The Time Capsule Apocolypse

    Mankind has always kept moving. And it moves towards order and standard of life. The major hardships, the difficulties of just staying alive, are rare events and not daily living for the westernized individual. I can only assume that in the next hundred years this advancement will go even further. Higher levels of comfort and uselessness will enter the human lifestyle. What else? A one-world government to end war may be in place. Perhaps poverty and the third-world will be gone.

    The screen that Preston Daniels wore over his face was stifling. Further, it smelt of stale dumplings and trapped in humidity compounding the natural Charleston mugginess ten-fold. But despite the inconvenience of wearing the face-mask and quarantine suit, it was better than the alternative. A swift death. That was one thing that could be said for the Verilius plague, it offered a speedy end unlike most infectious microbes of its kind.

    Preston Daniels tossed another corpse onto the plastic lined truck bed of the clean-up van, ignoring its decay and stench. The body landed firm, with a squishy sort of thud. Berry Stein wasn’t so lucky. “Ugh, sick!” Preston glanced over, seeing how the carcass his partner was carrying had burst at the stomach, spilling its puss all over his orange costume. Preston couldn’t look at it, quickly looking for another, stiffer, body. 

    Preston heard Redford’s disgusted laugh followed by a snappy, "Shut up! It’s all over me, man…” Verilius was highly communicable with an unknown though most assuredly small amount of the population resistant to smaller quantities of the bacteria. “Prest, toss me the FREAKING kill spray!” Not spotting a victim near him, Preston pulled the hyper-disinfectant from his chest pocket and tossed it to Berry, who desperately began spraying down every inch of himself.

    “Calm yourself, you’re not going to die, ya’ puss...” Preston said shaking his head. “You don’t know that!” Berry shouted back, pausing his frantic drenching long enough to point accusatorily at Preston. “At least relax, man, wasting every ounce of it like a woman…” Stein hurled his canister at the jeering Redford, bursting the tin on a rock. “You jack-ass!” “Redford, I was just…” “Get it up before we loose it all.” “No, Red, I mean, I just… yeah.” Listening to the order, Berry got a knuckle-joint punch to the back of his head from Redford whilst Stein knelt down to recover the compound.

    Yes, an all too non-fictional strain of the deadly T-50 bacterial agent exposed to approximately ten people in a society unprepared for a bio-terrorist attacks, accounting for a moderate level of viral evolution, could and probably would create a world similar to the one portrayed in the above narration. Why would this ostensible travesty occur? More importantly, how?

    Simple. Young Jacob Miles is eagerly awaiting school on Thursday. Their fourth grade class has won the privilege shared only by seven other elementary aged classes in the state. This fun affair is that of opening a time capsule. What would people in the barbaric twentieth century feel appropriate to send to the future? These ancient humans, (it’s hard for Jacob to think of the amoral people of old as his same species,) obviously had some message accompanied by a few trinkets in their little metal tube. Jacob didn’t intend on missing that point.

    But how could this steel container relate to the apocalypse? If it were up to me what to put in said capsule, the two would go hand in hand. That’s right. In my ideal scenario, a plague would spread across a utopian world as the result of an innocuous act. That is the opening of a cylinder. What better than a tool of death and war to represent our time, nay, all times that mankind has been in control of his Earth? This is not an essay of cynicism. I don’t pretend to know the world good enough to write it off as just a piece of crap.

    An analysis that I can fairly make is this: nations and communities are always on the brink of conflict. If the threat of war is not imminent, then the internal destruction of a society is a concern. Therefore, a looming peril locked away in a box as culture advances, an ever present menace waiting to devour a progressive people, and a hazard with an equal potential of being diffused or exploding on the whole planet, is a shadow mirroring the flaws and frail humanity of my generation.

