Flash Fiction Friday - No Date on our Tombstone

Yes, it's flash fiction Friday! This is a very short all "dialog" piece about a very quiet end of the world.

Very loose inspiration came from a realization; at some point over the past year, Nate stopped wearing diapers at night. That means that quietly, without realizing that it happened, I for the very last time changed the diaper of my child. It's a milestone, but an unremarked and stealthy one. The end of a slow fade rather than a quick cut.

Enjoy, and thanks for listening.

"No Date on our Tombstone"

by Leonard C Suskin

are you alert?

I am now

It's been a long time since we've been tethered to our bodies, a long time since the beginning of this slow-motion rapture.

I know. I almost remember before.
I was somnabulant. Why wake?

We noted something. Something on Earth below

I remember earth. Almost.

Almost? We are uploaded conciousness. We either remember or remember not.

Then you remember. I was first. Some uploads not quite memory. More like old photo of a memory.
It still hurts.

Why wake?

We noticed something. Something to share with you.

Something about the meatworld?

Yes. We've not been watching closely enough. We think the last one was born. Perhaps years ago.

The last one?

We've seen new uploads getting younger. Shuffling off the mortal coil, as we once said. No risk of injury, none of truedeath.

Nothing real. Just this purgatory. Endless sleep and dull conversations.

There's more. We've told you. You need to give up self, merge fully. There is richness here.

Not this again. You didn't awake me for this. You said something? The last one born? Did something happen?

Nothing happened, no disaster. There've been fewer and fewer each year. We just noticed that none have been born in some time. WHen the last is uploaded, all humans will exist here.

So we don't know who the last is?

No. We likely never will. Nobody was watching that closely.

Let me slumber. Perhaps I will dream it.

Of course.

And the cradle will be forever empty

--------------------------------------------------------------
The firstone awakened from time to time to talk with the collective. One day or year or millenium we noted that he'd not awakened in quite some time. We searched his conciousness, found it degraded. And that is how we've come to be together fully, the last singleton long since passed into memory, with no date upon its tombstone.