MEMOIRS OF THE MODERN PROMETHEUS
(OR, HOW I FINALLY LOST MY VIRGINITY AFTER SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS OF SILENCE)
by Michael Liska 

My name is Jacob. It's a good name, an old name. When it was created, I imagine there were many Jacobs. People had surnames then, because there weren't enough good names to go around. After their name would come another word, such as their occupation or the place they lived. I am only Jacob.
If I had a surname, I suppose it would be Jacob Caretaker, because that is what I am. It is a misnomer, however, because I take nothing. I only give. Those I care for probably have no capacity for affection any longer. They sit, and on days when their strength is up, those who can will force a barely audible hiss to show how much they hate me. Those with eyes will stare at me. They hiss and stare at poor Jacob, who gives them so much.
Or I could have been named Jacob House, because that is where I live. In the House. I've had the House model itself in the fashion of the Late Victorian period. It is quite beautiful, and all according to my designs, though I don't mean to boast. There is gleaming polished woodwork, tall candles, paintings of dead men, elaborate spiral staircases. I simply adore spiral staircases.
There was a knock at the door this morning, and Mr. Shiloh began to move to answer it. Oh yes, to explain, I know that "Mr." usually takes the place of the primary name, but I can't resist the tiny, tasteful anachronisms. I have to be more careful with him, he is still very strong. He has learned how to wheel himself about, though he can usually only manage a few feet at a time. Don't mistake my intentions; as his caretaker I'm quite thrilled that his strength is up, but he still isn't coherent enough to know what's really best.
I was reading to them in the study, from The Great Gatsby, when the knock came. I had been reading excitedly, and didn't hear it. Mr. Shiloh must have wheeled out while I was looking at the others, because when I turned about he had already made it to the foyer.
"You're going to miss the ending," I shouted after him. He didn't reply, of course, but I'm certain that Mr. Shiloh at least still understands me when I speak. When he didn't return, I followed.
"What are you doing, you silly goose?" I asked him, as his thin arms inched the wheelchair across the room towards the front door. "There isn't anything out there."
Mr. Shiloh continued in the same nonsensical fashion. The knock repeated every few seconds. It was a happy knock, a comrade's knock.
"Not today, sir," I said to the door. "We are very happy in here. And as for you, you silly goose, you are going back to the study to finish F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece. There's a vacuum out there, and unless you think you can survive in a vacuum I'll make sure you're safe and sound right here. Besides, tomorrow we are going to read Shaxberd, and I know you wouldn't want to miss that."
Mr. Shiloh raised his head slowly to look at me. There was no accompanying facial expression; his muscles were far too worn. Honestly, there is little left on him but skin, and those two hateful eyes sitting snug in two deep depressions. On days like today, I sometimes wonder why I even try.
The universe is getting much craftier as time passes here in the house. For the first few decades, there were such terrifying celestial displays, and noises, until I had the House remove all of the windows. I saw right through all of that, let me tell you. Now Mr. Death just knocks, and pleads at the door like a kitten.
* * *
I would say that the days are long and unbearable, as I imagine a man of another era would say, but they are not. They are as long or short as I choose to make them. When I decide that it should be daytime once more, I light the House, and awaken my charges, and bathe them. In the afternoons we read, or listen to symphonies.
After I arranged for their brunch today, we read Shaxberd. I thought it would be fun to assign everyone a character in each play. We have just about enough, as long as I play some of the extras, the citizens and attendants. I also have to read all of the parts, of course, but I wheel all of the actors into position and stand by the person who I am speaking for. I wheel them on and off of the stage I put together in the ballroom, which is really just a tapestry thrown on the floor, as there are entrances and exits.
Everyone had a lovely time. Though Mr. Hodge is mostly paralyzed, there's some life in him yet. Today he began making little clicking noises in his throat while we were halfway through Othello. I think he was trying to participate.
Everyone except for Mr. Shiloh, that is.
"Oh, stop sulking," I told him. "We've got a lot of plays to get through today. And tomorrow I think we'll do some of the early works of Tiribazus, something a bit less ancient."
He refused to participate, wheeling himself out of position every time I turned my back. I thought at first he was simply angry about the small parts I was giving him, but he acted in the same manner when I cast him as Hamlet later in the afternoon. It's a shame, really. Shiloh is the youngest of us, besides me that is. Of all of my charges, I think he is still complete enough to really appreciate the great works, but he maintains this sour and wholly unappealing disposition.
The others are more compliant, but sadly less coherent. Mr. Hathaway is in a coma, I think, and Mr. Maple is little more than a disconnected nervous system with a brain stem on top. He requires extra special care, and constant immersion in a specially synthesized amniotic fluid that the House has created for me.
