in their march the Brune have destroyed both human and animal without regard for whether they were friend or foe. You deem my actions selfish in wanting to rid the Brune’s for the sake of humanity but I tell you it goes beyond mere self-preservation. Even more so than saving my race I wish simply to stop the madness and wanton destruction that seems to follow in the wake of my enemies. You condemn my actions and in doing so you unfairly justify the actions of my enemies who are worse by far.”
Teil could feel impatience emanate from the glowing form in front of him followed by a resigned sigh. “You show a willingness to understand rather than succumb to blind hatred so I allow you to continue to live. I warn you however that you will have to continue to struggle with the pain for there is still much for you to see.
A rush of extraordinary pain paralyzed Teil momentarily  and made him wish desperately for an end to his life. After rocking backward on his heels Teil slumped helplessly to the floor, screaming and writhing uncontrollably. As quickly as it had come the pain seemed to evaporate and in its place images flashed through his mind. Many images did not make sense to him. Clearly he was seeing humans but in a manner of dress he had never seen before. Strange metal creatures containing humans rolled across grey roads at speeds no horse could match. Magnificent cities consisting of buildings seemingly stretched skyward to dwarf even the highest of mountains. Even in a world as different as this one humans continued to break bread and share their lives in much the same way that humans and Brune do. As quickly as Teil was introduced to this strange civilization so too was he introduced to the concepts of greed, overconsumption, pollution and planetary devastation on a scale which he never dreamed possible. Thousands of floating sea creatures covered in some kind of black toxin, entire forests teeming with life stripped bare until naught but soil and stumps were left behind. Eagle-like machines containing humans in strange helmets tore through the skies at impossible speeds and dropped containers that exploded into mushroom clouds annihilating millions of lives in an instant.
“What I have shown you,” continued the spirit, “is both your past and your future. Brune or human it matters not your species has already indulged in the kind of wanton destruction that you seem to think the Brune alone can cause. Your race once discovered that the world is limited in what it can provide, that humans must be limited in what they consume. But no species can fight its own nature.”
Teil saw the same city from before with its enormous buildings only in the streets were hordes of people emaciated and dying. In one room a desperate man ends the lives of his wife and son knowing that, having just lost his only means of income, he had no chance to keep them fed and healthy. Rioting escalates across the globe, dark people, light people, brown, yellow their skin mattered not for it was the same across the world. The humans had grown too large in number for their world to support them. Governments attempted to place limits on the amount of children that could be had and in response millions marched on what they saw as a violation of their natural rights. What was the answer here? Aid that was promised to the poorer people and smaller nations never arrived and so hatred grew towards the wealthy individuals and establishments. Tears fell freely down Teil’s face but his screams of denial and horror were no use. The spirit needed mere microseconds to impart this information but to his unfortunate protégé it seemed like many lifetimes would pass watching as an entire world of human beings tore itself to pieces. Magnificent fires erupted across several of the larger nations signaling world war 3. Teil realized that he was doing more than simply seeing the destruction of the ancient humans that came before he was also being made aware of the thoughts, ideas and knowledge of the individuals who existed in that time. It felt at this moment that Teil’s very soul was drifting away and being replaced with another. Struggle as he did in the end Teil was replaced with the identity of a very different man in a very different time.
***
I'm standing with my best friend in the world, the person who has been with me through pain and pleasure every step of the way for the last and best 8 years of my life. So many memories are flooding my mind each one demanding my attention like a pack of hungry kids asking a foreign traveler for just a scrap of bread or a small coin. The series of memories that grab my attention in the end are the first dates we had before officially becoming a couple. We had been together for just a few months before making it official but it felt like each instant would last a lifetime and I suppose that they have. I wonder why I can remember it all so vividly. Was it the uncertainty of every moment wherein I did not know your feelings or was my joy really so great every time you shared a smile or word with me? I have cherished memories that go back well over 30 years and yet these memories are the clearest of them all. Looking back on them now feels much like I imagine remembering my own birth would be like.

