Telelethality (Part 1)

For the ones who hate, there can be no love. -- Aphorisms of the Last Remaining Humans.

The apocalypse began innocently enough, as perhaps all apocalypses do, with the advent of a new technology that promised to improve the lives of humans, to make them safer.

As mankind progressed in its technology the nature of power changed; lethality increased in its portability and range. The knife, the spear, the arrow, the gun: all means to protect one’s person, or to kill. The last advancement came with little warning or fanfare, with an ad placed through various web search result pages: “We live in troubled times of GREAT insecurity. PROTECT yourself and your family FROM the OMNIPRESENT threat of GUNS.” Of course this would be displayed to the most paranoid first. How far spread possession of the system became before its opening use often made the news cycle in the early days.

The first spate of deaths washed over the States like an invisible tidal wave, from the east coast to the west. Mass panic ensued, as everyone was certain of some microbial cause. However, forensic examination of initial victims found them in perfect states of health at their respective times of death. It was as if an electrical switch were simply turned off. Weeks would pass, and more would fall victim, before we’d all learn that was exactly the case.

“How long till we can go outside again, Mama?” Little Rachel sat cross legged before the back screen door, staring out onto the lawn we’d let brown, the flower garden we left to seed. She did this every morning, and every morning I had to say the same thing.

“Soon, sweetheart. Very smart people are working on this problem. Really smart. In Washington.”

“People are still dying.”

“That is what they say.”

“We’re killing each other”.

Rachel was only eight years old, but she had learned from her father to never mince words. Sometimes children have the most uncanny grasp of the truth, no matter how brutal.