After we were finished reading for the evening, as I tucked everyone in, a curious thing happened. A poinsettia, a beautiful, red, and blooming poinsettia, appeared in the middle of the hall where I put them all to sleep every night.
I asked the House what had happened, and it told me that Mr. Hodge had requested it. The poor House is getting old, I suppose. Even Houses can become senile. The plant was quite pretty, so I left it.
Mr. Death came calling again this afternoon, as well.
"Jacob," he said through the door. "Let me in. Please. There is nothing left here for you. All of it has come to its magnificent end."
"I'll hear none of that," I replied. "We will stay in here, and that door will remain shut, for as long as we can take pleasure in the magnificent art and culture of our species. And there is a lot of that. Good day, sir."
I would have the House remove the door, but I don't want to show any weakness. There are few of us in here, but we are confident, and strong. I take a great pride in my position, as the guardian of the culmination of almost fifty thousand years of human advancement. If there were going to be any more history books, besides this humble memoir, I'm sure I would warrant at least a footnote. Jacob. Poor, humble, selfless Jacob -- the man who brought us fire in the last dark days.
* * *
The Grand Library is quite a sight. It stretches one hundred feet upwards, and covers the walls of a room that I'm sure would match in size the greatest ballrooms of the Central American Empire, from the 22nd Gregorian. There are ladders and balconies, though in truth they're just for show.
I remember my first days in the library. When they were all the teachers, the caretakers, and I was the dependent.
"This library contains everything of note in our grand story," Mr. Hathaway told me. He is feeble now, and silent. I wheel him, and clean him, and read to him, and inject him with nutrients. "Including works from even before the New Age. Pre-Christian to the first half of the 20th Gregorian. Everyone knows nothing of note was produced between the early 20th Gregorian and the first works of Doctor Tiribazus, at the start of the New Age."
Yes, everyone knows. Dreadful period.
"Today we're going to skip ahead to the New Age," I told my charges. Mr. Hathaway said that to me, once. I have an excellent memory. He said, "Today we're going to skip ahead to the New Age," just as I did. I asked the House to simulate a window with natural sunlight streaming in, for a pleasant afternoon atmosphere. Selecting a leather-bound volume from the shelf nearest to me, I said, "Here Comes the Monkey Through Glass and Steel," the name of the Doctor's very first work, and watched the House rearrange the words, and the title appear on the cover in gold lettering. I'm sure anyone with the occasion to read this, be it by some miracle another human being, or an alien culture perhaps, investigating our curious race, will be familiar with that eminent work of Tiribazus far before they discover obscurities like this humble memoir, of which there is only one hand-written copy. Not even close to the 3,082,760,912 copies of Here Comes the Monkey Through Glass and Steel that exist in the dust outside, as the House assures me there are.
They were silent, eagerly awaiting my words like children at story-time. A thin stream of dusty saliva escaped from Mr. Hathaway's mouth and I wiped it with my sleeve before beginning. Tidiness is the soul of divinity, after all.
As I read the final passage, which no human being has ever read without shedding tears, Mr. Shiloh wheeled himself over to Mr. Hodge, sitting motionless in his wheelchair with his head hanging back, making those clicking noises he makes in his throat when he's pleased.
"What are you doing, silly goose?" I asked him.
Mr. Shiloh didn't even look at me. He pulled a small shard of glass from his robe pocket, slowly, and pressed it into Mr. Hodge's throat. The blood, thick and brown, poured into his lap, and down Mr. Shiloh's arm.
"You've soiled your robe," I told him. "Naughty boy."
I instructed the House to remove his weapon, and it did. The tiny shard melted out of his hand and joined the floor. I must admit I was puzzled. Perhaps Shiloh is more far gone than I'd imagined? He and Mr. Hodge had been very close when they were younger. If I remember correctly, they worked together on the higher functions of my brain. The morals, and the aesthetic sense. They were lovers as well. Of all the scientists in the House, they had always been the most faithful to one another, very happy with the ancient practice of monogamy.
Mr. Hodge was wheezing, and bleeding. Mr. Death began pounding upon the front door, hard enough that we could hear him clearly in the library.
"Not today or any other, sir," I shouted. "House, please seal the library until I have this childish situation under control."
Now Mr. Shiloh spared me a glance. Small, sticky tears of mucous welled in his eyes.
I walked forward and patted him on the head. "I know, I know. I am always moved by that part as well. It's the most touching passage ever written in human language, you have nothing to be ashamed of. It's not proper though to express your grief by trying to hurt others. Now look what you've done to poor Hodge."
Mr. Hodge hadn't moved. He still sat motionless in his wheelchair, head flopped backwards. Now the clicking noises he made in his throat were little gurgles, and every time he made one there was a little bubble over the gash.
