The 6th Great Extinction or How I Met Your Grandfather

"So, wait wait wait wait," I yelled laughing. "Gramps didn't ask you out even AFTER you told him you liked him?" 

"Why, yes dear, there's many things that your Gramps should've done but didn't do. He tried to hold my hand in classes but never spoke a word when we went out on actual dates. He was a cautious, cautious man" she said with mock incredulity." But those were cautious times. Even though we didn't know it then."

"The pandemic of '19 you mean?" Teacher pressed on eagerly. All mentions of it in history books were the same- word to word- carefully weighed sentences and calculated emotions. A perfect script in a perfect order. She could recite it by heart. Heck, she was sure most of her Physical Labor students could recite it by heart too. The New Order was soon, rumored to be projected on the skyline in great, black, pure letters by the Great Eye. A reminder of their mistakes with a fresh new hope for the future.

"Well, yes, we met in the miserable 20's. We were to become doctors, you know. In a prestigious med school." She caught sight of my expression, " oh dearest, it wasn't such a big deal back then! We could become whatever we wanted to be. No IQ scans, no job simulations at birth."

Teacher had wanted to be Doctor. Once. A long time ago, but the Great Eye had thought the better of it. And who could argue with data?

"We could pick our own names too." She reminisced with a smile. "Well, not "we" we, our parents we. I was named Sonia after a beautiful woman in a Pepsi commercial. And Gramps was named Walter because my in-laws simply had no taste."

Teacher burst out laughing. 

"Anyway, so he wrote a bunch of poems for me, took me out for some great food, you know... he was saying all the right things, doing all the right things. Romance was one-for-one back then, not for breeding to keep our numbers up. And we were each other's the One. The man had trapped me good and proper" she laughed shaking her head. " I'm still way above his league though" she declared flipping her gray hair. She would've been, Teacher imagined, even for the ones born in the pre- Nuclear fallout era, she happened to be gorgeous. Her confidence. Teacher wished she had it. She needed it for what she had to do today. 

"And then, Gran? Then, what happened?" she pressed on hungrily.

"What do you think happens when you lock a pretty girl and a young man in a room with lots of boring books? Sparks are bound to fly. And, gosh, they flew. We had great sex-

"Gramma!"

"- and loads of laughs. We did everything together. Everyone around us was sure that we'd be Mr. and Mrs. before we'd be Dr.'s. But after the 5th wave and 18 different failed vaccines, there weren't hospitals and there weren't offices to register your marriage.

There wasn't a lot of love in the world either."

Teacher knew Gran was going to start now. She didn't prompt her, just nodded earnestly.

" The world was divided on the color of our skin, the God we prayed to and the people we chose to love. And darling, if you were a woman, you were pretty" - she looked around to ensure she had an audience, and she did indeed, "fucked." She finished with relish as she stared at the aghast faces around her for using a Banned Word.

Cackling at the tittering audience she went on, " there were riots and fights and protests and killings every. Single. Day. They say, oh the pandemic killed us. Oh, oh, it must've been the climate change. No dearest, it was us. We killed us. No one, absolutely no one was ready to fucking shut up and just fucking listen to another person. The doctors against the Anti- Vaxxers, the blacks against the whites, the Fascists against the Communists, the rich against the poor, the Muslims against the Hindus, the Straights against the Queer and the women against the men. Somewhere along the way we had lost the ability to trust one another. Or work together. That's what truly killed us."

"And that's why the New Order came up" Teacher intoned. She needed the conversation to go that way and hear a few things today. Her sorry shit hole was already torn at the idea of having to carry out her plan- she wouldn't be allowed to live if it went smoothly.

"Well before that, there was a ship ofcourse." Gran went on, real anger coming into her eyes for the first time. "The rich and the important boarded it and took off in search of a better Earth.

I hope they lithotropic maneuvered straight into the heart of an exploding star or squeezed through a wormhole and landed in a universe with intelligent life that enslaved them for years to come. 

But that's just wishful thinking." 

She chuckled, " Gramps and I had a game, we'd imagine the worst scenarios that could happen with their ship and the one with the most horrifying for the day would get to sleep the night and the other would keep watch. Keep their eyes peeled and ears split for the slightest sound in those bunkers of ours. (Of course he'd insist that me sleeping would rest him better, but the poor man was barely alive.)

The trembling earth sounds like the trembling earth whether it's from enemy bombs or tsunamis." She said matter-of-factly.

" We could never tell what it was. But, the old people-" she faltered

"- they were quite good at it. They joked they were good at sensing death when it came for them. 

They let themselves be used as canaries in coal mines.

So you can see why, I bloody well made sure that when the New Order came, I gave them a place. A real place in it" she said fiercely.

"If it was upto the others we'd be killing off the old for lack of resources."

She looked at Teacher sharply.

"We are humans, Teacher, we must not forget our past. Our old. Or our stories. It is what makes us different. It is what makes us, us. 

Yes, the New Order has ensured that our children will be of the same skin. Will only get the work they deserve on their merit. And will only worship the cold, hard facts on their screen. We have taken away the unpredictability of it. In doing so, I find we have taken away the humanity of it. Teach your students that. If you can" she said blazingly.

"When I was on the Committee, they told me this Order would last a few years, tops. Just to minus the variables when we're still struggling as a species. Something that would solve our problems for us till we had enough to take over the role. It's been what 50 years? 60 years? Even the people who still remember what humanity was like are long gone now. How we were when we weren't in charge of The A.I. 

Walter had come up with the name. The "A-eye", "A-I" get it?" She laughed suddenly.

"Gran", Teacher said gently.

"And the Great Eye still watches all. It's like that movie I saw back in the day, something about robots and plants and a ship with a thousand hopeless humans.

I'm telling you this because You have power Teacher, really, you do. 

I beg you. Teach your students, this, what they won't find in their history textbooks. And I will be in your debt."

Tears were shining in a stream down Teacher's face. She had heard this story, everyday for the last 5 years since her grandma had been taken to an old age shelter. Gran's years of struggle had caught up with her. Stealing her memory and life but not her intelligence or spirit. After cautious old Walter had died, she had realized she too had an expiration date and had begun telling this weird, rather wonderful story of how she had met her husband. 

To anyone who would listen. It was mistaken for the babble of old women pining for their youth by some, but Teacher knew better. It was a story worth telling and believing in. 

"Attention, class. Please be seated." She sees all of them tittering around shuffling their e-pads and preparing to take notes.

"Okay, you know what?" Teacher strides to the doors, locks them shut and plops herself on the floor. 

"How much do you know about the life and history of humans before the Bunkers?"

The class which was already warily eyeing her, lets out an audible gasp. 

"Gather around, kids. 

Today I'm going to talk about a time when we didn't all look alike. When Unforgivable words were just opinions. And when all of us didn't always have our path chosen out for us. When Scientist and Doctor and Artist weren't names."

The kids stared at her as one does at an adult film CD their parents had hidden from them. Their teacher had certainly consumed too much of the Forbidden Liquid that morning with her breakfast.