Adam

In the year 2875, Mankind died.

It didn't perish in poverty, wasn't buried under a giant meteor, didn’t burn up with the sun. There was no nuclear holocaust.

Mankind just died.

Or rather, I should say, Adam died.

Quite ironic really, naming the last descendant of the human race 'Adam'. But then you couldn't blame his parents. He was their last hope. They named him Adam hoping for a revisitation of the miracle that first occurred in Eden.

He was Mankind's last hope too, come to think of it. Maybe it was all that pressure that did it.

Adam was sterile.

There was nothing that could be done about sterility. If he had had a low sperm count, or low mobility or any of the other hundred odd sexual problems that had been plaguing Mankind for thousands of years, there were medical procedures. Medical procedures invented over the years by a desperate race afflicted by prosperity and entertainment.

Tired sperm could be rejuvenated but for death there was no cure yet.

He and Sita had tried up to the bitter end.

Sita. His parents had traveled long and hard to find her.

When his mother's scan had betrayed his sex, a frantic search had ensued to find him a mate.

In a country with a reported population of 15, not a single couple with child could be found.

In a planet with an estimated population of 50, there was one.

When Adam's parents contacted them, they had been married for 25 years and their daughter Sita was already 14 years old.

But she would be the closest to Adam in age out of all the people his parents had met and spoken to. She and Adam would outlive everyone else on the planet by at least 25 years.

No one could've predicted that Adam would outlive her by a further 30 years.

Sita's parents were exceptions. They had opted to marry when most people were just living together for convenience's sake and had multiple partners.

But then, they had a healthy daughter and could afford the luxury of a commitment.

In a planet of 50, there were only 12 men. Most of the population suffered from some form of sterility. Even if some managed to get pregnant, there were usually complications at birth. Those babies that survived the multiple operations at delivery usually died soon after. When Adam was picked up by the scanners, there had been no successful child births, other than Sita, for 30 odd years.

The youngest couple on the planet were already in their 30s and sterile.

Adam's birth wasn't without its share of complications either. It left his mother incapable of having any more children and him half dead in an incubator.

It took two super computers working overtime to pull him through the critical period.

Once his parents were reasonably sure that he would survive, the hunt began.

In the year 2785, most people were very well connected and easy to reach.

As their numbers eroded, the few who remained gravitated to central locations and banded together in communities. People preferred moving to an area that was cluttered and overcrowded, rather than living in desolate separation.

Human contact came at a premium now, not space.

The fewer there were, the closer they lived.

Of course there were exceptions. Even in the early days, there were a few who rejected technology and the community and ventured out on their own.

Satellites kept track of them till they perished.

The rest returned to technology for the answer. Devices were built to do everything autonomously, making human effort redundant. Society was remodeled to suit a race of vastly depleted numbers. By the year 2520 the World was fully automated. The population count stood at 212.

Machines did everything, maintained everything and serviced everything.

They couldn't make a dead sperm swim.

Communication was one field that grew by leaps and bounds in the final two hundred years. Since the population was living in groups separated by large distances, they felt a need to stay in touch. The few left at the turn of the century were fully networked.

Transportation was another frontier. It was also completely automated. The few "city-communities" were very well linked. Power was no problem.

Coal outlives Man.

Still, it took Adam's parents all of two months to track down Sita and her parents. In that time they spoke to 98% of the World's estimated population and personally met more than half. By the end they were positive that there was no suitable mate for their son.

Then they met Sita.

The moment they set eyes on her, playing by herself with her dolls, they knew she would be their daughter-in-law. She looked almost angelic with her soft curly hair and melancholy eyes.

Adam liked girls with straight hair and lively eyes. He married her anyway.

Adam and Sita tried very hard. They tried enhancers, supplements and positions. They even tried God. In vain.

Adam's parents died waiting for the signs.

Sita's parents followed.

With their parent's deaths, all pretence of liking each other was cast aside. They fought daily for the next year on issues ranging from the trivial to the surreal. Then they separated.

But they never stopped trying.

Love was a non-issue.

Ten years later Sita died. Adam was at her bedside. He saw Life stare at him, out of her eyes. Then he blinked, and it was gone.

After her death Adam felt more alone than he could have imagined. He took to the bottle and travel as a two-course remedy. Knowing that he would outlive every known person on the planet, he started a desperate search for someone younger.

The satellites showed no souls on the planet other than the ones already accounted for, all of whom were dying.

So was he.

The journey was just longer for him.

Towards the end, with everyone he knew dead, he finally decided to make sure. After all, the satellites could be mistaken. Or the machines that monitored them. The last human being who actually understood the technology had died a hundred years ago.

Adam packed a few supplies, a lot of machines and got a car. He set out determined to cover every remaining inch of the planet. He had the time.

He had no idea.

He lasted for fifteen days. On the sixteenth day, sick, tired and filthier than he could ever remember being, he started back home. He never got there.

Lost in a strange land buried under snow two feet thick, with his car broken down and the machines unable to fix it, Adam spent the last years of his life in terrible deprivation.

The last survivor of the species was weak, hungry and homeless.

Ninety now, he had gone as far as he could. He was tired.

He lay down, and closed his eyes.

Mankind died.