Deserted

My thoughts are being recorded by Westron's new thought recorder. Filter's are on to screen out any extraneous thought noise. I am seated in Westron's new time transport module. The current date is June 1, 2016. We have been sending robotic time probes into the future for four years. However, in our last mission, our farthest probe came back with no data to report. It seems all human activity ceased functioning on or about 2120. The purpose of this current mission is to travel ahead in time to determine if, in fact, human activity ceased and, if so, why.

OK, I am seated in the module chair and will set the forward date to June 1, 2122. I am now activating the module accelerator. I can see the date roll forward on the time track device on the system monitor. I have set the location of appearance to Medland, Illinois. Medlant is my home town. I am familiar with the geography. We are nearing reappearance. Monitor shows June 1, 2122. Accelerator has shut down, we have reappeared. I am now exiting the transport.

The first thing I notice is weeds and bushes growing everywhere. I am standing on the corner of Maple and East Street. I lived here until I went to college. The place is deserted. I see no activity of any kind. I can see an access road leading to Interstate 12 but there are no cars on the access road. There are weeds and tall grass growing in the cracks of the road and in the cracks of the sidewalk. No indication exists at this point about what caused the town to be deserted.

I am walking down the block to the school. Again, weeds and bushes are everywhere. It looks like the place has been deserted for decades. No sign of human life. Houses are in tact. As I approach the school I still see no sign of activity or an indication of what happened. I can look in the windows of the school. It seems many of the classrooms were no longer used. Desks are stacked against a wall in nearly every classroom. I see now a classroom with regular desk alignment. I am at the back door of the school and the door is unlocked. I am walking to the classroom where desks were aligned as expected. I am now in the classroom. Everything looks normal except there are school materials for various upper grades rather than just one grade level. It appears many upper grades shared one room. No lower grade materials can be found. The school has at least 30 classrooms. Why many upper grades shared one classroom is unknown.

What happened here? What caused the town to be deserted? What caused the lack of all human activity?

I am going over to the nursing home which is about a block away. I am approaching the nursing home and can see in the window. Oh my, I can see someone in a bed. Well, what was someone. What is in the bed is a skeleton. Apparently someone died and their body was not removed. I am going inside the nursing home to see if I can find any clues. I am inside now and I can see in other rooms. In nearly every bed there is a skeleton. In the dining hall, there are two or three skeletons on the floor. What happened here? Why did these people die and not have their body buried or even removed? I am at a nurse's station and see nothing unusual or out of the ordinary.

I am out the door of the nursing home and heading to the library. I am now at the front door of the library. The library front door is unlocked. I am going to see if I can find current issues of magazines and newspapers to see if there is any indication as to what happened here. OK, I have found a newspaper dated August 5, 2020 or about one hundred years previous to my current arrival date. The headline on the paper is "The Last Issue: The End Has Come". From the article it seems a silent virus began spreading over the earth. It appears the virus was like the AIDS/HIV virus but was a super strain. The virus major affect was to effectively sterilize men and women, thus creating a circumstance where no baby's were born. The virus only affected the young, so after a few years as the older population died off, there were no young people to take their place. From the article, experts said the virus was spread by sharing bodily fluids like the AIDS/HIV. Experts screamed for abstinence but people ignored the calls for restraint.

It seems the virus only affected younger males and females. Older person's, age 30 and up were not affected. The article indicates that young people became so sinful and promiscuous only a few young people showed any restraint. Even those young people showing restraint were infected because they had relations with others who were infected. There was apparently no easy way to tell who was infected and who was not. Only a complex and rare screening process was available to tell who might be infected and who was not. Within a few years no one was available to run the screening process. The only symptom of the virus was male and female sterility. The article indicates as more and more older people died off and no children were born the most common of services began to disappear. Mass starvation took place in large population centers because there was no way to produce food. Riots took place. All of society world-wide crumbled. The newspaper says there were rumors of small pockets of survivors, groups the paper calls the "The Last Remnant" who seemed to survive but nothing more is known about them. Rumors persisted the members of these remnant groups disappeared without dying but no one knew for certain. Mass communication became non-existent because there were no people to operate telephone, television, radio, and newspaper facilities.

So apparently, the whole human race, at least those people in this area, died off of more or less natural causes because young people preferred immediate pleasure rather than sacrificing and being abstinent until they reached the age of thirty. What a tragic way for the human race to end. Apparently human life did indeed end with a whimper and not with a bang. All because of immorality.

Hebrews 13:4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. (NIV)

A facetious story giving a warning. 

This story first appeared in June, 2005, in the Virtual  Church web site at http://www.shepherdscare.net