He sighed and licked his teeth. He was sure that something from his teeth was adhering to his tongue, something stale and gangrenous. With a wrinkled nose, he spread some toothpaste on his finger and worked it around his teeth for about five minutes. He then rinsed and spit multiple times. The finger pulsated with filth afterward, so he rinsed that several times too.

It doesn’t have to be this way, he thought. Who really cares about my teeth? If they all fall out, if my gums receded into the hollow maws where my jaw should be and I become unable to eat anything above the firmness of gelatin, who would run to my side? Would she come to me? Would she even understand? Why am I going to this effort, other than to quiet the thoughts that intrude upon me constantly?

Wait.

“My shampoo’s missing too,” he shouted. This shout pierced the air a little more sharply. “What did you do with it?”

“I didn’t touch your shampoo,” was the response floating through the wall.

How could she not have touched his shampoo? He certainly would never have moved it. To do so would have instilled a discomfort that could not be easily uprooted – not in a minute, hour, day, or even week. His shampoo bathed his hair, which made his scalp tingle, which quieted the thoughts. He could comb his hair then, smooth it and shape it with gel, fretting as he ran the comb again and again. Once the hair was in place, he could go to work and have a tolerable day. She didn’t see the shampoo, that it was the catalyst for making the day work. Not that anyone cared about his hair, of course. She hadn’t mentioned it in a while, either. Did she not see him anymore? Do we no longer see the things we care about, once they become commonplace?

Where was his shampoo bottle?

Battling the swirl of anger stirring in his parietal lobes, he turned on the water and made sure it was comfortable. He let the warm water slide over his skin, and tried to feel each drop. Glancing to his left and right, he was surprised to discover that the soap wasn’t there either. What had she been doing? Was she trying to drive him mad? He dared not holler again, for fear of antagonizing her. Rather than use her soap, he simply stood as still as a statue and let the water do what it could. It was better that way.

After finishing the shower and toweling off, he trudged back to his dresser and began the daily rummaging routine. Half his socks seemed to have disappeared, along with some of his shirts. What did it matter, though? Nobody stared at him as he was working. No one checked on his well-being. Who cares what shirt was on him?

Hungry and irritated, he went to the kitchen where she was washing dishes. He still hadn’t gotten that dishwasher, but he had promised he would someday. She didn’t turn around as he inspected the refrigerator. It seemed rather sparse compared to the day before. Had she thrown out all his favorite foods? He settled on toast, and he didn’t let it cook long enough. There was no butter or jelly, for some reason, so he choked down the dry bread and tried to chase it with some water.

Wait.

“Where’s my favorite cup? Is it dirty?”

“I don’t see it over here,” she said to the wall.

Frustrated, he grabbed a cup he could find and threw some liquid down his gravely throat. He then went to the door.

“Bye,” he said as he put on his boots.

“Bye,” she said, never turning around. A cup, no doubt his favorite one that wasn’t in the cupboard, clunked against the stainless steel sink basin.

He walked outside and got into his car, the one he loved so much. It was a beauty, American, with a leather package. He reached down and picked a stray seedling off the carpet, then gently deposited it outside. The carpet was a matte black with gold trim around where it met the base of the console. His bucket seats cradled their passengers with a tenderness a mother would envy. His after-market radio sprang to life as he turned the key, a futuristic beam of light rolling around its perimeter as it booted up. It synced to his phone, but nothing happened. No songs played for him. He caressed his steering wheel and weighed whether he should stop and fix the connection.

Then, he chose silence.

Perhaps it wasn’t the best decision, as his thoughts crowded his mind. He tried to turn them off, but decided against it. Perhaps it was better to let them slosh about anyway, letting them concuss his brain and press down against his spinal cord. They swam in front of his eyes and rushed past his ear canal, rendering him blind to what he saw and deaf to what he heard. And just like that, he was at work. He parked at the end of the lot, where no one bothered to park and no strangers’ doors swung wildly. As he got out, he noted how fast the trip seemed and how sparse the buildings seemed to be.

He worked for hours. Many nodded a greeting to him, but few spoke to him. He noticed that the lady who usually offered him mints wasn’t there. No matter. Who would get close enough to be bothered by his breath, anyway?

