Humanity - Part 6

 Here is the final part of the story:


In the wake of hundreds of accounts of birds dropping dead all over the world during 2010, the US government admitted to a little known operation called Bye Bye Blackbird begun in the 1960’s.  This was a secret government project created to control bird population.  It’s purpose was to ease the strain of crop management for farmers.  Pesticides were introduced that killed off birds throughout the United States.  The human population was rapidly increasing and conspiracy theorists speculated that other major world powers had begun similar projects to aid farmers.  While unverifiable, this has the ring of some truth to it.  The originators of these projects never foresaw these ramifications.  Humanity has a clever way of fooling itself.  Somewhere along the way we lost our respect for nature and used her simply as a means to an end.
    The source of the worst famine the world had ever known was two fold.  The birds protected the crops from certain species of bugs.  Left unchecked, the bugs flourished and decimated crops.  Coupled with the well documented decline in bee population, the crops had no way of propagating themselves.  Most crops required the pollen of the bees to grow seeds.  By 2012 the crops of the world were vanishing.  No one expected the decline to happen so quickly, but changing weather patterns and extreme temperatures aided it.
    Agriculturists, farmers, and scientists were scrambling for a solution when they were blindsided by the world’s next great catalyst.  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch was a huge collection of garbage right in the middle of the currents of the Pacific Ocean.  Attempts had been made to measure its density.  They were unsuccessful.  The majority of trash lay just under the surface of the water rendering satellite imagery ineffective.  In 2012 the garbage patch, estimated to be larger than land mass of the United States, reached critical mass.  Some speculated that in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the coast of Japan in 2011 tons of garbage was sent barreling into the patch with the receding ocean water.  Whatever the final cause, the currents that had kept the refuse became the very same currents that now distributed the garbage the world over.  Fishing nets pulled more trash then fish.  Dead fish began washing up on the coasts of all nations.  Their natural habitats now infested with humanity’s waste, the fish had two options, die out or recede to the depths of the oceans.  The world’s fishing trade was demolished.  Boats hung onto docks and piers were abandoned everywhere.  Famine increased and western civilization began to resemble the starving in third world countries.  Just a few years prior, western television commercials had used those starving to manipulate an affluent society to compassion.  A more egregious use of suffering could hardly be found in our histories.
    In 1997 a mysterious noise was recorded in the South Pacific, off the western tip of South America.  The noise was recorded by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  It sounded somewhat like an air bubble slowly bursting at the surface of water, sounding for nearly a minute.  This was referred to as the “Bloop”, it’s moniker reflecting the noise it resembled.  The NOAA had no idea what had caused the noise, no one really did.  The sound was heard by underwater recording equipment as far as 5,000 klicks away.  Other noises were recorded such as the Julia, the Train, and the Slow Down but the Bloop was the most well documented and researched.  As it turns out, the Bloop was the sound of an enormous air bubble coming from under the crust of the earth.
    The second Bloop occurred in 2013, just as the world greatest minds were working on solutions to the famine and not succeeding.  This bloop registered on recording equipment as far as 10,000 klicks away.  Some near the ocean had even claimed to hear it.  The immediate effects of this were disastrous.  The oil had vanished.  The leading theory was that pockets of air had been trapped beneath layers of oil since the time the Earth was formed.  Oil was like glue that filled cracks in the earth’s crust.  The air trapped beneath pressurized the oil, keeping it near the surface.  Over time, oil pumps weakened this layer of protection and when the second significant pocket of air escaped in 2013 the vast majority of oil wells dried up.  The oil had sunk deep into the core of the earth.  No amount of digging would restore access to it.
    Humanity can be quick to lay blame when it feels vulnerable and many cried out that the BP oil disaster off the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 had caused this.  People were dying from starvation, populations were revolting, governments had no answers, and many religions claimed the end times had come.  Mobs raided the BP executives homes and a scared, ravaged, angry people executed the executives and their families on their doorsteps.  The local police and army tried to intervene but were severely underfunded and undermanned to intervene with such a large, out of control mob. 
    The details get hazy here and reports are scattered at best.  Dictators arose and took power as in ancient times.  Tensions were high among these power hungry warlords and they took to arms against each other.  It was a fight for power over a dying planet, innocent people the world over suffered for it.  It was only a matter of time before some of these warlords got their hands on nuclear weapons.  Dictators in the Middle East struck first, their bids for power had been an ongoing way of life for centuries.  The first nuclear bombs ravaged Moscow, London, New York City, Washington, Sidney, Hong Kong and Mexico City.  Civilization had no answer for the depravity humanity can sink to.  Humans have always been adept at finding ways of killing one another.
    The last vestiges of government that existed in the U.S. made a decision that made Hiroshima look tame.  They released a killer virus on humanity in the hopes of preserving it.  The world was days from being torn asunder by massive nuclear crisis.  This impending nuclear holocaust was the catalyst for the releasing of the nano-virus that would wipe out 99% of the world’s population.  On December 15, 2015 humanity’s swan song began.

*    *    *

In the end, I arrived at my house.  There was not much there.  I never found my family, I never really expected to.  I stayed at the house for a few days, but it was no longer home to me.  Home is born on the ideals of safety and family, both of which were lost to me.  It was then, on the west coast of the former United States of America, that my life really began.  I traveled up through Oregon and Washington, stopping at now deserted towns to scavenge for supplies.  It was a couple of months before I met any survivors.  Just south of Seattle a group of people had found each other.  There were 42 of them.  I stayed with them for 6 months, we spoke of love, loss and memory.      In my time with them I wrote this book.  People are tired of fighting and they are ready to embrace a new world.  It was humanity’s own nature that destroyed itself, but it’s in that very same nature that we find our ability to love.  Love and hate can be difficult to define, but they are summed up in this statement: Love looks toward others, hate looks only to self. 
    It has been five years since I left that first group and I have encountered three more.  I stayed with each for a time, telling them of love and humanity and our purpose here.  I gave them a copy of this book, to remember.  Others have begun sounding our message.  They are going to the north, south, east and west to spread the message of love.  Together we are rebuilding humanity.  Together is what we were always meant to be.