Dateline

New Year's Day

She woke, groggy, slowly, aware that she was outside and lying on hard ground, but somehow feeling rested. Like she'd slept for forever. She didn't try to move, and kept her eyes shut. She could tell it was dark though, and silent. The kind of silence she remembered from camping in the forest with her parents and brother once, before the bad times and the divorce.

That was a bad memory; put it to one side. Remember the good.

The sound of wildlife. She could hear birds, a chirping, rising warble away in the distance. The sound of breathing. Not only herself, but others. Many others.

Smells. Camping in the forest smelt of pine needles and sap, leather of walking boots and coffee on the campfire. Here smelt of the sea, and warm sidewalks after rain. She inhaled deeply through her nose. It smelt clean, and fresh.

She opened her eyes. The sky above was a myriad of stars, blazing in a way she had never seen before. It made her gasp and smile with delight. Sitting up, the starlight was just bright enough to see by. The horizon was a jagged tumble, and it took her a while to figure out it was buildings; tall skyscrapers and city blocks, dark and lifeless, silhouetted against the heavens.

She stood, shakily, slowly, her legs stiff. She looked down at the ground.

There were bodies, everywhere. They stretched as far as she could see, in every direction. Where was she? What had happened? They all appeared to be dressed in the same gray clothing, and looking down, she found herself similarly clad.

Panic welled up, pushing the contended feelings aside. She remembered it all now; the party, New Year's Eve in Auckland. A highlight of her gap year travels. She had thrilled at the idea of being one of the first to see the new year begin.

She had called someone to share it with, hadn't she? She'd been on her phone, to her brother. Then something ... terrible ... had happened.

There was a noise behind. A light bobbed through the darkness, coming towards her. She was frightened, fearful of what was happening, what this could mean. As the light came closer, she saw it was a man, dressed in clothing was more familiar; outdoor clothes, the kind she had for hiking. The man was old; long gray hair down past his shoulders, his face, lit up by the camping lamp he held in one hand, was tanned and deeply lined from long periods spent outdoors.

When he spoke, his voice was deep and slow, full of weary authority and sorrow.

"Hello Sis. Welcome back."

"My god. Aaron? Is that you? You... You're old. How can that be, what's happening? "

"Hush, little sis. Don't get upset. Walk with me and I'll try to explain."

Together, they walked away from the park where she had awoken, away from the still sleeping people. Aaron started to talk, unhurried, matter of fact.

"It's been fifty years, Becky. Fifty years since you and all of humanity were taken away. Only myself, and a few others who I stuck with on that night made it. Oh, and some fishermen, and two ship's crews who passed the dateline east to west that night, not even aware of what was happening. But we only knew that ten years ago, when we went to Japan.

"I'll tell you the story another time, it's really very exciting. But what really matters is, we've been given another chance. They have let us try again. After cleaning up our mess, that is. Doesn't the air smell sweet these days?"

The old man, her brother, was smiling, breathing air deep into his lungs. "There's been a few changes around here. Some stuffs going to be hard to get from now on. Oil and coal, for example. They took much of it away, said we had been 'wilfully negligent in squandering a natural resource', though I think they were more upset that humanity couldn't see that they were poisoning their planet. And I really mean 'their' planet. Human beings, it seems, were some kind of mistake. Imagine it, you spend billions of years shaping a new home, and when you come to check on your estate, some opportunistic monkey with brains too big for its own good have evolved into us, and ruined everything. Yeah, you'd be upset too.

"However, they took it well, considering. Last time it went wrong, they threw a large rock at Earth. Killed all the dinosaurs, but that allowed us to take their place. Able thinks they would rather have put up with T-Rex than Homo Sapiens."

"Who's Able? "

"Oh, he's our man in the stars. Not sure what he is now. Either way, he ain't coming back. Look, here's the short story, you can hear the long one later. We survived the event, made it here, just, aboard a plane like something out of a science fiction comic book, gliding in to Auckland with no engines and a whole lot of luck. Spent a year here setting up a farm, then a few of us made our way to Europe, by bicycle and sailboat, mainly. Took us three years. When we got there, one our group, Kelly her name was, got something very technical working at CERN, don't ask me what it was, I don't understand it, and we got back in touch with Able. Been speaking to Them ever since.

"But now the planet's clean, and we can come back. Start again. We've got some new technology; clean power, new materials, that sort of thing. None of it's here yet though, we've got to earn it, by being nice to each other and looking after the place."

Becky smiled for the first time, hearing the joy in her brother's voice. "But what's to stop us making the same mistakes again?"

"Ah, well. That's the thing.They are watching us closely now. In fact, I think they're on their way. Should be here in like, two hundred years or something. That will be an interesting day. Until then, Happy New Year, sis. Welcome to year one. Cmon, come and meet your neices, they want to introduce you to their kids... "

The End.