The day did not go well. His tools weren’t there – or maybe they were, he couldn’t be sure. It seemed as though they had slowly begun to disappear, one by one, like so many shampoo bottles. Were they being stolen? Was he misplacing them? The thoughts wouldn’t let him determine the answer.

Wait.

“Can I speak to you?” asked He.

The approach had been stealthy, and he jumped a little. “Yes,” he said. He hoped his slow exhale couldn’t be noticed.

“I saw the work you did last week,” He said. “Frankly, I’m a little disappointed. I feel like you could do better. You have done better, in fact. Is everything ok?”

No. “Yes.”

“I’m a patient man, you know. I’m not here to come down hard on you. Just pick it up a notch.”

“Sure thing,” he said. “I’ll try harder.”

“I know you will,” He said. And then He was gone for the day.

The cold tremble of embarrassment and anger went down his chest. Why did He not appreciate him more? After all those years working – what had he been working for? Was he not entitled to a little mistake now and then? Even a few mistakes? Who was perfect? What had all this been for?

The burning in his chest spread out, lapping up more acreage in his soul, becoming a forest fire. His hands trembled as they attempted to operate and produce. More mistakes were being made – but what did it matter now? He couldn’t please Him. No matter what happened, it would never be good enough. It never was, and never had been. He couldn’t get it right the first time, and seldom the second. When he did get it right, someone was always there to criticize, and sometimes that person was himself. Sometimes it was Him. Many times it was her. There were never compliments, though. Only negativity.

Where were all the tools he needed? Did he even truly need them, as he could never use them to truly succeed?

Why continue to try?

Quitting time came at last, merciful but unfriendly. He walked to his car at the end of the lot. Of course, he was the last one to reach his vehicle, but the emptiness of the lot vacuumed some pressure away from him. He turned around to observe the departure of his workmates, but somehow they had all cleared out. There were no vehicles anywhere – not in the lot, nor on the road. Was there an accident? Had he entered a dream for a bit, sleeping standing up in front of the curious drivers? Why should he even care where they were now?

He got into his car and realized he was nervous. Something was very wrong with everything. The leather interior looked a bit dull in the evening light. There were scratches on the dashboard that he hadn’t seen before. Each one looked fresh, like it had been made that day, but he knew that was impossible. Was he losing his grip on reality? Who would be there for him, to tell him that he had changed? Who would give him back his tools, or his shampoo, or his soap, or her? Would there be volunteers?

He felt himself driving fast. He checked his rearview mirror, but he couldn’t see his place of work anymore. He adjusted the mirror, but the mirror was fine. The thoughts washed over him once again, and this time he could see no buildings as he drove. Reality stretched to the left and to the right into infinity, rushing away from him and towards him at the same time.

If he could not see it, did it matter?

He drove for hours. He drove neither home, nor away from home, but rather follow the road that tugged at him. He could not see the homes, the businesses, the schools, the parks. It must’ve been green grass that he passed, but it seemed like one mass of matter, heavily pixilated. He was surprised to find that he did not yearn for the old days. He yearned for nothing at all, took pleasure in nothing, and thought of nothing. There was no wind, no grass, no trees, no animals – simply a horizon.

Somewhere along the line, though, he found his way home. It didn’t look like home, though. All the decorations were missing. There were no shutters, no welcome mat, no chairs on the porch. He wasn’t even for sure that he could see windows. It did not matter, of course, for he had no need of looking out of them. He stepped out of his car and shut the door, then took a few steps toward his suddenly blank home. It now seemed to him that the home look like a toddler’s drawing, with little feature, except the door and the shape of the roof. He felt for his keys, but they weren’t there anymore. He turned back to see if they were in his car, but to his great surprise his car was not there anymore, either.

A resigned sigh came out of him, and he turned back to the house. He shuffled his feet up the sidewalk, or what he thought was the sidewalk, and opened the door. At this point he almost expected it. There were no walls, no doors, no fixtures. All of their pictures were gone. He thought he saw her walking away somewhere, but he couldn’t be sure. Space seemed fuzzy at this point, and he wasn’t sure where the boundaries of the house ended or began. He thought he could remember them, but as he tried, he found that the memories stood at the fringe of his consciousness, a hazy outline.

