Every animal leaves traces of what it was; man alone leaves traces of what he created.

- Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man

Rat-filled ash, with large pieces of bone and chunks of other unidentifiable matter, covered the Earth. In fact, the rats were the only movement seen among the trash. Hideously fat and grotesque, they walked slowly, with no fear of any predator.

They were wise to be unafraid— no one cared to harm them, no one was there to harm them. In actuality, no one was there at all. Or so it seemed.

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The revolution had begun in 3092, when humanity had first encountered its companions from the stars. They were a peaceful and loving people, who re- taught Earth the meaning of complete unity. The world became whole again, and no country, race, or religious boundaries segregated people from each other. The aliens returned to the stars four years after they first came, with a reassurance that Earthlings would be all right.

Soon after the aliens left, sending well-wishes to Earth over radios everywhere, the people of Earth began to get bored with each other. Newspapers were non-existent — their main objective had been to report on terrible happenings around the world that no longer occurred. Newscasts had the same downfall, for the same reason. Even television began to falter, because no one made fun of anyone else and most shows were boring.

Humanity, simply because there was no more war, had grown disconnected from itself in a way never seen before. You see, though wars kill, maim, and hurt those involved, a sense of unity grows between those on the same side. The pride a person feels for his or her country — it was gone. Mankind would not join together just because they lived on the same planet. That former attachment, the one that can only exist in a small group, had left with the aliens.

It was no surprise that drugs and sex became a release for everyone. After all, as hippies in the 1960's believed, those things were the best way to show love for your fellow human beings: Peace, man. But the peace wasn't exactly peaceful.

In addition to the free-love lifestyle, people also began thrill seeking — Intensely. Having little laughter and no passion in their daily lives, many accidentally killed themselves in search of the ultimate high.

Former government leaders formed a secret committee, having realized the problem set before Earth. Those on the committee understood that to bond, humanity needed something to fight against, something to vilify. There was no way that people could once again combat each other - the aliens had shown that violence was a path humanity could no longer take. So what remained?

The committee came up with two options. The first way was to search the stars once more, and hope mankind would rally together in the excitement of exploration. Perhaps the manned missions would find a violent race of aliens with whom Earth could engage in hostilities. The second option was to contaminate the Earth's environment in some way, so that in working together to fix it, the bond would be forged once-again.

There were many arguments against both sides, of course. The main opposition to option one was that the world hadn't been too interested in space travel the many years ago that it had first been marketed. Once man landed on the moon, Mars, and Europa (Jupiter's moon), there was little remaining interest in the topic. Also, there had been searches for intelligent life before. No trace had ever been found — the aliens had found Earth, not vice-versa. It seemed extremely unlikely that Earth's feeble attempts at space exploration would find anything, much less anything with the intelligent capacity for violence.

Not that option two was deemed any better. Forty percent of the 147-person committee had strong arguments against it: What if the pollution became irreparable and the entire planet was ruined? It was far better to have a world full of dissatisfied people than a world without life at all.

Finally, the committee decided on a combination of the two options: unmanned spacecraft would remain in orbit above the Earth and send harmless trash-bombs down to the planet, made mostly of paper and other biodegradable items. The members of the secret committee would speculate that it was refuge from another planet that was using Earth as its private dumping ground. People would join together to clean up the waste and to fight the imaginary enemies.

Well, it worked for a while. The first bombs were dropped on September 14, 4002, over former North America, Europe, and Southern Asia. The people in those places formed friendships while knee-deep in debris. Even people from the unsoiled parts of the world flew in to help, and the project was seen as a stitch toward the mending of Earth's wound.

Until January 2nd, 4003, when word leaked out that the "government" had been responsible for the defilement, and all hell broke loose.

People could no longer fight each other. Not at all, in any way. No one even attempted to. So what those who did not accept the explanation that the betrayal had been a misguided attempt to help did, was kill themselves. The population went from eight billion to six and one half billion in only two days.

Still more people went insane, and did attempt violence upon their fellow man, with disastrous results. They were shot with tranquilizer darts and locked into the abandoned prisons, where they were forgotten about in a manner of months. After the prisoners died horrible deaths of starvation, the population of the world was half of what it had been at the beginning — only four billion people.

Those left alive and well were confused and mentally disjointed. Since they had thought no one could harm them because of world peace, they had become completely naive, trusting anything anyone told them. That was the reason the former world leaders had stayed the same — one in power can never entirely trust a single person, much less an entire human race.

Although the world was perfectly clean, it began to crumble once more. The zombie-like inhabitants no longer did anything. They didn't eat, bathe, drink, or speak. In time, they died, littering the Earth with their dead bodies and causing waste far worse than the trash bombs that had inadvertently caused their deaths. And the only people left on the world were children and those in "power."

The remaining leaders tried to find all of the children, so they could rebuild society, but the children were smart. They had seen what had happened to their parents and hid, frightened, from the desperate men and women who searched the garbage. Eventually those in power died, trying to clean up desecration far worse than the trash-bombs: the pure filth created by Earth's former inhabitants.

The children raised themselves and each other, growing up nearly independent of the world that had been before them.

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(Twenty-five years after the many deaths)

Suddenly, four heads appeared out of the waste matter: two adults, male and female, and two children. The adult woman appeared to be around thirty, the man twenty-eight or so, obviously younger than the woman. The children's sexes were unidentifiable, but they appeared to be two and five years old. Looking around anxiously for rats, their small family emerged when none were in sight, and began to rummage through the ruins around them.

Right away, the younger child found and held up a large piece of something gray, and gestured excitedly to the man. Suddenly the older child grabbed it and ran away, laughing. The man went to his eldest child and swatted its behind gently, in reprimand, with an internal instinct toward such things. The woman, who had been watching warily, began to cry and shake uncontrollably, seemingly more upset than the child.

She finally relaxed as the man comforted her, putting his arms around her and murmuring softly.

Soon after the incident, they found what they wanted, certain large chunks of material. They returned to their home, a cave set away from the decaying remains of the once-known world.

Half-bathed in sunlight, the home's wide entrance was filled with vines and growing vegetables. Their pet dog stood with an open mouth, panting. Showing their pet once more the spot where the underground stream was unearthed, they chattered happily to each other in a kind of awkward, stunted English.

The man collected the pieces of rubbish from his children and companion and put them at the roots of the plants.

The older child suddenly spotted a fresh strawberry on the vine and bent to pick it, when the younger one darted forward and stole it, gulping it down quickly. Feeling angry, the older child hit the younger, which cried.

Their mother was shocked, but didn't shake or cry. Instead, she moved to stop and reprimand her quibbling offspring, but fell back suddenly with an odd expression, perhaps because her jumbled memories had revealed something of her childhood. She halted and stood quietly, simply observing her children with a kind of startled wonder and thinking, and remembering.

THE END

© Written in 1999