Only Good Men Deserve Yesterday (2 page)

Status updates
changed from irrelevant biased opinions to the available tinned and
fresh food, -medicine and ever changing available water levels.
Fresh water levels were as volatile as international forex during
the days when that was still of any consequence. Snapchat on the
other hand, by virtue of its design served a different purpose for
rebels against an already strained system which was battling to
cope. Governments referred to them as “Snap Cartels" and they
literally formed over night to plunder and hide as much scares
resources to sustain the new life as what was possible. By starving
masses they were praised as armed angels in a way, as they ensured
there was enough to go round in over populated hospitals.

What used to
be gold and cash was fast replaced by batteries and small solar
panels as a mode of payment and what was in the past a basic and
ignored non luxury item such as toilet paper became indeed a scares
luxury. During daylight, which was dim as best, as the weather
patterns were apparently not impervious to the effects of the solar
flare; entertainment seemingly travelled back in time to days where
the appreciation for reading paper books were still common. Books
were welcome and sought after distractions in high rise buildings
and offices which became residential safe havens away from the
downstairs horrors. Maiming and wholesale slaughter in the once
high walled and safe residential suburbs for an extra 500ml bottle
of water or a plastic bag of apples or potato chips became the norm
in just a few short weeks when whatever could be cooked were
consumed in its raw natural state as water for cooking purposes was
out of the question.

Chapter
4

Ten lonely
longing years into the life sentences handed down for two "horrid
evil souls" as the media had portrayed them; were also placed on
pause. Society already replaced the media spectacle of years gone
by with other more newsworthy evils the media so generously dished
up.

Tortured,
shocked, deprived of sleep and almost drowned on various occasions,
the two men eventually were beaten into admitting guilt for a list
of murders that could not be pinned on someone else. Political
pressure insisted and dictated that the cases had to be dealt with
and closed. The fact that the men were innocent was lost somewhere
between greed and election campaign contributions for a free and
fair South Africa.

Mistreated for
almost a decade, in the most inhumane ways, it was for them as if
day after doomed day was imported from hell.

Then one
morning after breakfast which was nothing more than half cooked and
unsalted oats porridge, fate paid a personal visit to the two
ex-government agents. Fate was a mediator who clearly wielded
unlimited power on behalf of his wealthy employer abroad. The tall
weathered faced man who spoke broken English, had travelled from
Prague with an offer that the distraught men could not refuse. What
they were about to get involved in would test the limited amount of
the sanity that remained inside their broken minds.

A lunacy of 10
minutes in a closed cell with the giant of a prison warden and his
four guards, had been a long time wish of theirs. As a courtesy
their wish came true when it dawned that the power wielded by that
most welcome visitor was seemingly unlimited. The visitor looked at
his wrist watch and removed it. He handed his Rolex to the first
man who exited the cell. "You're going to need this. Mine says it
was 3 minutes", the visitor's deep voice cracked and he smiled as
he fitted the silver Rolex around the tired looking prisoner's
wrist.

The second man
exited and the visitor removed his trendy sunglasses and put it on
the man's face to cover his bruised eyebrows. "Are we done here?",
the visitor enquired. The visitor's curiosity got the better of him
and opened the solid steel cell door and looked inside. "Yes, I do
believe we have the right men", and the peculiar visitor ended the
call and put his mobile phone in his inside jacket pocket while
ushering the men to the exit. Inside the cell was the result of 10
long years of bottled-up anger.

Chapter
5

For what was
left of secrecy and safety in an extreme chaotic world, only two
representatives of every government joined the strangest assembly
of think tanks. The group, who were initially scattered around the
globe, were quietly and separately moved from Johannesburg to
London and then from London to Paris. Lastly it became apparent
that Prague had been the actual and final destination. They were
collected to discuss the impossible task of planning a future
closer to the old world. The physically tired and emotionally
overloaded experts in their particular fields, all reluctantly
joined under armed guard. Only once admitted after sworn to secrecy
before being seated, did the group of only 100 learn the true fate
of the world. The severe, drastic change from the old comfortable,
to the new hellish world had absolutely nothing in common with the
aftermath of the widely and wrongly advertised lie of a sun flare,
they learnt with horror. The most esteemed mathematicians,
engineers, meteorologists, religious leaders, even two
numerologists found themselves in a group that were facing, on a
ready-made stage in the Alchemist Hotel in Prague; an odd duo.

As the one
uncomfortable surprise followed the next in a repetitive cycle,
representatives were facing, neither NASA, nor the Pentagon, nor
some undercover black ops, covertly over funded, “we don’t really
exist” group; but a 90 year old barefoot Buddhist monk in a bright
orange robe and next to him an 85 year old European monk dressed in
a faded brown robe balancing as he heaved forward and back on worn
cracked leather sandals. The crowd that were selected, mostly had
no idea what they could possibly offer, and were in awe that they
were flown to gather with what was possibly the last fuel at the
airports they left from, under armed guard, to be welcomed by aged,
wrinkled monks from two totally different parts of the planet.

