“Jesus, this place is deserted.” “I know Dad.” As if a deserted North America wasn’t bad enough without a father and son dropping by, waking me from my midday nap.  How was I going to complete my final preparations with these two, who somehow refused to go in the ground like, well, everyone. No matter, general courtesy extends past my qualms, even in what is essentially the post-apocalypse.

“Hey you two, come in for some tea! You look tired. And you old man, look like you skipped too many de-aging therapies. Don’t you know the United States of Humanity offered—oops, used to offer—free therapy when it was still around?” Neither of them budged an inch, instead turning to each other and feverently chattering in Hebrew. They suddenly stopped, looking back at me.  I swear, you could hear the wind whistle through the old guy’s Gandalf beard. His eyebrow raised, he squinted his eyes, then a light bulb materialized above his head, and he exclaimed to me “Ah, so your accent has changed since the last time I came to visit!” He was interjected by the crisp sound of shattering glass, as said light bulb fell against concrete. “Sorry about that, I’ll reverse-genesis that later.”  

I quickly drained the green tea into my faded antique pewter cups for these guests. A stream trickled out from a chip on the rim, but they simply looked at me with a focused stare. They looked as if they were imploring me to appease them with words, not the 268 vitamins and amino acids in the tea. They were strange, but to be honest, I’ve seen stranger people in New Tokyo. “So, you two want to know how I got these scars? I’m just playing, that was an allusion to literature even more renowned than Gilgamesh. But anyways, I’m sure you two know about what must appear to be the apocalyp-“

“I told you that these carbon-based clowns would doom themslves! You kids, so naïve.” His son tried to cover his eyes with his hands, letting loose a sigh, after realizing his eyes peeked through. “Dad, we’ve been over this. Maybe if you were more supportive, we wouldn’t have to find another new residence.” I promptly interceded, an argument wasn’t how I wanted to spend my last conversation.

“Hey! I am carbon-based, but I’m no delinquent. Also, if you guys need a place, there’s loads of mortgage-free, tax-free, people-free housing in a thousand-mile radius. And don’t worry, the previous residents weren’t evicted out of this plane, they left on their own accord.” The steam from the tea lazily climbed their facial features, before the young man spoke up.

“What do you mean, left on their own accord?” Did they live under a rock? Well no, that was impossible; rocks were all converted into building material a while back. “I mean that every human besides me chose to leave, they weren’t forced by an ill-fated claw or anything like that. I’ll be following soon, just need to tidy up for the next dominant species, whenever they finally come along.”

The old man’s face scrunched up like a wad of newspaper, and he slumped back into his chair. “So you mean to tell me the rest of your friends committed suicide? I made that immoral for a reason! I knew that humanity would tumble down after I rolled it up.” His prodigal son perked up, and rebutted “You know, they must have believed in us to do that. How else could they find the courage to jump into the unknown? Even if he’s the only one left, we should still love him, and he us.”

It was pretty clear they had found the last rock on Earth, and hid under it. “No, no! It wasn’t suicide, we just transcended!” Both of them looked at me with concern, and a disappointed look on their face that asked why the last human on earth had to be insane. “Ok, hold on while I explain. You see, ants don’t notice a man’s boot closing in on them, and likewise, we wouldn’t notice a higher-dimensional alien foot looming over us. Explains how we’re the only loudmouths in a universe rife with Earths.  You taking this in fellas?”

At this point, both of them looked as timorous as man was in scientific progress during the 21st century, the height of the technological dark ages. I decided to continue on; the rest of humanity was waiting for me. “Yeah, we got to the top of the highest mountain, figured out the theory of everything and all that. Did you know that the center of a black hole ended up being the multi-dimensional equivalent of a donut hole?  Old man, we mastered materializing something from nothing ages ago, that light bulb joke where you literally have it appear over your head was beaten to death by comedians. But I digress. Our brains already discovered on this stage, and a level-up was long overdue. We may have died in three dimensions, but we’re just starting our new lives in the fourth.”

God looked perplexed, whereas Jesus slowly leaned closer with curiosity. At least we kept world history courses from the stagnant 2000’s, or else I would have had to waste time figuring out who they were. “Well, thanks for watching over us, I personally appreciated it. But it’s time to move on to greener pastures, and a higher cognitive step on the evolutionary staircase. Hopefully, I’ll be able to properly thank you as an equal whenever humanity gets around to whatever dimensional plane you’ve reached. Once again, thanks for everything, and good luck with the next newbie species.” Not wanting to waste anymore time, I stepped into the softly buzzing machine, making sure to lock the door to Earth behind me. Wouldn’t want any rude intrusions on its next keepers, whenever they get around to evolving.