Before the Event, a girl once told me that she would never date me even if I was the last man on Earth. She'd quickly reconsider now, you know, if she wasn't dead.
The worst thing about being the last man on Earth, for me at least, was that there was no one around to make any more music. Even if most of the music at the turn of the 31st century sounded like pneumatic drills and jackhammers it would be good to hear an electronically composed tune to take me away from this grey and lifeless wasteland.
I know what you're thinking: Why haven't I killed myself yet?
First of all, that is a very morbid thought, seek help. And secondly, it's because I've heard so little of the world outside of my City that I found myself wandering aimlessly in search of good music.
You see, I was born blind, but with the advancements in technology that happened the centuries before my birth I was able to have my eyesight given to me by a team of respected doctors, but not before my parents waited sixteen years of my life to scrap up the required amount of credits to pay for my implants as they were ridiculously expensive. During this gap between blindness and eyesight I was able to experience the world through sounds. I trained myself to hear the vibrations of feet hitting the floor, to hear obstacles in front of me and to hear sounds being emitted from over great distances. They called this technique 'echolocation' and I was damn good at it.
Even after my eyesight was given to me I used my ears to help me navigate me environment, sometimes even closing my eyes for weeks on end and using only my ears to detect movement and to adjust accordingly.
But this left me with a huge problem, one that became a bit of a challenge for my parents and I to cope with: my advanced hearing made me caused me to be stunned by loud, booming voices, similar to dirt being thrown into your eyes.
I would get slightly irritated from the bell ringing at school but I would shout and cover my ears when sirens rang.
This put me in a lot of trouble on the day of the Event as the sirens rang for us to get inside. I was more or less blind the whole time and could not comprehend what was taking place, but I felt myself being pushed into a hole and heard a door being shut through the noise.
Hours passed and the noise died down. It took me about a week to open up the door and step outside, mostly because I was scared and because I had eaten through all the available food.
When I emerged, I was greeted to world of gutted skyscrapers and ash, devoid of any life and I have been wandering ever since.
On this particular day found myself in a large expanse of grey land and dirt. The sky was overcast (as it normally was) and the air smelled of burning plastic. The wind whistled wildly in an easterly direction.
I bent down and opened my bag, hoping to find something to drink within it. After months of walking I had come down to a two canisters of pure water and a packet of stale crackers. Yummy.
I took one of the canisters and held the metal object firmly in my hand, the holographic readout on its silver surface showing me that I had about a quarter of its capacity left. I then unscrewed the top and drank every last drop, my thirst disappearing quicker than the sun in the morning. The canister then beeped, letting me know that I had drank it dry.
Stuffing it back inside my bag, I gazed around. There was nothing but the ash dunes bobbing up and down the expanse. Before I got up however, I noticed a peculiar thing sticking out of the ash. My poor eyesight could not make out the details but I was sure that the object was metallic in nature and seemed incredibly out of place.
Curiosity was taking over me, but I knew that I would not have any space for an object of that size and weight. Still, would I look at it hurt?
I walked over to it and was able to get a better look at the object. It was a spherical thing, with black lines running vertically down in on either side and a glass bulb in the middle that seemed to be a light that was switched off. This was none other than an eyebot, one of the many AI that was created during my time to assist humans. This one looked like a recreational model as it had weathered markings on it that read 'iBeat'.
Well, what do you know? A bot that played music!
I picked it up and immediately noticed how lightweight it was thanks to technology. Searching for a way to turn in on, I was surprised to find a button on its underside that booted it up.
I highly doubted that it would work at the press of a button after all of these years, but my finger slipped onto the black button and with a curious press . . .
The glass bulb flickered on in a light blue color and the iBeat eyebot flew out of my hands and levitated a few inches above my face in front of me.
I staggered backward in surprise at my own luck. But all the thing did was just glare at me.
Confused, I let out a greeting. "H-Hello . . . ?"
"Hello, user!" It let out an emotionless greeting not unlike a robot at all. I staggered backwards again. "Thank you for using iBeat! What is your request?"
Request? Is it asking me to give it a song?
I couldn't believe it. After years and years of passing the rusting carcasses of robots in the wasteland, here I was in the presence of a working one.
These things were linked a universal database that enabled to play millions and millions of songs, too bad they could not be updated any more.
Finally, I had found what I was looking for: music. Of course, I had to be smart about my choice, who knew how much power it had left. I needed a choice that would last me.
Eureka!
"iBeat," I began. "I want you to compile all of the music that you have on your database and play it back for me in one huge mix."
"Any particular genre?" It asked.
Go big or go home, I thought. Might as well go for the classics.
"Yes, play the music of all of the talented musics the world has ever known. This includes the likes of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart."
"This request may take several minutes to compile."
"Go ahead."
And so I sat there, waiting. Waiting for it to finish creating one big mixture of all of the classical music of an era lost to history. As I waited I wondered on it's sound. Would it be a lovely melody fit for a ballroom dance or would it be the cluster of pneumatic drills and jackhammers I have learnt to hate?
"Done." Said the eyebot.
I stood up and faced it, preparing myself for whatever awaited me. With a reluctant tone in my voice, I said: "Begin playback."
And after years of wandering, after years of humming tunes to myself and after years wishing for this moment it finally all resulted in . . .
The eyebot exploding and knocking me unconscious.