He reached out to grasp at something, and he grabbed nothing and everything. Colors fluctuated and swirled in front of him. Atoms formed and disintegrated in his hand. Humanity orbited around him, saying much and nothing. Memories formed solid but indescribable shapes in front of his eyes, then faded away. Who was she? Who was He? Who were they? Why did they forsake him? Was this it?

Wait.

He backed out the door, and turned around. A white color stretched out before him into the vast infinity. He looked back at where his house was, and that, too was gone. There was only he. White, the color of all colors, overtook him. The world had become a true blank slate, one that seemed to never have been used. He spun around multiple times to make sure, but he indeed was alone, without any form of anything to accompany him. Seeing this, he felt something he had not felt in a long time. Contentment.

For the next several time periods, he stood in wonder at the world he had created. His was a world of blissful starkness. No heavenly bodies moved, no luminaries, no stars. There was no dust, nor water, nor fire. There was no cold and hot, no shape, and no senses. There was simply the eternal blank slate. His thoughts were clear, his nerves were merely simmering. There was nothing to organize, to look after, to value. He did not care, nor need to care, about anything.

I don’t care about anything.

I don’t care about…

I don’t care.

I don’t.

I.

He looked down at his hands and feet, and his phalanges were webbed together. He couldn’t move them at all. His feet felt as though they were stuck to the surface underneath them. He was laying down, hurtling backward and downward, blasting upward into the white void. The nothingness began to frighten him.

I.

I might.

I might also.

I might also care.

I might also care about…

Wait.

It wasn’t a jarring hit, but a gentle nudge. He felt sudden volume between thumb and webbed fingers, and he was surprised to feel himself able to move his arms. He lifted his arm to see what had implanted itself in his hand.

His shampoo bottle.

The emotion he felt at seeing the shampoo bottle overwhelmed him. Without blinking, he took in the form of it. It was red, with an artistic swoosh over the brand name. He found himself able to push down one end of lid. The other side popped up, and the familiar delightful scent enter his nostrils. He took in the hints of lavender and berry, along with the stronger, muskier odors that they market to men. He imagine himself applying it to his dry scalp, feeling the molecules interact with his head. He imagined the liquid penetrating his hair follicles, sizzling through each individual strand of brown hair and reinforcing it. He felt the slight slipperiness of the plastic bottle contrasted with the rough surface of the white label. How did they even do this? he wondered. How did someone mix just the right ingredients to create a substance to put on your hair to make it better, stronger? Who made the shape of the bottle, or who invented the way it would be marketed? Who wrote the label? Who came up with the name of the shampoo? Who invented those handy lids? The questions didn’t have answers, but he was just happy to be able to consider them again. He was happy to care about the shampoo bottle again.

He felt the bump on his right hand, and he knew it was her. He looked up, and he saw her smiling at him. Had she been smiling the whole time, even when her back was turned?

“Hi, Grayson,” she said.

“Hi, Katelyn.”

“How was your day?”

Good. “It was good. How was yours?”

“It was rough. I left my wallet at work and had to double back and get it. That’s why I’m late.” She smiled wearily. “My wallet! My whole life is in there, practically. How could I forget my wallet?”

“I guess sometimes you never know a good thing until it’s gone,” he said.

She cocked her head at him. She didn’t understand, and didn’t need to. “Yeah,” she said, “I guess so.”

No surprise, then, that recent scientists have to turned to guessing which species will inherit our cognitive mantle. We wonder which of the primordial creatures known to us might develop the most similar combination of self-consciousness, perception, and abstract thought that seems, to us, so unique in the world. In our hearts, we ask whether we really are so unique, and if any of the Earth’s animals might remember us when we are gone.

Our best guess for a successor is, surprisingly, the octopus, of the order Octopoda, an invertebrate sea-creature with eight arm-like tentacles, each with its own nervous system. Humans have feared the octopus for millennia. The Norwegians had their kraken myth, the Greeks invented the Gorgon. Maybe we feared them both for their physical strangeness and for their brilliance. They are remarkably good problem-solvers.

