Epilogue to The Pendulum

His prison became his savior, his failure became his triumph. He made it farther than any man had come. As he watched through the opaque glass, he saw the cruel world that shunned him change slowly. Without life it became a mechanical mass, a group function. The robots became the ancient hieroglyphs of the people, the past decisions of man forever preserved in programming. The one person they shunned became the last seed of man; forever stuck in glass swinging back and forth.

He realized that in his failure to give everyone their future he created his. Everyday his grin began to grow wider, knowing that he is the last of Adam; the final seed. While he ate he smiled as he was the last one to taste. When he drank he grinned for he was the last to quench thirst. He rejoiced with his solidarity. He celebrated with his loneliness. His accomplishment was his family.

Days passed yet his smile never faded. He is the last to smile. And he will end with a smile. The cruel world he remembered faded but his smile never did. The robots never stopped; they kept it going. As he ate his last crumb, as he took his last sip, as he sucked in his last breath and his chest went up, he smiled. And as the sun went down, so did the chest of the last son of Adam.

He triumphed over humans, aliens and sat down with time. Yet time kept going without its prisoner. The robots kept tinkering with no purpose, a robotic chicken with no head. His flesh had no host and so it faded. There was nothing to smile for yet his smile stayed. He tried to conquer time but in the end time conquered him.