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The Last Garden on Earth
One strange tribe still tells how the first people came into being in a garden. A romantic fantasy that appeals to me: a place of flowers and grass and occasional shady trees, like those in ancient paintings. Grandmother has a book, over 200 years old: Encyclopaedia of Gardening, with pictures of scented blooms with lovely names. So different from the minute florescence of the vegetable and cereal ranches, where genetic advances have eradicated the need for insect pollination. Those vast hectares, together with wide afforestation, provide the vaunted ‘Green World’ supposedly counteracting the concrete deserts of our megalopolises. The only garden now on earth is walled and private, created by an oligarchical sheik in, perhaps by coincidence, proximity to ancient Eden.
Yesterday I found a real flower, a tiny blue blossom that had somehow forced its way between stones in a crumbling wall. The Encyclopaedia says it’s called ‘forget-me-not’.
Alanna Blake
The Last Smoker on Earth
They’d pursued him over four continents, using every tracking and surveillance device, every trick of deception, bribery and brute force to capture him. Now he was alone, the last of a dwindling fellowship since Loretta had succumbed to ‘enhanced
interrogation techniques’ in Houston. They’d ascribed her death to ‘pulmonary weakness’, blaming her habit, not their cruelty. She hadn’t betrayed him, but now he was alone, his stash only a few dry flakes of home-cured.
The desert stars were out, illuminating the arabesque of smoke from his slender roll-up. Pascal had written that the eternal silence of infinite space terrified him. Why? Did Pascal not have Lady Nicotine, who even now was buoying his spirits as he heard the drone’s approaching insect hum? It would travel fast, faster than he could consume his stash, and its mission was annihilation. He would go up in smoke.
G.M. Davis
The Last Ghost on Earth
The exorcisms had been carried out with merciless, even exhausting zeal for over three years; and the punishing schedule of Tony Lynton, the Ghostfinder Tsar (a government post, but outside the crowded Cabinet), had reaped a spectacular whirlwind. Spooks had been eliminated, annihilated, erased. Targets had been met. The telltale tiny mounds of white ash (‘spectral residue’) were everywhere in
evidence. The afterlife had had its ranks swollen by a remarkable number.
And now, forehead creased, eyes brilliant and exophthalmic, Lynton had reached the final haunting, ready to despatch one last, shivering phantom. His team had cornered a shivering shadow in suburban Kirkcaldy, and although it wriggled piteously, Lynton’s incantations were already ringing out. There was a white light. Pouf! It was done.
But the effort killed Lynton. Horrified, invisible as yet, he watched as officers swept up the ash, and carted away his corpse. He was alone; and trapped.
Bill Greenwell
The Last Job on Earth
It went, inevitably, to a Chinaman, though six billion applied online. Li Pung knew 37 languages (two his own invention, proving creativity) and had a portfolio of qualifications seldom seen outside a University prospectus. His performance at interview — we watched online — combined the wisdom of Aristotle, the wit of Wilde and the indefinable charismatic niceness of Michael Palin. Business acumen? He had it; while awaiting his interview, he launched a viral marketing campaign from his iPhone that had us all borrowing to buy within minutes. The job description having been necessarily vague — something about pioneering proactive synergies — he naturally relished the challenge. What was that challenge? To exterminate a race that had technologised itself into redundancy: humanity. His wage would be survival. His employers — artificial intelligences all — had it all worked out. We’d have begged him to resign, but had to applaud his work ethic. Adrian Fry
The Last Airport on Earth
He feigned anger. ‘The airport was so right. We met at a place built before we had time to spend, when people only lived to 80, 90. A place for fast, unhappy
communication and genial indifference, before we learnt to do anything practical electronically and anything pleasurable slowly. An hour’s flight in an aeroplane. A quick thrill, going nowhere, connecting with nothing, ‘The Last Airport on Earth.’ He knew this was a false, soap-opera monologue but he had to break the elationship past repair. Besides, he was enjoying himself.
She smiled, making eye contact for the first time. ‘What did you think? That I wanted to spend the next century with you? That I was 180, and my body clock was ticking? No — don’t tire me with an answer. Just go.’ He left, childishly slamming the door, got into his car and pedalled away.
Frank Upton
No. 2768: matchmaking
You are invited to supply the profile for an online dating site of a Shakespearean character (150 words maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 10 October.
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