The hustle and
graphic stories that were exchanged of life at home of a 100
different experts disappeared and their voices lowered to whispers
before it disappeared to a point where a pin could be dropped and
it would have echoed. A dead silence followed when each of the
monks produced an ancient worn wooden case with rope handles on
either side. The learned crowd sat for six hours straight and
didn't move a muscle as they were captivated by the most eloquent
of men they had ever met. The large volumes of knowledge the monks
recalled from memory on the beginning of alchemy to the many
branches of modern medical and other sciences, was astonishing. The
monks were knowledgeable on the latest discoveries that haven't
even made headlines yet and they continued to explain in full
detail both in Latin and layman's terms the effect of the nuclear
fallout and what could still be expected. Scientists found
themselves on the edges of their uncomfortable wooden hotel chairs
when the monks "went round the bend" as some would have thought. A
factual discussion on scientific proof at that moment turned to
alternative universes, and simulations that had apparently been
successfully completed, using nuclear power to travel back in time
but limited to a mere few days only. The audience were like little
children in front of master magicians and suddenly nothing seemed
impossible. Ancient knowledge had been kept from both society and
modern scientist alike for fear that the wisdom to deal with other
realities would have been replaced by the hunger for fame, greed
and yes, unlimited money. It was clear that progress was
systematically hampered at well-chosen intervals for other
antidote-like discoveries to be made prior to the main ones that
sling-shotted mankind from the 1800's to 2018. The feeling that
renowned and revered scientists felt cheated was dampened by the
reality they faced. It was a reality that the lowest of what
society had ever produced, agreed to save, not the day but their
lives of yesterday.

China, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Russia and America each had a
multitude of nuclear reactors that were about to go live, when the
result of the sabotage changed the face of what was real. The
handful of citizens of the planet who had the good fortune of
witnessing the awesome and widely publicised 1969 moon landing,
were overcome by a shared sense of de-ja-vu. Concern more than
excitement had been painting the picture for over a dreaded few
weeks as the stock markets, energy grids, food and water supplies,
law and order and anything civil rocketed down a bottomless black
pit. With hail and rain in the Sahara desert and severe and extreme
heat in normally snowy areas, it seemed as if even ancient and
resilient Mother Nature was on pause too.
Menopause
, as one meteorologist
referred to it. The unreal impact on the cyber life that the earth
dwellers grew so accustomed to, had already sunk in in the days
before the meeting and leaving the conference before all were in
agreement, was not an option.

In an adjacent
room the two men who were to change history, were listening in as
active discussions about ethics and law continued. The two men just
stared at each other shaking their heads.

The Tibetan monk who was referred to as a leader of a
cult,
even where he came
from, as well as the mysterious looking European monk who didn't
bother removing his hood eventually posed the only solution to the
group who faced them. Either society carries on the dead end road
to nowhere, or using evil in the hope of salvation.

“What was the biggest secret kept?”, the monks asked their
anxious audience. The colourful collection of brilliant minds were
up to that enquiry, what proved to be masters in their own fields.
The gathering was an ocean of faces between the ages of twenty
three, a baby faced smiling polite genius in quantum physics and
the oldest, a very upright postured and a slight bit bossy long
bearded and grey suited man of of sixty seven. Apparently there was
little he could be told on both aerospace or astronomy. Needless to
say, between the most senior, the junior and all in between had
very confident not to mention loud arguments about their particular
fields that would harbour the correct answer to the old monks'
enquiry. The bickering continued for about five minutes and the
monks made no effort to intervene. When the dinner hall quieted
down to a level he thought reasonable, the Buddhist monk asked who
could help him with the correct time. Again the audience displayed
varied degrees of rudeness as no one agreed with anyone else. Even
men and woman from the same fields dumped their esteemed colleagues
just to stand out in the hope that they were right and everyone
else be proven wrong. Again the monks didn't interfere. However
this time when there was less noise about the discussion about
Swiss precision and the cost of their wrist watches, a hand went up
in the back. “Yes?” And the monk pointed to a man in the back. He
had two drawbacks of which that he was deaf was one. The large
audience went quiet until every single head was turned to the man
in the back holding a tray of warm snacks as he briefly stopped
serving the brilliant guests. His clothes and in particular his
waist coat had seen better days and what was even more interesting
that many had realised, was that both his sleeves’ cuffs were
rolled back once, exposing his bare wrists. He did not have a watch
in sight. The monk smiled at the deaf man when he answered back
with a barely audible question and called him to the front. After
congratulating the man on his eyesight and lip reading the monks
faced the surprised crowd. “Tonight, the one who spoke the least,
actually said the most”. That was the last time anyone wagered an
answer. From that moment they swopped mere listening for absolute
awe as the audience was captivated by the monks. The answer of the
mute waiter was the beginning of a strange journey for most and for
a few it was science fiction that belonged in too many movies. The
reality that confronted them during the days that followed turned
their confident views upside down and shook out everything that
they had been glued to for years. “It could be anytime, you didn't
specify where…”, was the humble waiter’s take on things while the
planets’ highest IQ’s argued. The fact that anything was possible,
or at least many or most things and the resistance it was met with
by scientists was, as the monk said,
interesting
. There was no easy way
to present to the audience how little they actually knew about
science.

The old monk
managed to tie alchemy, and obscure old ways with modern science
while keeping their interest as he led them down the one way road
to the realisation that going back in time had been accomplished
before. A small group very darkly dressed people from an agency no
one ever heard of, escorted the monks off stage for a rest before
they continued again. Two six hour lectures each day for three
days, consisted of fresh never heard of approaches on religious
texts, mathematics, astronomy and nuclear reactors and included the
dangers and realities of things never thought possible... the
far-fetched fringe of science named time travel.

Two wealthy sponsors of international terrorism had to be
assassinated at least two days before the nuclear plants were
sabotaged. The two individuals, chosen from C-Max prison in South
Africa were masters of their craft, and agreed to be shot back two
days prior the sabotage, accomplish their assignment, and then
catapulted one day forward again
.
The two wrongly accused and visibly bruised men,
for the matter they were jailed at least; would be the only ones
afterwards who would be aware of both realities, should they manage
to survive the physical stress of going toe to toe with the widely
held laws of time. "Gifts from Hell", a small group of Priests
uttered under their breath. Both blushed and lowered their stairs
to the black velvety carpet as the old Buddhist monk looked at
them, took their hands in his and responded in a quiet soft tone,
"But then brethren, we are those same
other
people on a different day, are
we not?", and smiled.