So, it seems the octopus will inherit the Earth. The irony – that the creature most likely to replace us is one of the least similar to us – is not lost on me.

Reader, I have to assume our scientists will be correct. It is all I have to work with. Assuming you are a descendant of the octopus species, maybe a historian reading these letters as part of some ancient time capsule, please know that we were fascinated by your ancestors, and that humans would be thrilled to hear that you’ve deciphered our text.

You may recall, somewhere deep in your being, what we did to you, to the oceans and the Earth itself. Remember above when I said we were afraid of you? Fear inspired us to do harmful things. I hope that will make us more sympathetic in your eyes. We grew too powerful and caused terrible damage all over the world, but behind that catastrophe was a group of scared animals, trying to ensure their safety.

Humans have made many mistakes in our time here. If I can leave you with any wisdom at all, it would be this: do not let your fear control you.

January 1, 2081

Today is the first day of 2081, a holiday known to us as New Year’s Day. Growing up, New Year’s meant snow on the ground, ice castles and hot chocolate and fireworks and skating. Fireworks are illegal now, they could damage the DOM. Snow is a distant memory.

We get by, though. New Year’s is my favourite day. Tonight, I’ll sit outside the pod with my neighbours and watch virtual fireworks beamed straight into my OcuLink implant. Far from the real thing (they never could get the scents right), but close enough to impart a little bit of wonder. The other old timers and I will remember our time as children, the feeling of cold air brightening our crimson cheeks, the smell of burning carbon. We’ll smile together.

The DOM’s resident children will swim in the creek and climb the few non-fruit bearing trees available, despite a long-standing ban on tree climbing. The council deemed it too risky an activity, trees being a precious commodity here, but the elders choose to overlook it on New Year’s. The kids deserve to cut loose once in a while.

I sired many of the children, bred as they were in the Council’s population maintenance program. Council pairs up fertile residents on a rotating basis, counting procreation among our civic duties. I often feel a pang of sadness upon spotting one of mine, since children are raised and educated collectively by the Council itself. Even though I interact with them, I have no role in their upbringing beyond serving as a sort of passive supervisor. I find it hard not to recall the past, the family I grew up with and the way parents, at that time, could really know their children.

I remind myself, at these times, that I have little to complain about. Life in the DOM provides me with more than enough food, friends, and reading material. Use of the OcuLink is a delicacy, but I do enjoy it once in a while. They were once mandatory hardware, but we lost the ability to install them long ago, making it, and me, a lucky relic.

Now, in my sixty-fifth year, and seeing as I have no real descendants, I’ve decided to write to you. I feel a bit silly, writing these letters to some unknown reader, in a language probably long-dead. A younger me would have called this trite behaviour. In my old age, though, I feel a need to leave something of me behind. To give something of myself to the world.

I wonder whether you, Reader, will count the years? Especially since you are, most likely, aquatic or amphibian. Certainly you will have your own rituals, and ways of tuning yourselves to the seasons, however you experience them. I hope you get to enjoy something like New Year’s, too.

Reader, I hope these words reach you, somehow. I hope you recognize yourself in them, and that they guide you, in some small way, towards a better world than the one we created.

February 1, 2081

I’ve decided that February 2081 will be last month in the DOM. Life is good here, or at least tolerable compared to life outside, but memories of my home have dogged me since I penned the last letter. I have my health, but I am aging, and if I wait any longer I fear I’ll be too infirm to travel.

Vestiges of human life remain outside, though modern communities are a far cry from the great cities of the past. Life inside a DOM is comfortable, if predictable, and life outside is short. Since I expect my remaining time to be short anyway, I think the time has come to once again make contact with the world.

I grew up in a small, wooden house, adjacent to a deep ravine. The city government maintained a system of stairways and trails for residents to walk in the ravine, cutting through dense forest on either side of the water. They would search the forest for birds, for no reason other than to see them, and to watch them maintain life. Humans love to observe the behaviour of other creatures. Of course, humans also privilege themselves over other creatures. We enjoy their existence as long as it does not obstruct our immediate goals and desires. I really should say that we used to act this way, before industrial food production systems collapsed and we were forced to reconsider the structure of our lives.

