Photo/illustration: Alex Tomoff

‘You know …’ A smile bloomed on Lenny’s face because he was about to say something that he knew would impress her. ‘Two years after the initial recording, Louis Armstrong recorded the song once again, only this time with a spoken intro. Uh-huh, I know. Found out myself only recently. He says, “Some of you young folks been saying to me, ‘Hey, Pops, what you mean, What a wonderful world? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful?’” Satchmo says … yeah, something like that he says and … and he says that—I don’t remember what exactly he says, but um … it was something like, “Seems to me, it ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doin’ to it. And all I’m saying is, see what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love, baby, love. That’s the secret, yeah”. That’s what he says and then … and then the song starts.’ Lenny laughed. He felt good. He was in the arms of his beloved woman.

Lyudmila’s head was on his shoulder.

He placed her hand on his chest, gently kissed her head and petted her as if she was a tiny kitten. He sighed and pressed the replay button on his laptop. The song started again. This time he said nothing, just listened to the voice of Louis Armstrong sing, “What a Wonderful World.” These last few hours, Lenny had pressed the replay button maybe a hundred, maybe a thousand times. Who knew? He forgot how to set the auto repeat and had to do it manually every time. But that didn’t bother him. He had nothing else to do. 

When the song ended for who knew which time, Lenny sang along with Satchmo: ‘Ohhh, yeaaah …’

The Automated Emergency Notification System sent another text message to Lenny’s phone. Never until these last few days had Lenny ever thought something called Automated Emergency Notification System even existed or that it sent texts to people’s phones. It is pretty logical, of course, he had thought the very first time he had received the text. The next fifteen to twenty texts had annoyed him, but after that, he no longer cared about those. Soon, his phone’s battery would die. His laptop’s battery would follow. In a few days, the emergency backup power system for the AENS sending those text messages would die too. Then the greatest silence would conquer the planet. As it had been before the first man. And as it would be after the last one died.

Lenny wondered if he would be the last man on Earth. But then again, even if he was not, how long after him would the last one live? A week? Hardly more. One thing he knew for sure was that for miles and miles, there were no other people, so he could easily consider himself the last one in the county. 

‘Ohhh, yeaaah …’

He once again kissed Lyudmila but bowed his head really gently, because he didn’t want to bother her. He thought her peace right now was divinelike. She was the only thing that had calmed him down through the years, the only thing that kept him going and made him forget all the bitter mocking. She helped him to somehow erase all that negativity ever since he was a kid.

He always had to pay a high price for being different from the others, for being the special needs kid who then quickly turned into cretin and idiot and hey, you weirdo and freak … until Lyudmila came in his life. She was his best friend. Would they have gotten married if only they had a little more time? Lenny wondered but quickly chased away that thought. Even I’m not stupid enough to think I can turn back time. He kissed her again and smiled. Only those in love smiled like that. Probably the crazy too. But weren’t all who were in love crazy?

His phone received another automated text message telling him in all caps to pay ATTENTION! Then the smaller letters would tell him in some dry, senseless style that he must keep calm and follow all the orders of the police and the army and walk toward the nearest gathering point, because the evacuation was inevitable since some radioactive materials had spilled all over.

That message kept lying, just like those who had made it used to do. And those before them, and those before them—ever since the dawn of humankind. But hey, they probably had no time to record a message that says, Don’t bother doing anything at all. We screwed ourselves big time. The prehistoric virus we released from the permafrost we melted, thanks to our greed and carelessness—which both created global warming—simply cannot be stopped. It’s unknown to mankind. It existed long before humans walked the Earth. We can’t be immunized. It spreads faster than anything we know and kills you within a week or two. If anyone had told Lenny to record a message, it would’ve sounded just like that. Only he would have added, But it doesn’t affect animals, just like our simple flu doesn’t affect them. It only kills people, those same smartasses who could’ve saved themselves if they’d only stopped melting the big ice …   

‘Ohhh, yeaaah …’

Lenny loved animals, and he was happy they didn’t have to suffer. Animals were always his friends. They never mocked him, always accepted him for who he was, and now they were the only ones left to walk the streets, the roads, in the woods, beaches, islands, continents.

Lenny imagined somebody else in the room with him and Lyudmila. For years, he had imagined that somebody being around—ever since his mom had died and before they found her on the next day, he had cuddled with her all night long. He imagined that black figure was wearing round glasses—he never thought to question himself why he imagined that figure with such odd, round glasses. Smart ones wore glasses, didn’t they? And that figure had to be the smartest of them all. 

Lenny had started to feel the tingling in his left arm as well. The other one had already gone numb, as well as both his legs. But he had nowhere to go anyway. Had no other place he had to be. 

He was just happy that he had exhumed Lyudmila before the sickness struck his limbs. She was among the first victims, and a week had already passed. He had become quite worried that he might have gotten the wrong grave because she … looked different. Anyway, he eventually knew this was her. This was her. The love of his life. His best friend. Lyudmila.

He once again kissed her head. Her peace and calmness were divinelike. He tried not to worry her. He pressed Replay again and again, listening to the voice of Satchmo. Only four of them existed in the whole world: him and Lyudmila, the Black Figure who kept them company, and the voice of Satchmo. 

‘Ohhh, yeaaah …’