One Billion Drops of Happiness (24 page)

They wait now for all traces of the Vapour to vanish before they use the Ophelium. There are days when I wish I could end it all; it is such excruciating knowledge that I am somehow linked to it all by virtue of my grandfather; what mercy that he did not live to see this horror.

There were days when I woke with a searing ache in my chest. I marveled amidst my mangled panic, amid my searing stupor, how my forebears on this planet could have dealt with such ripped raw pain. It comforted me to know that thousands and thousands of generations before us had dealt with it, too, and I felt at one with my sorrow. I wondered if it was better to be someone with narrow hope and never strive beyond the bleakness. After all, if you aspire to happiness then you will surely get burnt.

I wished I had said all that was left unsaid, but such mortal, prosaic words spoken with everyday tongues would never be enough to convey all I felt. I wished until it hurt that Lars and I could take it all back, and that here and now we could become sunflowers. We’d blossom long tangled roots, entwining caresses forevermore in the soil, our faces nourished only by warm balmy rays. And as we grew skyward together, still keeping our spot, we could enshrine that one heavenly moment, and remain gazing forever, while standing asunder for each moment on.

I started looking back; back to the past I had known so little about. I read about every civilization that graced the planet before me; the highs and lows and the harrowing pains that had eclipsed nation upon nation. But also the joys; the joys that bound the people together, the joys that created camaraderie and friendships and love.

* * *

Soon the news came that the turbines were ready for operation. These turbines were erected swiftly in every corner of the world; downright ugly lacerations on the landscape, but there was no point in saying so. The builders and engineers from New America had come and gone with barely a remark from either party. The whole of the Old World seemed to be in profound shock. From the outside, it was as if they were already under the influence of Ophelium. Worse yet, there came no guidance from any higher authority; no words of kind reassurance to make sense of the devastation, for nobody knew what to do next. There reigned a deathly pall of resignation. Resignation and waiting.

Human spirit had well and truly been crushed. The war was lost; our side had conceded and retreated before all that was meaningful was gone forever. They were infinitely stronger than us; we had been no match from the beginning. Millions of years of carefully propagating the species and it had come to this. Was it better to have been rid of all life forms or have us continue to live as now, physically alive but with our spirits dead?

New America soon returned to the highly private, highly censored country it had been before. No more news mirages, no word of anything Were they happy? Their mission had been completed. Already a couple of large Old World countries were considering joining them.

Why do the people who hurt us escape the hurt themselves? When will they too feel the pain?

In the sites of the mass atrocities, the vast land remained entirely untouched and empty as it had been since that terrible day mankind wished never happened. Unable to bury the dead, each place bore a pure white stone reading simply: ‘May Earth never forget the millions of desecrated souls.’

The sites remained unvisited. The lands became barren. It later emerged that the Vapour had somehow stopped the rain, but by then nobody cared.

* * *

I am a changed person. In the last six months I have transformed from living life as a New American clone to finally feeling real emotion. A twist of fate released the real human from within me, and just thinking of the billions of hopelessly locked souls in New America leaves my mind in twists and knots. But what a high price I paid to gain such an ethereal vision.

My resounding fear is that when the Ophelium starts, I will forget, or worse, cease to care about the series of events that changed my life. It is funny how what was once four dimensional reality can quickly slip into the realms of a faded memory. But I am surrounded by them. Memories by the bucket load. Sometimes I think that if we had no memories we’d have no comfort, for bad ones sprout hope for better times ahead and good ones provide fire for the heart; sustenance for future bleakness.

I loved him. I still love him. This is real love I speak of; the enduring kind, not the liquid administered from bottles and peddled wholesale to the population. They should all be told over there; they should all be told that whatever they are feeling is false. It does not exist. In the real world if it were truly that easy to love someone, one would love readily and more often, but then the sanctity would be gone.

I wish I could say I will be happy again one day. I wonder what Lars would say to that if he was here today. He would probably tell me something about happiness and inner contentment being dissimilar. That inner contentment is a peace that can last within forever.

These are the last few days of life as we know it, and this will probably be one of the last stories ever told.

* * *

If I could die of a broken heart, I surely would. If I could die from a terrible fever, my release could not come too soon. But I can’t! Damn modern medicine! Damn this impending apathy, damn Ophelium, damn, damn!

Soon they will turn on the vapours. There will be no escape. Slowly it will suffuse the world but life will go on. And when the wind blows, billions of children will never know what it was to cry, to laugh, to hate, to hurt, to love. If only heartbreak could be bottled! I hold onto my memories of a few weeks tumbling around in this perfect whirlpool. I cling to them like planets to the sun, not entirely knowing if they shall be wiped when the change begins. I hurry to write this before my vestigial emotion is snuffed out by the new world.

And after that? I do not know. Strangled in my serenity, I will blankly await them to take me away and Sign me Off. It will be as if I never existed, never exulted, never spent a hundred years dreaming of a fistful of days with a man named Lars and the billion drops of happiness he brought.

The future is bleak without my love. No Lars to colour my skies. No Lars to lift the veil from the darkness. I am all alone. Alone but for bleak impenetrable skies overhead, hanging forever more over the Nordic heartland.