A bead of sweat drips down my face onto yours leaving me wishing that I could wipe it away and yet I can't. In the insanity of this awful moment I could not even reach out to shoo away a fly if one was buzzing around your face. The despair that grips me threatens to cave my body inwards and so I redouble my efforts and push back against the weight that seems so intent on stealing you away from me. The sound of a far off explosion rumbles its way towards us. I'm terrified that this is it. There are no words between us, you simply hold your phone out so that we can look at each other until the end comes for us. Another rumble, another shockwave but in the end I again manage to keep from falling. I try to focus on you but it’s so hard to when an extra jolt of pressure forces me forward by just an inch. Stubbornly my muscles, already screaming for a break, stay in place. Once I have stopped my descent I push back refusing to give that inch for fear that in doing so momentum will force me to give up a mile which I could not spare. Tears start to mingle with the sweat that covers my face and I whimper slightly. There is no shame in it. I'm fighting for survival, both yours and mine. You attempt to stand again and though the courage that surely resides in you implores you to help me your broken bones won't allow it.

Your mouth opens slightly but in the end your silence is maintained. Our eyes seem a conduit through which we share our thoughts, in particular the warmth I see reflected in your eyes bring me back to yet another memory. The first time we kissed was moment filled with such joy that even God would be jealous of the heaven we shared. "Keep your kingdom in the clouds invisible man. I see your kingdom and raise you one amazing girl." I said these exact words and held you aloft, almost blasphemously challenging God to take you from me then. "AAH! Put me down you oaf! Hahaha. Just kiss me." How could I not continue to oblige? Our lips met and we proceed to generate enough energy, raw emotion and passion to light the world on fire.

Even if we manage to pry this burden from my shoulder much like a bulldog that has bitten down too hard my legs feel as though they will be locked permanently in place. I want to stay here and focus on you but I can't. To do so would mean acknowledging that my back was threatening to break and that I would be unable to save either of us. "If my legs give out I'm not just killing myself I'm killing you." In a last desperate attempt to free us from this cage I scream out and push against the unforgiving tide of a fallen building. AS the rubble shifts a beam which had been helping me support the weight begins to loosen. The rubble begins crushing down towards you.  You make your body as small as possible yet steel begins to scrape across your back and you scream out. "GO! PUSH! If you stop we'll die! PUSH!."

Defying anatomy your body rises into the air. Are you standing? Impossible you're...pushing? Helping me? You always have helped me. When we first met I was so lonely, sad and miserable. I had lost so many friends and family members to starvation or murder and I had certainly given up on finding a partner to share my life with. Closer to 30 then to 25 I was worried my best days had already passed me by. I buried myself in my work, both for physical and financial benefit. My life was a swirling mess of blood, sweat, tears, paperwork, steel bars and iron plates.

But then I found you. I was inspired by you to be a better man just so I could be deserving of your company. Now here you were helping me again and I realize that though I was lucky enough to be with you I was still not good enough and I love you all the more for ignoring that fact all these years. I can see the pain in your wincing eyes and hear it in the high pitch squeal you emit while trying to conceal a scream for my sake. Even now when death surrounds us and the pain in your broken leg threatens to cause you to lose consciousness you think only of me. I'm so sorry that I can't stop all of this and in your eyes I see clearly that you are just as sorry that you can't stop all of this for my sake.

Your words finally puncture the silence "Honey..." Puncture me. "Honey." Tickling down my leg what is...? SOmething about your voice it frightens me...I follow your eyes down to your waist and the terror that grips me somehow numbs my body to the pain and strain of it all. A sharp bit of metal, red with your blood. "NO!" I shake my head and try to deny the sight of what was undeniable.  You were dying. My throat dries and I can't really put into words how empty i feel knowing that there was nothing I could do to save you now. My attention focuses so intensely on the fact that you are impaled that I cannot figure out why body refuses to shift over...In response to my insistent twisting a warmth begins to spread out over the lower half of my body and I realize that I'm impaled just as badly as you are. Had she not stood when she did her head would have been taken instead of her body so perhaps this was the only reprieve we would receive.

"Ack! This sucks." I try to smile at you with that same boyish grin you fell in love with. " I don't actually feel any pain anymore."

