Entry Seventy-four: Adam Mahoney, You Just Won!

[The next many entries are the current story I am working on. This is four of who knows how many will be posted. Enjoy it while it lasts...]

He finally set down his nearly empty coffee cup and picked up the envelope again. He turned it over and gently pulled at the flap, cringing as the paper lost the battle with the wax, ripping between the seal and the crease. As he lifted the folded sheet of paper out of the envelope he caught a faint whiff of strawberries and assumed the papers were scented. “Must be from a girl,” he thought and that brought a slight smile to his face. He set the envelope down and unfolded the paper that had been inside. The contents were not at all what he was expecting, if he was expecting anything at all.

“Dear Mr. Adam Mahoney,
This letter is to inform you that you are now the last man standing on earth. As of four this morning (E.S.T.) your planet has been wiped clean of all human life by a small group of extraterrestrial beings, aliens if you must, though we prefer the term squatters, who were bored and wanted to see what would happen if they left only one person on a reasonably functional planet such as your own. You can consider it a science experiment except that we aren’t scientists, just bored, super-intelligent beings looking for something to do on a Saturday night. We did you a huge solid by disposing of all of the bodies because to not do so would have been uncivilized and, quite frankly, a bit gross. One other thing, when we referenced “human life” earlier in this note we, unfortunately for you, are including the female of your species as well as all animals. Yes, you really are “it.” You are on your own and we wish you the best of luck as you survive or sleep or whatever else you think to do. Good luck and we’ll be watching.

P.S. In case you were wondering (but why would you?) there is a small wager amongst us on how this whole experiment will turn out but we will try to refrain from influencing the decisions you will obviously have to make. Our sense of fair play will, hopefully, overrule our competitive and individual desires to win. You can only hope…”

All words and images ©2006/J. Colle