Dr. Neil Thackeray's Discovery Of The Past- A Short Story

It was the year 2250. But who cared? There wasn’t much of a population left, anyways. Nobody knew for sure why the species on the earth had disappeared. In fact, nobody was even sure how many species had existed once upon a time and the only reason that they suspected that there must have been a time when there were billions of creatures, especially human beings, on earth was because they had observed that living beings had the tendency to mingle and survived only if they had company. However, suggestions flowed in everyday.

On 16^th January, 2150, the remaining inhabitants read a news alert in the skies. People did have some idea about newspapers, thanks to one or two time capsules that had not been destroyed be natural calamities and large-scale nuclear war, but who could read news in a paper these days. There weren’t enough trees left to make newspaper out of.

So, the news alert had been issued in public interest by the Narkisian government (by the way, Narkis was a tiny island in the Indian ocean which had remained undiscovered for millions of years and after discovery, had been inhabited by people who refused to adopt to the violent and destructive ways of the 21^st century world. Now it was the only country which had a population of over a thousand and claimed to be the most populous country in the world). Dr. Neil Thackeray, who was one of the few people who had acquired higher education after most of the land had been submerged in the ocean and there wasn’t enough space to erect school and college buildings, had thought of a new reason for the extinction of the majority of the population in the world.

It was pretty simple. Governments had existed till the nineteenth century, and even though all governments had been brought down due to their repeated poor performances and the world was now in total chaos, it was known that governments had once been a symbol of power. There had been governments who had tried to take their country to the top, even if it was at the cost of other nations. It could not be determined if this was right or wrong, because the time capsules that had remained had suggested that everything had once been fair in love and politics. But there was one problem- the powerful countries of the world had not necessarily the ones with most resources. They did not necessarily have the largest quantity of oil, or the densest forests or the richest biodiversity. The news alert was complete with the definitions of the words oil, forest and biodiversity because people had no idea what these things were. So, continued the news alert, the powerful countries had tried to capture hold of the nations which had resources. Now this was not a case of two kids fighting for a teddy bear and so, the destruction was not limited to pulling each other’s hair out. Instead, it was a cowardly war in which destroyer did not need to look into the eyes of the victim but just had to zoom past vast lands in helicopters while causing showers of highly-reactive white phosphorus.

According to Dr. Neil Thackeray, people had been warned. Given the fact that pure air was scarce now, it had taken a lot of courage and money for him to embark on the greatest archeological journey of all time in which he had drilled through the bed of the Pacific Ocean to obtain the last time capsule man had found. This time capsule was made of something which Dr. Neil called ‘non-biodegradable cloth’ and it was nothing short of a miracle for it to have stayed in shape for hundreds of years. This time capsule had books in it. Yes, real books, something which were a source of novelty for the 23^rd century world. At the back of each book, there was the same inscription- National Council Of Educational Research And Training, and so he assumed that these books had been read by people of educational unit. Upon reading the Geography textbooks, he discovered that students had been told that resources were depleting, global warming was everyone’s concern and glaciers were melting. Alas, they had not been warned of one thing. While they were busy thinking that these things would only affect the future generations, they had no idea that their ignorance would lead to their imminent extinction. Before the future generation even came into existence, the big and powerful countries bombarded all the countries which still had some resources. This led to the third World War, and the destruction caused by nuclear weapons destroyed and decimated whole communities and most reserves of resources. That was, as Dr. Neil put it, the end of the world. Most people had not seen this coming, because they had not studied political science or history or environmental studies, because they thought becoming an investment banker was more financially viable.

So, now the world was nothing like it had once been.

On 27^th January of the same year, another news alert appeared in the skies. Dr. Neil was beginning a new expedition. He was officially the bravest man on earth. Given the sheer lack of oxygen, water, artificial pills called ‘food’ and many other such necessities, it was a matter of great risk to set out on such a journey. So, Dr. Neil became an overnight hero of the 23^rd century world.

Nobody knew what had motivated Dr. Neil, but that was because mankind had forgotten the meaning of the word hope. Hope never leaves mankind and Dr. Neil Thackeray knew that well. He so embarked on another great adventure in search of hope. It took 190 oxygen cylinders, 7 million glasses of artificially made water and a lot of will power to complete the 100 mile long journey, upon completion of which, he found what he was looking for. It was another time capsule made of artificial fibers and inside, he found a textbook. A miracle, he thought, for paper to have stayed for so long without getting decomposed. But then again, Dr. Neil Thackeray was not just a man of science but also a man of faith, and he knew that evidences of hope could stand the test of time. Either it was that, or it was the fact that the chemical composition of water had changed in the past hundred years, perhaps making it suitable as a preservative for such time capsules.

At first, Dr. Neil was disappointed, because this was a textbook like the ones he had found in the last time capsule had discovered. All he saw was printed letters he had read already. Just another mass-produced manuscript. But the discovery lay not in the part of the book that could be called mass-produced, but the back page which had a unique creation of the owner of the book. After treating the back page with isotopes of various elements in his tiny temperature-controlled laboratory, Dr. Neil could finally see clearly the inscriptions made by the owner of the book. Now, this owner had possibly never paid much attention in class because the back page had more notes than the main pages. But what he had recorded was valuable, and Dr. Neil knew what this value was about.

At first the inscriptions seemed like poems. But upon more extensive research on the time capsule, he found a punishment note for bringing electronic items to schools and what he called a CD. He spent months trying to obtain permission from the Narkisian Archeaological Society to use the sole CD player that remained. After a lot of negotiations, his wish was granted. He had a little trouble figuring out exactly how to operate this CD player, but later he realized that it was nothing like the complicated mumbo-jumbo of entertainment devices today. All he had to do was push a button and insert the disk. Thankfully, human ears still worked. He listened to the CD again and again, as melodious voices crooned.

We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

The line which caught his attention was ‘There's a choice we're making, We're saving our own lives’. How true these words were. If only somebody had paid attention to them. If only they had understood that they were being warned by the most subtle of ways. If only they had seen the ray of hope and taken a detour to go towards it.

He listened to another song too.

We shall overcome, We shall overcome,

We shall overcome someday,

Oh, Deep in my heart, I do believe,

That we shall overcome someday.

Upon listening to this, Dr. Neil smiled without humor. This song of hope must have been sung by millions, but did anybody truly believe that there was a chance of overcoming if only they changed their habits.

On 19^th July, 2254, Dr. Neil Thackeray received a news alert saying that he would be getting a Nobel Prize. This was a news Dr. Neil would have liked to receive in his beloved laboratory, but since resources were too scarce and mass communication was the only option left, he received this news when he gazed at the sky along with 1003 other inhabitants of Narkis. This Nobel Prize was not for his scientific or archeological contribution, but for his extensive research on the subject of hope and role of music in spreading hope. Dr. Neil never received his Neobel Prize. There was no way to get to Jurrava, another island in the Indian Ocean which had remained after the huge landmass it had once been part of had drowned. Two days after becoming the first person to have done anything worthy of such an honor as the Nobel Prize, Dr. Neil died due to complications from having spent too much time in the new variety of water. His death prompted research on the harmful effects of chemically-altered water on human health. His five fellow scientist could only be happy that he had lived up to the age of thirty in a world where life expectancy at birth was twenty-seven years.