"Besides, Tiribazus meant for that passage, after all was done, to be uplifting and spiritual. It has a positive moral, Mr. Shiloh. You have to understand that."
I finished reading it and we cried together.
After I stopped, and we were silent for a moment, Mr. Shiloh reached up and began to scratch feebly at his own throat, trying to split it open, to let the blood out.
"I see. I know what you're doing now."
He stopped and stared at me.
"You want me to open the door, don't you? Well I'm not going to, you selfish thing. And you'll have to suffer and feel sorry for yourself and poor Mr. Hodge whom you've skewered will just have to keep bleeding until there's nothing left, because I'm not going to open that door."
I must admit I lost my temper for a moment.
"Damn it," I said. I apologize for my use of harsh language, but at this point in time, the end of it that is, what else do we have really but sincerity? "Don't you understand what I'm doing? You were a very intelligent man. How could you be so selfish?"
He was blank, his reserves of strength had been more than exhausted by the day's adventures.
"Do you think I really care all that much about any of you? You're just pathetic old men, who never created anything worthwhile. Nothing selfless, for everyone. I know what I'm for. You're not fooling Jacob. I came about only because you were afraid of dying without another generation. I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for all of this." I motioned towards the library walls, the books and paintings and symphonies. "I need you. Without all of you, all of this is wood pulp and ink, dust, meaningless elements thrown together by nature. Without you all of it will have been for nothing."
I regained my composure, and began putting them all to bed, securing them so that they couldn't do anything foolish.
Mr. Death refused to go away. "Jacob," he said, "I will love you. You will know love."
Ignoring the ancient fool, I cleaned Mr. Hodge up a bit in the interest of tidiness. He must have been suffering terribly. The blood had clotted and was a sticky brown mess on his neck.
"I hope you're pleased with yourself, silly goose," I said to Shiloh. "And what kind of example are you setting for the others?"
Hodge finished his incessant clicking, and relaxed. Then there was a pistol, an antique type, from maybe the 23rd Gregorian, sitting snugly in Shiloh's hand. I must admit I was quite surprised, and so was Shiloh. For a moment he looked as if he didn't know what to do with it, but as I stepped over to take it away he raised his arm and put a hole in my chest, the chest he had made. Looking down, I saw my own blood spreading outwards, a growing oval of deep rouge on my white shirt. I fell to the floor.
Mr. Shiloh, very slowly, methodically, rose from his chair. Hunched, holding his side with one hand, he stumbled past me to Hodge's bedside.
"Now where did you get that, silly goose...very strong, very strong," I said, choking on fluids. Then I couldn't speak. Mr. Shiloh did not answer, of course, because I had been careful to remove all of their vocal chords many years ago, to prevent them, in their confused state, from asking the House for anything that would give rise to just the sort of situation that I was in.
Even though his facial muscles were far deteriorated, I could tell that Shiloh was as surprised as me. Surprised with the pistol -- I imagine he had known for some time secretly that he could muster up a couple of steps away from his wheelchair if he needed. Sneaky man, my sneaky silly goose.
As I lay dying, I recalled that the House knew 16,000 human languages. Poor, shortsighted, foolish Jacob had forgotten entirely about Morse code. "Very clever," I thought, without the ability to utter it. I thought whimsically of the long days in which Hodge had done nothing but click away, trying to get the right intonation, the right volume. And none of us had known. Even poor Shiloh, who had just moments earlier tried to put Hodge out of his misery. Ah, the poinsettia. The poinsettia.
Shiloh caressed Hodge's cheek, and leaned to kiss him. He left the room, to open the door and invite Mr. Death in.
* * *
Mr. Death is kind. He has allowed me to finish these memoirs before I go, though he doesn't understand why I want to. There will be no one left to read them. They will be wood pulp and ink, dust, meaningless elements thrown together by nature. They will be nothing to everything.
He stands over my shoulder, watching me write. The others have gone already. I can hope, at least, that some advanced culture will someday be able to decipher our writings, and will take note of this humble memoir, if not for the beauty of the words (to which end I claim nothing), at least for its historical significance. It is a first and a last. The first and only writings of the first artificial man, who also happened to be the last artificial man, the last man at all, and the last Jacob.
Here I write "The End", and it has never been more appropriate. I stand with fifty thousand years of struggle behind me, toil towards some guessed-at reward which never arrived. I stand with nothing ahead, except that I will walk outside and lock the door behind me, and look once more at the last house on a dry flat rock. In 150 years, no time really, the House will sense that there is no more activity and will be no more, and it will shut down its protections and be leveled instantaneously by the will of the universe.
Mr. