Hindsight

There was utter silence, no noise, no light, just peaceful, blissful darkness. Suddenly, dim lighting came on, and the silence was broken by music which began to play quietly in the background. It was Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in ‘C’ major – it sounded so familiar. Joe felt warm and content. He was in a drifting half-sleep and everything he wanted was there, right now. His blissful state was abruptly disturbed by a beeping sound and a yellow flashing light, which pulsed against his eyelids as he slept cocooned in a sleeping pod. Joe became conscious of the repeated dot-dash-dot-dash of the light, like the Morse code used in the twentieth century. He had been dreaming of his parents, Joseph Gilroy Senior, his father, Serena his mother, and his young sister Elizabeth. In his dream he had just turned sixteen and they were somewhere warm; he could feel the warm air brushing over his skin. The yellow light was flashing more intensely, more rapidly, as if it was coming from behind the overhead bedroom fan. Yes, that was it, they were in their Mediterranean villa on the Greek island, it was warm and Elizabeth was playing her favourite Mozart piece on the piano. God had been good to them and Joe felt blessed with a wonderful loving family. Damn, Joe thought, that bleeping must be the oven; his mother Serena must have left the timer on and gone for a walk outside. They spent splendid holidays at the villa, where the smell of the olive groves, the distant high-pitched sound of the cicadas shrilling their mating call in the heat of the sun, reminding them that they were in the Mediterranean, the place where you could enjoy peaceful afternoon siestas without feeling guilty. Man, it was great to be alive! The afternoon siestas with his parents and Elizabeth in the Mediterranean heat under the bedroom fan made life worth living. Hell, that bleeping is still going, where is everyone? He decided the noise was too irritating; he had to get up from his siesta and see to the oven so the food would not burn. He tried moving. He couldn’t, he was paralysed, his eyes were closed, but all his other senses were beginning to kick back in, panic and fear . . . Oh my God, Joe thought, I’m having a stroke! He tried to shout out. All he could hear was Mozart and that damn bleeping. Then, too exhausted to struggle any more, sleep came back to him, the panic subsided, and he went back into a deep sleep. Beep . . . beep . . . beep . . . Two hours later, there was a sudden whooshing sound, and a rush of cold air brushed his face. Joe could hear a gruff hoarse voice calling his name. ‘Joe, wake up, Joe, wake up . . . Joe, are you ok?’ As Joe came to his senses he was expecting to see the ceiling of the Mediterranean villa with the familiar ceiling fan and his mother Serena or his sister Elizabeth calling him for brunch, so who did the gruff hoarse voice belong to? Joe opened his eyes; the reality and emotions came streaming back to him, as he became aware of all the tubes and cables hooked up to him and the memories of the horror, the devastation, and the cold reality of mankind’s’ extinction. His heart was beating at 150 beats per minute; he felt nauseous, frail and weak. As he tried to sit up, his head spun and he almost lost consciousness. He knew that this was the effect of his circulation beginning to return to normal functioning, and started to massage his limbs to help the process. He desperately craved a date with his toothbrush. Two of his fellow Guardians helped him sit up, and as his eyes began to focus, he could see all five of them, all in different states of undress, all looking as if they had just crawled out of bed, as indeed they had. Joe and the other five were the six Guardians who had been in a long sleep in stasis pods. Joe believed they had all been sleeping in deep stasis for over 5,000 years.