Random Things (Some Short Stories)

Trash, Carbon Dioxide, and Animal Cyborgs

He scrounges through the garbage, licking up any remnant of the humans' final achievement. It made him laugh in his head, the fact that trash is what those self-centered apes became known for. Trash, and carbon dioxide. It wasn't their advances in technology, or their towering structures. All of that was ruined a long time ago by the first Sun Day.

His ears perked at the sound of humming, the sound of working machinery. He popped his head out of the mound of trash and glanced around, seeing the only two entrances and exits empty. He sniffed the warm, dry air, catching a faint whiff of oil and the burning smell of nuclear fussion. He padded down one of the alleyways and looked all around him. A block down, he spotted another cyborg, one of the only things that survived the Sun Days.

In his mind, he corrected himself. Humans are known for trash, their carbon footprint, and animal cyborgs.

As an older model, the cynimal down the block couldn't hear him, and was way louder. He was suprised it survived for this long. It fell down, and he could see it's leg failed under its weight. Damaged like that, he wouldn't be surprised if it didn't last any longer. He felt a twinge of empathy, knowing what it's like to have a broken part. Against his better judgment, he walked over to the poor cynimal, seeing up close that it was a panther. It noticed, but it slumped a small amount. It thought it was dead.

He nudged it, showing that he ment no harm. It looked up to him, not believing his intentions. He looks at it's leg, and he searches through a mound of trash nearby. He finds a makeshift hinge, and he goes up to the panther. He motions for it to lay on its side, and it does. He pulls out the old hinge and replaces it with the new one. It scrapes against the sides of the leg, but after a moment it fixes itself. As the panther starts standing, he walks away, footsteps irregular. He can feel the panther staring at his back as he walks away.

It goes like this: pat, pat, pat, ching. The ching is from his unubtanium leg, a metal very hard to create. He looks around at the slightly tilted buildings around him. Then he thinks to himself: why did they ruin such a beautiful planet? You would think, if something was slowly destroying the world, and people knew, they would try to stop it. But, as sea levels rose, and trash filled the ocean, and the years started getting warmer and warmer, humans just stood there and stared. Instead of using less energy, they still commuted to work and pumped up their conditioners. They made their homes artic with their central cooling systems. They kept the lights on, used more appliances that required energy. Humans thought that air conditioners would keep them safe forever until the first Sun Day.

On the first, 70% of the population died. The tempatures soared to 130° Fahrenheit. Most forests burned. A year later, only 2% of the population was left, trapped in underground bunkers as the 145° weather cooked the people on the surface. Buildings started to melt. 99.9% of animals went extinct. The year after, all humans perished, as the 195° weather baked the humans who sheltered underground in the tiny metal boxes ment to protect them. Many older buildings perished, but newer ones only tilted. After that Sun Day, gallons of salt water poured onto the parched ground, flooding and cleaning away many areas. Most of it became ground water, leaving the dirt dry again.

The Earth that humans once called home had become a dry husk of what it once was, forsaken by the creatures that it carried into supremacy above all other organic life, destroyed by the animals mother nature chose above all others. They were given a gift, the gift of life on this planet. Instead of taking care of their nurturer, they wrecked it, dooming them and Earth itself.