Ramblings of the Lost

It had been a week since the man had been found at sea off the coast of Brazil. He was brought to the hospital because he would not wake up from the time he was saved. They found him in a lifejacket, only carrying some rock to be shipped back to the U.S. to be examined.

When he awoke, he couldn't stop talking. At first it was to thank the locals for saving him. He was even happy to hear that the rock sample had been shipped since they couldn't be certain if he'd ever wake up from his coma. Things started getting bad after he started eating real foods instead of sustenance through a tube. He demanded, “Raw fish instead of this cooked garbage.” He made do on raw fruits and vegetables but was marked insane after he left the hospital and broke into a library. Afterwards it seemed like he was talking to himself constantly. The following is what he said while in a rubber room for fourteen hours by himself.

“Where are they? It's been so long but there have to be some somewhere.

“Where are you hiding? Did you escape to space or were you wiped out by what I did?

“They say the world is billions of years old, but others say thousands and I doubt a flood would have wiped you out. Either way the world has changed so much. Could you all be gone because I did my job too well?

“Should we have explored the land before we explored the sky? All we wanted to do was fly, like the lizards after us. And maybe we did and grew extra limbs to eat stuff falling to the depths, or flying at great heights?

“But we adapted a different way. We were given bigger brains to do bigger things. Maybe even how to make appendages into wings. Perhaps we lost our way, and our greatest adaptation began? Maybe they devolved back to sea slugs, that thrive better with shrimp in their guts?

“But we were the best, making shells, and backbones so other species could thrive, always maintaining a status quo that let our species explore both terrains. We followed the fish and crustaceans to a new world that lacked water. I saw it from space, but it was all together not divided into separate continents.

“These beings count seven, but all I saw were four. The largest seemed to be broken into three which made no sense, while the next largest was broken into two, both divided by canals that these beings claim they made.

“They claim that they traveled into space too and landed on the moon. Unlike me who landed on an asteroid to see if we could bring it down to the sea.

“I don't think my trajectory was plotted correctly though, because the last thing I remember seeing was the asteroid hit dry land which made me eject.

“There was a large basin on the map I saw that could have been the crater I left. But do animals die in impacts like they claim the dinosaurs did? Or is it all a lie and I brought these aliens down to us to destroy the surface and devastate our species?

“There used to be so many voices. Now I just hear my children at the bottom of the world. Luckily there were marine animals that still lay eggs living there so I could reproduce. I just wish I knew what happened to all of my friends, family, and co-workers.

“Did you live for years beyond my disappearance? Did you wonder what my fate was? Were you too worried trying to cling onto life to wonder what had happened to me? Did you die off instantly or did you suffer?

“I wish I had some form of clue. I saw nothing about us in their records, but we wouldn't have left fossils like the lizards did. Maybe I can find one of our record keeping devices still intact someplace on the sea floor? The largest ocean still looked familiar to me even if it did look a bit smaller than what I saw in orbit.

“Oh, how I wish you all could have seen it. We were right that weight got heavier beyond the water and then weightless as I exited the atmosphere. The asteroid was beautiful too. But it didn't look like ice as we thought. It looked like rock. Almost like a small part of the moon. I just wish it had hit the water as we planned instead of the dry land, but the atmosphere must have been thicker than we expected. I nearly made it to the northern ocean basin, but not quite.

“I also don't understand how I could have survived so long, if that was millions of years ago. Perhaps the liquid oxygen in my pod kept me in stasis after it froze. However it happened, I'm scared. Scared of what these things will do once they know what I am. Scared that I will never see my family and friends again. And scared that our species was wiped out and will never thrive again.

“Well, I may be able to affect that last one. But maybe you are all hiding in these beings and forgot how to communicate telepathically? That's why I'm calling out to you all vocally. Maybe one of you will hear me and calm my worries?

He stayed silent for a little over an hour.

“Hopefully none of you are in earshot. I don't know what to do now. Maybe my new family can take this world back from these upright apes? Maybe we can become symbiotic of these beings and guide them to make better choices without them seeing us as parasites. Or maybe they could teach us a thing or two including things like space travel? After all they haven't completely destroyed the planet, yet. Though from what I've read they seem pretty close.

“I don't really know what to do. I just know I'm hungry and this vegetation isn't cutting it. I'm not certain what sugar is, but I don't think we ate anything like it in the past. Now a lot of vegetation has it inside of it. I have to use this beings organ to process it and even they don't seem to digest it properly. All I know is that I'm very hungry and need to sleep.

“I hope someone has heard me and can save me from this loneliness. But if not, I'll have to figure things out on my own. I hate being alone.”

With that the man fell asleep and was quiet for the rest of the night.

The next morning when an orderly checked on him, only his skeleton was found. Some people thought they heard him attack the orderly, but he claimed nothing happened and that he was OK except for finding the remains of the man from the sea. He asked to leave his shift early and was never seen again.

Someone claimed they saw him chartering a boat in Peru, but that could not be verified as the ship was lost at sea. But did he take the ship to look for long lost records at the bottom of the sea? We may never know.