The English language includes three possible plural forms for the word octopus: octopuses, an anglicization of the Greek root, octopodes, the Greek plural form, and octopi, a mistake, based on typical Latin pluralization. As a linguist, I cannot help but find this funny. We believed we could control the world, the very systems we, and you, depend on, and we named and categorized other creatures as though your existence depended on us instead. We could not even decide on your name.

Your species, Reader, will probably maintain collective memory of a time when the ocean rapidly warmed and became littered with foreign objects. Life became considerably harder for you, and you had to adapt to survive. Our species carries memories like these with us, embedded in our instinctual behaviour and our emotions, and I am sure you will remember, too. If you want to understand why humans acted the way they did – why we put you in such danger – I recommend you read two books. They are Homer’s epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey. They are indisputably important artefacts of human culture, though there may be even greater works with which I am unfamiliar. They are ancient, but I suspect you could find just about every human motivation explained and demonstrated in those pages.

The hero of The Odyssey, Odysseus, goes off to war in a distant land, and then returns to his home. On the way, he and his friends are faced with many trials and dangers, and must use their intelligence to survive. In a small way, I am also going home.

I write to you with the assumption that you are, in a sense, replacing humans. We no longer exist in this scenario, and you have created new civilizations and new systems that allow you to thrive and survive in a hostile world. I hope this is not the case, though.

I would like to think that, perhaps, humanity will find a way to sustain itself in this desolate environment. Maybe we will even find a way to restore what we have ruined. I hope that you, dear Reader, might exist with us side-by-side, that we might create a world worth living in. I hope that you will share your great works with us. Maybe we will read The Odyssey together.

How can you enhance the flavor of pasta carbonara? What ingredients can be added and how should they be prepared?

Pasta alla carbonara is incredibly flavourful if you follow the traditional recipe and if you use quality ingredients. The dominating flavours are egg (yolks), guanciale and pepper.

So, if your carbonara is not flavourful enough you must make a mistake. Here are some common mistakes which make your carbonara bland:

• Do you put cream in your carbonara? Adding cream dilutes the flavour and makes it taste bland.
• Do you put too much cheese in your carbonara? Or parmesan cheese? First, you take pecorino romana. Or half of pecorino and half of parmigiano reggiano (I prefer 100% pecorino). Second, 50g is the right amount for 4 servings. Americans tend to use too much cheese – which dilutes the delicate flavour of egg and guanciale. Carbonara is not mac’n’cheese.
• Do you use enough egg yolks? You get the best flavour if you use just the yolks and 1.5 to 2 egg yolks per serving. You can use the whites for other things (pisco sour is a good idea). Other recipes call for 3 whole eggs + 1 extra yolk for 4 servings. The more yolk, the better.
• Do you use guanciale or just bacon? Guanciale is from the cheek and has more fat than most bacons which are from the belly. And the fat (or lard) is decisive for the flavour.
• Do you sear the guanciale on medium heat until translucent and golden-brown? High heat kills the flavour. The heat must be low enough to melt some of the lard – which gives flavour to the sauce. And if the guanciale turns black it gets bitter and loses flavour. And of course, you do not add any cooking fat or oil – which would dilute the flavour.
• Then, do you cook the pasta al dente? This is extremely important, otherwise they become soggy.
• Do you put the cooked pasta in the pan and stir thoroughly, so they are completely covered with lard?
• Do you add the egg yolk – cheese mixture when the pasta have cooled down a bit? If the pasta are too hot you get scrambled eggs and the flavour is gone. The safest way to do it is to pour the pasta with the lard and guanciale in another bowl and then add the egg-cheese mixture.
• Do you add a ladle of cooking water and stir well? The starch and the salt in the cooking water give texture and flavour.
• And do you add a generous amount of fresh-grated black pepper?
• And finally: Do not add any other stuff (like peas, mushrooms, garlic, herbs, chili or whatever) – it would be diluting and distracting.

Follow my instructions and you will get pasta alla carbonara to die for.