"Neither do I. It hurt more when you accidentally threw me into the ceiling fan trying to celebrate the fact that I'm pregnant!."

You don't seem to lament the fact that a steel beam is currently occupying the space that used to be taken up by the embryo that would have grown to be our child so I don't either. I guess in a strange way we all get to die together, as a family. Just like that we begin sharing memories of one another, memories of our youth, all of our greatest experiences in life come pouring out of our mouths fast enough to put a speed talking commercial salesman to shame. These last moments before our life ebbs away are enjoyable because we don't spend them worrying about death or the things we've lost, instead we spend this time reliving the life and things that we have already experienced together. The first time that we did it all it went by way too fast. Our marriage, our first kiss, the nights spent cuddling outside and staring at the stars, enjoying watching our favorite teams win or lose, even the nights where we play fought with one another. All of these memories take center stage during our revelry, every kiss, every playful tease, every act of love making we engaged in receives its time in the sun. I cannot believe I had forgotten the time when I was in such a rush to get to work that I neglected to realize it was Saturday. When I returned home the laugh we shared at my expense was one that I was more than happy to share in again this day. By the time we are done we've twice lived a life as happy as any that has ever been lived.

Neither one of us would ever know it but our hearts stopped beating at the exact same time. Our heads sunk slowly and we were frozen forever with our foreheads gently, lovingly touching, a smile on each of our faces, truly happy. Death itself could not erase our best and final moment which was the moment when we lived a second life using nothing but our words, memories and love to guide us through what should have been a crippling pain.

It was World War 3. Nuclear bombs roared , mushroom clouds thrashed about as if driven insane by a the pain of the millions of deaths it was causing. In major cities all around the world fires whipped the sky until the angels above bent over screaming in torment. Hardly any human survived the bombs and destruction. But some inevitably found a way to survive and rebuild. Many millenia later our bodies would be found preserved still in a tight embrace. Despite the death and destruction of our race the people who stumble upon us know that even in our final moments there were those who also had their finest moments.
***
Teil came out of this memory sobbing uncontrollably on the ground but before he could regain his sense of self the assault on his mind continued. As he continued to learn the details of his races history he became familiar with the work of a brilliant geneticist. His research led to a large group of humans being genetically altered to survive the nuclear winter. A double edged sword, the DNA tampering conferred radiation resistance as well as eliminating much of the sophistication and intelligence that the humans had possessed. Humans had been engineered to survive as a mutant race, a feral race and so the first creatures who would become known as the Brune were born.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the world on one island a dozen or so humans survived in a shelter designed to withstand the radiation. In a few generations dozens became hundreds which became thousands and again within this small vault humans were faced with overpopulation and starvation. War amongst the survivors broke out and a large portion of the surviving humans were killed, some were even cannibalized during this time. “Was humanity doomed to replay the same scenario over and over?” Teil thought to himself The Brune population grew but did so slowly for their feral nature and the lack of natural resources prevented their population from growing too far out of hand. Eventually they would use what limited knowledge they possessed to colonize the western continents.

In the shelter where the last remnants of humanity remained a law was successfully established to allow only specific humans to reproduce at certain intervals of time based on their genetic makeup. This was done to avoid both overpopulation and in breeding. Having learned from the past and seeing no alternative men gave up their loved ones sexually to limit the population and keep the species at genetic equilibrium. Though faced with the horrible prospect of population control at long last humans in this time managed to think not only of themselves as individuals but of their role in helping the entire species survive. The community thrived until the day when Brune’s came. Confused by the structures before them the Brune’s ignorantly destroyed the generators that kept electricity flowing throughout the human base. Simultaneously all power was lost and so too was the ability to use computers to keep a record of humanities knowledge and history. No human was capable of building a computer from scratch nor was any human possessed with the electrical and mechanical knowledge needed to restore power. Humans were again thwarted by their own ignorance for none thought to gain an understanding of how to build and maintain the technology that they so heavily relied upon. The humans had been made so complacent by their present peace that they did not think much of creating contingency plans to ward off future disaster. The Brune beasts had no comprehension of what they had done, they were innocent enough in their further exploration of the vault but the humans reacted to their error with hatred and violence.