    Mr. Steinberg addressed the eighty-nine children, forty-six parents, and seven instructors present with the same authority and confidence that he used when addressing his own class… none. Jacob chuckled with his friends at Steinberg’s stuttering. The small pride the Miles boy had felt towards his teacher for conducting the opening ceremony turned into amusement. “Alright. Uh… Oh---kay.  This is from a long time. Of course, it’s a time- uh- from a hundred years. Very, um, historical. Uh, a time capsule which I’m sure that you all know… Anyway- uh, I hope you enjoy…”

    ‘Should I stay with my friends or crowd in closer for the view?’ Jacob was too short to see over anyone and his brown hair already fell far enough into his eyes to impair his view. Jacob realized that his friends nonchalant behavior wasn’t from lack of curiosity, but from trying to keep their cool. The boy bit his upper lip, bouncing on the balls of his feet, practically ready to explode if he didn’t get closer. ‘They’re about to open it!’ With one last furtive, pleading look at his friends, Jacob shot off like a rubber band through the crowd.
   
    He pushed past the adults, mostly, as these were least likely to retaliate. There were not any excuse me’s as Jacob had as little regard for politeness as he did for his ‘cool-guy’ image. The boy did not check to see if any of his companions had broken character and followed him until he safely arrived to the inside row of the half-moon circle. ‘There’s Andrew! He followed me. Too late, though. You’re not going to make it, bud. I’ll have to get a good enough look for the both of us. It's opening! It's---’






    “But…” It was a little girl who spoke first after a long and stunned silence. “There’s nothing in there.”

    Of course, there would be something in it. The T-50. Such an apocalypse would be a necessity in a perfect world. Some say that a utopia cannot be achieved. Maybe they are right. But if humans can somehow overcome their differences and other challenges presented by the environment as well as human nature, then obstacles must not only stand in people’s way until being overcome but they must set those same people back preventing them from fully achieving their dreams.
A person cannot live without challenges. We thrive on defeat as well as un-achievable desires.

    My grandfather knew a man who literally lived in a hole-in-the-ground-house constructed of garbage. He spent his days scavenging for discarded items like a bird building a nest. This fellow seemed to have no ambition, but he did have a deep desire to one day go fishing. Fishing was fantasized and romanticized. Even still, after my grandpa traded to the ‘garbage man’ a fishing pole for an old 12-Gauge shotgun the guy never took his newfound ‘prized possession’ to a lake or stream. Not once.
   
    Why? Whether or not a person achieves anything big in his/her life is unimportant.  This is fortunate, since it is the lot of the majority to be unremarkable. (After all, if everyone was extraordinary than extraordinary would be ordinary.) Instead, we must simply thrive and attempt. When life becomes too easy, or people as a race have accomplished too much, or society is organized enough where all it’s members shoulder the burdens of others, humanity needs either a jumpstart or restart. Obviously, the T-50 agent released upon a future generation would be a restart.

    Let me draw out a scenario. You are dead. There is an afterlife, it lasts no longer than forever and no shorter than infinity. There is heaven to choose from and hell. Heaven is serenity, an eternal calmness with beauty and luxury and any imaginable amenity. But that is it. There is no glory of God or higher plane of existence. Okay. It is Hells turn. Hell is the opposite. In Hell, the souls of men are constantly engaged in a manner of spiritual warfare with factions and alliances and organized armies. Temporary advancements can be gained, advantages pressed, reprieve from battle does occasionally come.

    But the warfare always retains its intensity even though any ‘kill’ does not actually eliminate ones opponent as all enemies regenerate as surely as you yourself would. Which afterlife would you choose? Most people’s intellect would have them pick the heaven. Our mind, our rationality would know that picking peace over war is the ‘right’ answer. That is the logical and moral answer. Even still, our spirits, our nature, would call out for the conflict that would never end. We need something that we perceive as important to occupy ourselves.

          Through hardship bonds are formed. Through all the apparent problems in the world we have something to blame for our own shortcomings. Through difficult circumstance we retain our humanity. Through the time capsule these above ‘negatives,’ (as they are perceived,) will be protected. Through the time capsule my generation will be reflected and human nature will be embodied.
Plus, it would make a good April fools prank.

    ‘How could this happen?’ The last remaining Miles thought as he lay in a pool of blood only half his own. ‘How can I be lying here? How can my parents be dead? How can everyone… how can everyone... how can I…’ Jacob joined the dead, who always seem to love company.