Fields at the End of Time
If the heroes of our story knew their history better, they would eloquently explain the following to us: Humanity experienced a crash after its dizzying rise.
The heroine would say that the human species has reached the limit of extinction, and the man, with practiced black humor, would add that out of 8 billion people, 800 descendants of the best remained. If they knew their fate, he would add a touch of ironic pride, and she would poke him.
The two sit next to each other, looking at the screen of the only functioning computer on the planet. Through the window of the metal prefabricated house, they can see the green crop sprouting on the plowed field, and their appearances and poses are illuminated by the improvised monitor.
“Magnificent. Algorithms written by my own hand, and a computer built on an antique scheme of a data processing machine, now calculate wheat cultivation plans. Seeds our ancestors froze for situations like this one. And this board tells us that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Our ancestors could foresee the reality we live in, and I can see the future of the children we will feed this wheat.”
“Shut up for once, and start it if everything is fine. Two years of this harvest would ensure our survival.”
“It's already finishing, only to write the results to storage. Your estimate is less optimistic than the computer's because it says we will have two harvests in one year and achieve a better effect.”
“What is a 'flushing error,' then? It seems that your handiwork programs fail to calculate basic things.”
The look on his face gave her the impression that the joke was too harsh. The grave tone of the following words pierced her chest, and the final phrases tightened an invisible noose around her neck:
“Unfortunately, no. A flushing error means that the disk we have is unusable. It can be read but not written. It served its lifespan. And it seems that this strange species, as you used to call it, also lived its own.”
They argued and tried to fix the situation, but the disk was dead, and they won't find a replacement in time. After everything, he stalwartly looks at the nearby bird that came to examine the greens that grew. It was a common sparrow.
They knew the number of survivors wouldn't be enough to sustain the race. The lack of genetic diversity will mean that if their children manage to have offspring, they will not have suitable partners.
“As you always said, our survival is a coincidence, our extinction will also be a coincidence. It was nice while it lasted.”