|
|
Joe Aprile
The End of the Nerds
The National Library of Congress in Washington DC visibly showed its age.
The marble columns were mottled and worn. The steps were in an advanced
state of disrepair. Billy was sitting in the shadows of the building away
from the direct rays of the brilliant southern summer sun. He sat with his
crumpled lunch bag by his side. He was eating a sandwich that even he did
not find appealing.
Billy was one of the many librarians that provided library services
to the its users. In the midst of his lunch, Maria, one of his coworkers
came over to him in an obviously agitated state.
"Some of our files seem to be missing. Do you know how to run the
backup?"
"Who me, are you kidding! Jonathan is the only one who knows how to
do that."
"He called in sick today."
"What's the matter with him?"
"I don't know, he didn't say."
"What are we going to do?"
"Wait till he comes back. What else can we do?"
Maria shrugged her shoulders and went back inside.
Jonathan Wiley was originally hired because of his skills as a computer and
network technologist. At that time, he had many peers. That was all before
the economic downturn of 2057. This catastrophe was preceded by a sense of
fiscal euphoria earmarked by wild and unfettered speculation. The collapse
brought with it the eventual demise of many so-called high tech companies.
This subsequently led to drastic cuts in employment.
Technological innovation came to an abrupt end. This came right in the
midst of the digital age. Vast quantities of information, the kind of
information that sustained modern civilization with all its complexity, had
been converted to digital files stored on various devices: hard drives,
magnetic taped, optical discs. Information stored in such a format could
only be retrieved by hardware capable of deciphering it. It was for this
precise reason that the National Library of Congress had hired Jonathan.
Jonathan was now in his late sixties and had witnessed the utter demise of
the profession and the culture that had sustained him. He was, in fact, the
last of the Nerds.
Days past and still Jonathan did not return to his job. The situation was
getting desperate. Library patrons requests for information were turned
down for the information was inaccessible without Jonathan's expertise.
Maria decided that she needed to contact Jonathan and find out what was
happening to him. She called his home repeatedly but there was no answer.
She hastily called Billy, "Billy, we've got a problem. I tried to get
Jonathan on the phone. There's no answer.
"Well, we're going to have to go over to his place to find out what's going
on."
"Okay, let's do it!"
Billy brought his car around. He had a beater that was over thirty years
old. This car still worked mainly due to Billy's own know how. He had an
irreconcilable love of the automobile. His car was his "baby" and he was
determined to keep it running. The car had once dominated the economic and
social life of the country. This was no longer the case due to the profound
economic collapse that had abruptly halted their production.
On the way to Jonathan's house, the streets were strangely deserted.
Jonathan lived on the periphery of the District of Columbia where the roads
were in extreme disrepair. His house was an old wooden structure that had
long shifted noticeably off of it's foundation. Most of the windows were
cracked and the front porch showed the relentless effects of weathering and
the passing of time.
Billy and Maria approached the front door with some trepidation. They did
not know what they might find. Billy knocked at the door. At first he
knocked softly. There was no answer. He knocked more vigorously. There
was still no answer. Billy tried the front door and found that it was open.
They both entered, Billy first. Maria called, "Jonathan are in?"
At first there was only silence, but after a little while they both heard a
very low voice answering, "Who are you?"
"It's Billy and Maria from the library," answered Maria.
"I'm up here" Jonathan answered.
They walked into the front room and were taken aback by the state of utter
chaos that they saw. There were papers strewn everywhere. Empty and
partially empty food containers lied about like rotting corpses. The smell
was overwhelming. They went up the one flight of stairs that led to
Jonathan's bedroom. They did not know what to expect.
Jonathan was lying on his bed fully clothed with the bed covers piled on top
of him haphazardly. He looked remarkably thin and gaunt. His long straight
hair was unkempt and his dark brown eyes looked cold and fearful.
Both Maria and Billy were startled by the apparition that they saw, but they
tired desperately to disguise their apprehension.
"How are you doing?" Maria asked trying to sound cheerful.
"Not good," he answered.
"What's the matter?" Billy asked.
"I feel very weak. I can barely get out of bed and feed myself. I thought
I would get better in a few days, but I seem to be getting worse."
"Have you seen a doctor?" Maria asked.
"A doctor, what good are they!"
"That's crazy thinking," Billy intervened, "Tell us what we can do for you.
We need you to get better."
"Why is that?" Jonathan asked.
Billy did not answer immediately, Maria finally said, "We miss you."
"Sure, you do. I know what you miss. Things are falling apart over at he
library aren't they? That's what brought you over here, isn't it?"
Neither Mary nor Billy were able to answer these questions, which confirmed
Jonathan's suspicions.
"You know what you can do for me," Jonathan continued, "You can both get out
of here and leave me alone."
"C'mon Jonathan," Billy said, "You don't have to behave like this."
"Get out of here," Jonathan said with an unmistakable finality in his voice.
"I don't really want to go on anymore, and I don't give a shit what happens
to this god forsaken world after I'm gone.
On the way back to the library, Maria turned to Billy, "What are we going to
do?"
"I don't have a clue, Maria. It doesn't look too good to me. Did you see
the way he looked, so pale and weak. There's a chance we never see him
alive again!"
Billy's worst fears came true, Jonathan died a few weeks later in his sleep.
He was a loner and only Maria and Billy came to the funeral. What died with
Billy was all the precious knowledge he stored in his brain that he alone
possessed. The vast infrastructure of technology that had eroded over the
years finally came to its inescapable end with Jonathan's death. Years
later, after a fit of housekeeping, the refuge containers outside the
library were filled with digital data disks filled with vast stores of
information, no longer accessible.
Want to respond to this short story? Do it here!
Return to Poetry
|
|
|
|
