Postscript

There are no more kings; nor queens. No more presidents, parliaments, or prime ministers. There are no more dictators; no more tyrants. What use is there in order and rules, when the world is ending?
At the end of the world, there is only chaos. And death.

And maybe, just maybe, if you are very lucky, a little bit of hope.

Our hope was named Ann-Marie, after her mother's mother: the first child born after the end of the world.
She was so small and fragile, our hope, our Ann-Marie, and later, we would learn, so very, very stupid. All the children were- no matter who their parents or how we endeavored to teach them.

And so it was that our hopes were shattered.

Was this to be the end of our once proud race? To survive in form, but without intelligence-- without the very thing that had made us great?
And yet, our race would live on in these unworthy simpletons, or it would not survive at all.

There are no more years. No more months; nor days. Yet time passes still, after the world has ended.

And so it was that the eldest among us died, and those who were once young became eldest.

It was then that we decided to kill the children.

"How are we going to do it? Smother them in their sleep?"
"Why should we do anything at all? Once we're gone, they'll all die of starvation."
"Yes, they'll not survive without us to care for them."
"Which is why we must perform this act of mercy," this from the now silver-haired mother of Ann-Marie, "to let them die feeling safe, amongst family and friends, rather than terrified and alone."
"They might survive for a time; given adequate food stores…"
"Do we really want them to? Survive, that is? Our race ends with us, either way. Why leave behind substandard remnants?"
"The next generation--"
"Will be just as dumb."
"Supposing they can reproduce at all."
"Supposing they even want to-- tried explaining sex to my Jess, but it's just like everything else, he can't understand it."
"Shouldn't we give them a chance?"
"Let nature take its course, you mean?"
"If they survive, so be it-- if not… well, at least we won't have slaughtered our own children."

There were years yet, before those of us who had survived the end of the world survived no more.
Many of the children died in those years. No cause given. None asked for.
Ann-Marie was the first to be born and the first to go.

The death of hope.

When it came to the end, the true end, of all we had known, all we remembered-- the end of those who lived in the world before it ended-- there were five children left.
Though their bodies grew to be adults, they were forever children, forever in need of parenting.
Though the last of us could not countenance the killing of them, our once proud race does not survive.