2006 FEATURED SHORT STORY

2005 FEATURED SHORT STORY
2004 FEATURED SHORT STORY
Previously Featured Short stories:
  • Running... a thriller
  • A Devoted Friend .. A story about a dangerous friend and one woman's struggle to face her worst enemy, herself. It's a worth while story to take the time to read.
  • Vampyr ..A dairy based off the novels by Ann Rice..
  • Farewell ..Ever wonder how you would live your life if everyone was killed and you for some reason were spared to live out your days?
  • Lynn Warden's Secret .. There is only one way to find out..
  • INITIATION Follow Matthew into the darkness..
  • Bad Awake Karen is running for her life.. find out why..
MAGAZINES:
BOOKS ON THE SHELF:

The Library




LAST FAREWELL
BY Petra Wiehr
Saarbruecken, Germany

He woke up and knew his time had come. He got up and looked out of the window were the endless praire stretched in the early morning light. It was mid-summer and the day promised to be hot and bright. Looked like a good day to die. The old cowboy stepped out in the beautiful Arizona morning and called for his favorite horse, a young sorrel stallion. He saddled up, then went to the paddocks with the other horses and his cattle. He opened the gates and after a short hesitation the animals ran out into the praire. The cowboy mounted his stallion, gazed over his little ranch for the last time in his life and then headed west in a slow trot without turning his head.

His thoughts wandered back. The aliens had really tried everything to help mankind. At first they had tried to communicate by circles in corn fields and by people they "abducted". No-one had listened to them. And when they had come themselves, they had been captured, tortured and killed. So they finally had to recognize that the only way to prevent mankind from destroying the earth was to destroy mankind. When the aliens returned to earth, it was not in a scout vessel but in a large starship. NO invasion - the ship just ejected a small device and disappeared again before earth's defense systems were able to react. The device exploded in the atmosphere and released a virus, extremely infectious and highly selective for human DNA. Everyone who caught it died within a few days. That was what they said on TV and radio before all transmissions stopped. There was no need for TV anymore; the virus was on a world tour and even reached the cowboy's little corner of reality to give an impressive live performance. All the people around him died, his friends, his wife and his two children.

He had been spared. He had no idea why he hadn't caught the virus. After all he was just a plain and simple cowboy who never left the Rocky Mountain states. Maybe some genetic abnormity, who knew. And who cared for the matter. Then the aliens returned. A small vessel landed on his ranch and the two extraterrestrails stepped out. They were armed with something that looked like laser guns from a science fiction movie and they aimed at him. He never even thought about fighting or running away. The cowboy just stood there and looked at the strangers. After a few minutes the two looked at each other in some sort of communication, then put thier guns away and left with their vessel. That was the moment when he finally realized that he was the last man on earth. No danger to anyone. No reason to kill him.

All that had happened 35 years ago and the now the old cowboy was 72. He had accepted the gift that aliens had offered him like he always accepted things. During those last 35 years he had been living on borrowed time. A lot had changed since then. Nature was reconquering what man had taken away. He could see it everywhere - large heards of buffalos and wild horses were roaming the prairies again and the houses in the small village were falling apart. Sometimes the old cowboy wondered how New York and Tokyo would look these days. And more then once he thought how good it was the earth's last human inhabitant was a cowboy. Someone who could appreciate the changes. All in all, it had been a good cowboy's life. He had his horses and his cattle and the land his loved. He was alone but not lonely and in starry nights he looked up the sky and was almost sure that they were still out there watching him. He never saw then again, however, and of course it was just a touch of paranoia. After such a long time, who would still care about him?

He rode all day and when the evening came, he finally reached his favorite place. He stopped his horse on a plateau, got off and took the saddle and the bridle off. Then he let his stallion run free. He sat down at the edge of the rock and his gaze roamed over the land he loved. He said his farewell, then faced the glowing Arizona sunset. As the sun touched the endless horizon, the old cowboy died with a smile on his face.

High above him, the two strangers looked down at the peaceful blue planet for the last time. Then a small vessel left the orbit and headed home.