The first thing I saw when I woke up was strange old man in white poking me with his instruments as I lay in a bed naked. I could only nod as he asked me a whole variety of questions from how I felt to my memories. Everything was hazy in my mind – like an empty room tinted by the dawn, except that when you’re in a room you at least know where you are. I felt like I was in the middle of a misty space where I wasn’t sure if I was even dead or alive – to say the least. I asked the fellow who I am, and he too only nodded as he hastily scribbled down notes. Quite a busy man, I thought. I went back to the muddled nothingness of what my mind was, trying to dig out every single memory that I could possibly muster but came up with nothing. Pretty white ceilings, said another that raced in my head. The fellow eventually put down his writing utensil and had an assistant – a brawny and an unpleasantly intimidating man – to bring me a set of clothes. He asked me if I remembered how to put them on, and I nodded, and he instructed me to do so. And so I put on the pale blue shirt and the pale blue shorts, and then out of the blue, I noticed something amiss. I turned and looked at the fellow right in the eye, and without a hint of humor in my already raspy voice, I asked, “My genitals feel rather uncomfortable. Can I possibly get an underwear?” The fellow glared at me, baffled at my unexpected response, or so I thought. He gave off a little sardonic smile that somewhat irked me (though I’m pretty sure everything did at that point) and gave a quick gesture with his thumb for the old man in white to slowly explain the situation.

“These underwear you speak of – they are an ancient artifact that can only be seen in the most prestigious museum, and only one pair currently remains in this world.”

I looked at him in disbelief as his glasses fell on his contorted wrinkles of his nose. And I, like any good man in denial, laughed it off.

I replied, “And I suppose this is 3015, a thousand years into the future!” I gave off another bellowing laugh; a laugh meant to be contagious in what I thought was a stiff yet perky atmosphere, but the two men stood motionless, their faces as blank as the white walls around me.

“It is the month of December, 2015.”

“Oh of course, you guys have no sense of -“

“December, 2015, Day 164758,” interrupted the muscled man.

“Excuse me?”

“December 164758,” added the old man, “We stopped counting other months and years altogether quite awhile ago, 164728 days ago to be exact. A lot easier to keep track of, don’t you think?”

