Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

“Why did no-one tell me this before?”

“We used to think your species was unique. Hardly anyone can hibernate the way you do, and it has an effect on the way your brain works which we don’t understand. But one of the older IU member species recently made a bequest of records from thousands of years ago, and it turns out you’re not unique. There have been other human species that can hibernate, and apparently the records might help.”

He sat back in his chair, troubled. I was offering him a way to escape from the rut he was stuck in, so he would probably say no. Eventually, he found a way.

“I wake up screaming in terror every night, because of what I see in my dreams… what makes you think I want to see them with waking eyes?”

“Because it’s the first step in therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m sure exposure therapy has been explained to you before. If we approach the trauma gently, one step at a time, we can desensitise you to the memory. Eventually, we can make the dreams stop.”

He didn’t answer.

“How long has it been since you slept? Properly, without drugs?

He still didn’t answer.

“Will you think about it?” I asked. “Kwame?”

“I will… consider it.”

And that was as much as I could hope for in the first session.

PSYCHOMEDICAL HISTORY — SUMMARY

LISS LI’OUL

Every human on Liss’s world has been reduced to a powder, with no explanation either for this or how she survived. Physically, she is perfectly healthy, although she has a relatively high level of contaminants present in her tissues. This is most likely due to environmental factors on her world, which was technologically advanced and given to unusual forms of pollution. She claims to be physically average for her people, which would place her species at the higher end of human physical capability. She is considerably stronger than most humans and her level of health suggests a highly developed healing capacity and resistance to disease. Her only physical impairment is a clumsiness which seems to be subclinical in nature.

Psychologically, she appears to be highly delusional. She maintains that her entire species temporarily left and will return at some point, despite being presented with clear evidence that she is the last surviving member of her species. She has suffered no brain damage, and reports no headaches, dizziness, sense impairment or other symptoms associated with neurological disorder. Given the bizarre nature of her world, this may be a defence mechanism to protect against the many traumas of daily life and yet carry on without reflecting on how it can so easily end. This, however, is only speculation. It has not been possible to reach a full diagnosis.

“What do you remember about what happened? When everyone vanished?”

Liss smiled at me from the comfortable chair, distracted from looking outside. She’d picked an entirely different outfit today, one that clashed with all the colours in my office, as well as the blue of the sky and the green of the forest. She seemed oblivious to how poor her dress sense was, as she was with so many other things. “Oh, well, I guess you already know and everything…”

“I’d like to hear the story for myself, if that’s okay.”

“Sure! It was a pretty normal day, I guess. I got up, put the breakfast show on — Sillafen was on with his movie or something, I mean that guy’s a dick, I don’t know why anyone goes to see his movies — I fixed myself some egg things, not eggs from a chicken, you don’t get eggs any more, not like you get here and those ones aren't even real eggs, are they? You kinda make them from something…”

“Liss—”

“And the pipes were banging again and the super never does anything about it, one of these days it’s all just going to burst and everything’s going to get flooded, that happened at my mom’s place once and she was so mad she sued the city, made them pay for the whole thing…”

“Liss—”

“Can you believe that? I didn’t have time to talk to the super that morning so I just got in the car and went to work — there was this complete asshole on the road into Telissauga, guy cut me up and I was so mad, I just can’t tell you. He could have killed somebody, the way he was driving—”

“Liss!”

“Oh. Sorry!”

“Can you tell me more about where you worked?”

“Okay. So where I work, I guess you’d say it’s a recruitment agency. People come in, we interview them, we get them jobs, and then they screw up and the employer complains and we try and send them someone who isn’t a screw-up but what are you going to do? These guys come in off the street and you can’t believe anything you see on their resumé, but how are you going to spot them? I dunno, I just did data entry most of the time, and we were so far behind I had weeks and weeks of work backed up, so when everyone went away I was getting tons of it done, only I had everyone else’s work to do as well so I guess I wasn’t getting that far, and Barara left me all the photocopying as well, he’s just lazy, never gets through his work—”

“Can I stop you there?”

“Oh! Sure! Sorry…”

“It’s okay, Liss, I’d just like to focus a little more on the actual events on the day itself.”

“Which day?”

“The day everyone disappeared.”

“Oh. Sorry!” She looked childishly embarrassed.

“You said you went into work as normal. Was there anything special going on that day?”

“Nope. Normal day, far as I know.”

“What was on the news?”

“I don’t watch the news.”

“You say you watched a breakfast show?”

“Oh, sure, but not news. I mean, movie stars, that’s not news. I know that . News is too depressing. I mean, who wants to hear all that kinda stuff when you’re eating breakfast?”

“Why is the news depressing?”

“Well, y’know. Everything going wrong. Disasters and screwups. I don’t need to hear about it, I’ve got my own troubles, you know?”

“What do you mean by disasters and screwups, exactly?”

“Oh, I don’t know… all that crap, it just wears me out. I don’t pay any attention.”

“I see. So you have no knowledge of world events at that time?”

She shrugged. “Guess not.”

“Okay. So you went to work. And everything was normal?”

“Uh-huh. Normal as normal is. You know, nobody’s filling the coffeepot, too much work, my manager’s stressed. I dunno. Normal.”

“How did you spend the day? I mean, what did your work consist of?”

“Data entry. You know, typing forms into the computer?”

“Why was that necessary?”

“Huh?” She seemed puzzled, as though the question made no sense.

“Why did that have to be done?”

“Of course it had to be done! How else are you gonna do it?”

“No, I mean… your world had some amazing technology. It seems strange that you needed humans just to enter data into a computer.”

“I don’t know. I guess it was cheaper than getting a chimp to do it?”

She wasn’t being sarcastic, and my translation system was working perfectly. “I’m sorry — you said a chimp? A chimpanzee?”

“Uh-huh. They don’t work for nothing! I mean don’t get me wrong, they’re great little guys but you’ll never get them doing anything like I was doing. I tell you, I’m so close to minimum wage I don’t know how I make it from month to month…”

Her world grew stranger and stranger. “Let me just check that I’ve understood this: Chimpanzees were an intelligent species on your world?”

“Sure. Of course they were.”

“That’s… rather unusual.”