For the most part as the generations passed humanity dismissed the tales of magnificent cities, starvation, war and ruin and instead embraced a philosophy of expansion and destruction of all things Brune. The radiation had dissipated and so humans were free to spread and grow as much as the resources of the world would allow but of course in doing so humans came into further direct conflict with the Brune race. As time passed the Brune’s were falsely accused of being naught but evil, unthinking beasts who sought the destruction of humanity. Humans could no longer recall what the Brunes had done to the generators but nonetheless they had been raised to hate to hate each other and fight in a war that lasted till this very day.
Unable to form words Teil could only sit and absorb all of the knowledge that he had been given.  Humans and Brunes being one and the same, entire civilizations torn to pieces, population control, genetic tampering?

Satisfied with what had been shown the spirit spoke once more “Why should I show your kind favor when you are one and the same? If only I could share my knowledge with all of you but I cannot. I can only impart these snippets of information to you and you alone. You have not shown me that you are worthy of this burden or willing to use this knowledge for the greater good but at the very least you seem capable of guiding both species towards the right path. You now hold inside of you the combined knowledge and history of the ancient humans who came before you. Use it to end your war and unite both races or the human species will die if not as a result of this war then as a result of the next war which will surely follow.”
Knowing full well that this was no spirit before him Teil struggled with the right term to use before finally settling on asking “Who or what are you and how do you do the things that not even the ancient humans in my vision seemed capable of?”

“Hmm,” Teil could not see it but could feel it, the disembodied form was smiling at him yet in its voice was a profound sadness. “I am sorry that I cannot tell you more about what I am but I do not know myself how I came to be or what I am. Before the ancients perished one managed to use technology to tap into me. Based on his work I am some kind of data. Perhaps I am reality converted into zeroes and ones, perhaps I am something more. Maybe one day your two species will thrive and you will once more find your way to me. It would be nice to have someone to talk with instead of being worshipped from afar but I fear that is a day which may never come. While you are here I will change your body much like I changed Ta’Rules.”

Teil’s face crinkled up in confusion. “I do not understand why did you help him when you seemed to intent on refusing to help me earlier?”

“The Brune species does not war against itself and it also does not grow in population to the point of starvation and death. Their species is built on a principle of taking up just enough room to survive comfortably. They are much like a normal group of cells who stop growing so as to avoid destroying the very body that they live off of. You humans on the other hand have been akin to a cancer. Much like cancer humans grow uncontrollably and quickly. Cancer eats away at the bodies resources until both the human and the cancer starve and die much like how you humans in the past have blindly consumed all that you had. I felt no reservation in allowing the Brune’s to win but I do feel great reservation in allowing you, even so armed with knowledge as you are, to escape here. Guide your two races Teil or just as easily as I have convinced you to put aside decades of hate I will similarly drive the next person who finds me to do the opposite. It is much easier to be a selfish individual, destroying, hating and consuming all that you can than it is to share, love and build selflessly as a group.”

At first the glowing being seemed to be drifting away but then Teil realized that it was he who was drifting away. Having finished with it’s warning the entity sent Teil back towards what he knew was the reality he had left behind. Even so armed with the knowledge of how to save the world, even aware of the fact that life itself seemed to hinge upon his every move Teil still felt humble and small. Hubris and ignorance had never been qualities which the thoughtful warrior sought to indulge in and perhaps that is why the entity chose to not only save him but give him the chance to save his entire species as well. A chance which Teil was glad to take “No,” Teil corrected himself while smiling, “…it’s not my chance it’s our chance. God that sounds so…” initially struggling to describe the words that left his mouth eventually he reached back to his knowledge of the ancients. Yes this idea that humanity had to band together and live in harmony was all so “…corny.” With a laugh Teil dismissed the word because even though he was right he also was more than happy to be corny so long as it meant avoiding the horrors that he had seen unfold. Being corny was indeed a small price to pay for saving the world.