The seriousness of the situation dawned on me as I soon realized that their faces showed no playfulness whatsoever. Over the next half hour or so, I saw the old man’s lips move, but I could hear nothing over the drear and confusion of my mind which grew to a splitting, roaring headache. Experiments? I’m lucky to be alive? What was he talking about? Soon, I found myself on my feet, slowly heading towards the door to attempt to find an answer I might’ve already knew, towards the bitterness of what I could only describe as the simplicity of reality. How could I believe them so easily? I thought. Of course, when you think you have nothing and the first person to tell you so make it clear, the notion of their words can only simple be accepted as truth. They were not lying – and I knew that, and nowhere in their monotone voice and their empty expressions proved me wrong. They did not stop me as I trotted off the white room and out into the winding hall endless in my sieve like mind, stumbling around as my sense of balance was skewed with the long, long days of inactivity, and from there I stepped into a world I would never have recognized. It seemed as if it came out of a fantasy ripped from an over imaginative mind of a child – the sun spewing out searing flames that beat on the dry cracked concrete, unbearably hot to the touch, and next to it was the moon – normally hidden as to not embezzle her partner’s savings in which he fervently worked for, only coming forth in the dark of night while her partner is away to reflect his glory – but this time, like of a new age, a new generation, she did what she thought would be impossible in the eyes of her partner, and that is to reflect nothing and shine in her own pristine. The air was overwhelming, draining away the little energy I had as I walked through the empty streets of a seemingly forgotten city. I looked back at the small, run down building in which I walked out from and debated whether or not I should rely on the doddering old man and his equally weary assistant, but the thought of it disgusted me. They had the answers, I was sure of that, but I had to find out with my own eyes. I had to see what kind of twisted world would exist 164728 days into the future, and why things came to be. A world where the sun and the moon stood side by side, a world where underwear were a thing of the past, and most of all, a world where I truly felt alone, deprived of the humanity in which was obligated to me from birth – a man with no memories of his past, and that in itself is as cruel as the devil’s torturous domain. Did I even have a family? Did I even choose to be a living relic in this distorted future? But what if I didn’t? What if I was kidnapped from these very streets 164728 days ago to take part in a ludicrous experiment, only to find these same streets now laden with ashes? More and more questions only arose as I made my way through the rubbles of the razed ruins that lay incandesce along with the somber moonlight. I vaguely remember the old man say something about a town just towards the outskirts of the city, and, with nowhere else to go, I decided I had nothing to lose. I walked for hours then while my stomach made its displeasure obvious. The travel itself was treacherous – the scraggy bones that surrounded me yelped in pain with each step and small devious pellets seemed to shoot across my skull – the rustic taste in my throat becoming more and more distinguished with each gasp I took, all of them pointing to the possible years (or days) of malnourishment inside my already battered body. I took a few more grueling steps while the sun wore me down second by second. It was hot, but I kept on going. And going. And going. I kept on going – to where, at that point, I didn’t know.
Over the heaps of ashes, the moon kept vigil as I stumbled into a town inhabited by men in grey, tattered clothing with bodies as scrawny and bony as mine. Fatigued from the travel, I approached a man leaning against a hard ash-stricken wall to ask for food or water, to which he replied with a forced smothered laugh.
“Good one, kid,” he said curtly, stroking his rich beard.
“Good one? I’m about to pass out from hunger and thirst and you brusquely label it off as a good-hearted joke? Look, guy, please, at least give me something to drink. I’ve been walking for hours here – I’m tired.”
The bearded man shifted his eyes loosely, examining my drained gait to my pale blue shirt and my pale blue shorts and, as if he was saw a phantom long forgotten, he stood in a quick jolt – mouth agape.
“Y-you! What’s that in between your thighs?”
Before I even got a chance to answer, he quickly grabbed my privates, and I, quite offended, pushed him away with the little strength I had remaining. The man stared wide-eyed at his quivering hands, and then back at the genitals in question.
“Implants, yes, those are definitely implants. But they feel so real, the touch, the sensation… Boy, you tell me you are in need of water and food. Are my ears not mistaken?”
“No, you’re not mistaken, but what’s the big deal?” I replied.
“What’s the big deal? Are you mad? You carry things a man these days will do anything to have! Boy, you… you’re mortal, aren’t you?”
The puzzled respond of my eyes gave him the answer he needed. He nodded as if he somehow understood my situation, and he fell back on his bottom and spread his legs, showing nothing but flat empty flesh on his groin. I stepped back, shocked.
“You’re not from this time – the Raw Dog’s radiation would not have missed anyone. Those damn scientists, they’ve done it again, haven’t they? God damn them!” He sighed dejectedly and let out an unexpected whimper but of no tears. I stood still – utterly confused on what on Earth’s name was going on, and after he noticed me patiently waiting for him to control himself, he stood straight up and clasped his hand smeared with grime onto my spindly shoulders. He looked at me dead in the eyes.
“Boy, what do you know of this world?”
“I- I don’t know. Y-you don’t have any genitals. And wait – I… the old man, a scientist; I’m guessing, he was saying something about underwear not existing anymore. And the moon… It’s… It’s next to the sun, you can see them both…”
He tallied my eyes to check for deceit and let out a gruff grunt.
“Boy, that’s no moon. The real one blew up a few generations ago – a couple hundred years after the Raw Dog experiment,” he said coarsely.
“T…The Raw Dog experiment? What the hell is that?” I said, looking at him with irate curiosity.
“Hmph, so you mentioned something about a scientist, were they able to build a time machine somehow? Or maybe you were cryogenically frozen. Either way, it wouldn’t surprise me,” he said, ignoring my question. “Boy, I’m gonna give it to you straight. The Raw Dog experiment killed off all life except the male species of the human race. It means no plants here, no meat, and fresh water is long gone. Barely anythin’ natural left - the air you’re breathin’ right now comes from this crazy fancy gadget those nut jobs invented. You’re mortal, kid, you’re not gonna have much longer here.”
“Wait, wait, wait! No food? No water? Then what about you guys? The scientist guy said something about the world changing 164728 days ago, and that’s when I assume this thing called the Raw Dog experiment happened! You’re telling me the whole human race lived without the basic daily necessities all these years? Like hell they did! As far as I know, you’re probably hiding food somewhere to keep it off the hands of god damn beggars like me. Look, guy, I wouldn’t have minded if you would’ve just flipped me off and told me to get the hell away, end of story, but you just had to come up with a bull-“
“Shut your mouth, you damn dirty mortal!” he thundered. “Do you not see the world turned upside down? Are you blind? Our skin deformed from the relentless heat! Our grotesque bodies forever stripped of our manhood! No women to comfort us, to make us whole in our already shattered container in which we call a body! Do you think we would’ve endured these years and years of humiliation and empty sorrow? We all want to die boy, every goddamn man in this world – they all want to die! But we can’t, we can’t! We can’t because we’ve finally outdone ourselves 164728 days ago as we, as a race, have achieved the ultimate goal of greed – to never fear death! We have gained immortality, boy – every single one of us, every single bastard that roams this hell of an Earth. We all wished for it deep inside, we all wished for the Raw Dog, and we all were willing to defy everything good Mother Nature stood for! We were willing to defy God! But God, god retaliated – our women slowly aged while we, without our privates, could do nothing to stop it. We have no purpose in life, boy, the fun games got old, and soon there was nothing left but our withering souls inside these damned invidious relentless bodies. We all lost our sanity trying to find what to live for, what to do with the never-ending time in which was haphazardly granted to us, but it was futile- all goddamn futile. And look, boy, – look what has happened.”
The traitorous sun intensified the already boiling air as the bearded man took his hands away from me and escaped into the shades of a half destroyed building. I followed him while the staggering revelation rang through my mind, awakening bits of memories of the past – of the most recent days of the last memories of the sane world. I could get neither my name nor my family – but I vaguely remember an announcement made near the winter holidays in the year of 2015 where science has made a truly groundbreaking discovery, a forever “life-changing solution to all the problems of the world”, which, of course, made the man’s story even more plausible.
“So society’s ruins came from the limitless greed of our race,” I said to the man.
“And it ends with us forever toiling this Earth, boy,” the man replied, “ I mentioned the moon being destroyed by our own hands, and in lieu of our despicable actions we have built and sent a satellite in the shape of it up in space – to remind us of our insanity. It’s there everyday, yet it somehow soothes us whenever we look upon its state of madness and beauty. I don’t know about the others, but the moon feels like it’s a part of me somehow – why is that, boy?”
I said nothing and stood motionless, eyes affixed to the moon, its light overshadowing the burning fiery of the immortal sun. I stretched my arms upwards and lay flat on my back, letting the virgin glow illuminate my enervated frail form, and, as of unknown clockwork, the relentless burning air calmed while the draft moved in a cool wisp where it touched upon every single senses of my stagnant body. My eyes would not waver from her beautiful pristine, artificial yet analgesic, draining away all the pain in my body. It was then that I realized, after I closed my eyes, that I was struck. It was sudden, like lightning, and I would not regret it one bit. I simply waited for death’s welcomed visit while the moon blues made its way through the very essence of my consciousness.