23. STALINS’S DAGGER REVISITED

 

I like magic! Early next morning I was dreaming. That is, I believed I was dreaming. As on the previous days, some early morning birds were chirping so I am not sure. When I turned around in bed, the small box was there once again. Nothing rattled inside. I opened the box. There were some sheets of paper. I wanted to read chapter 23.

 

23. STALINS’S DAGGER REVISITED

- They are dead? Jill asked. – is that really so? Who killed them? Stalin’s dagger?

Silence. Shrouds of fog drifted ashore. The gloomy figure of the time traveller appeared, carrying a dagger.

-          Not this one, he said. – Time is the grim reaper. How they died, I will and cannot tell. However, they are all dead.

-          And then the world was a better place? Jack exclaimed.

The time traveller was quiet for a while.

-          Look around. What do you see?

Jill turned her head, and looked in all directions. There was nothing to see, only sea and beach. There were no sounds except small waves lapping in the sand.

-          Where are we?

-          This is the future. Thousands and thousands of millennia have passed.

-          What happened?

-          How can I tell, the time traveller answered- - When a swarm of locusts makes the sky black, who can say what happens? They eat everything, and leaves a barren place devoid of greenery.

-          And next year, after rain.

Jill was eager now.

-          Next year the same area is lush and green. No swarms of locusts?

-          That was a long time ago.  We are here now. The locusts were only a simile.

-          Do you mean people did this back in time?

-          The species homo sapiens sapiens did not live up to their name, or maybe that was exactly what they did. The dream of environmentalists at last was fulfilled. The sky is clear. Butterflies and insects are abundant. Birds are flying around doing what birds use to do, hunting for food, building nests, feeding their chicks, and best of all, there are no people around. The masters of earth went extinct.

-          Then everything will start anew one more time?

-          It already has.

The time traveller lifted the dagger, and the rays of the sun was reflected around.

From out of nothing there was a deafening thunderbolt, and a blinding lightning.

When Jack and Jill got their senses back, the dagger and the time traveller was gone.

End of chapter 23. To be continued in chapter 24.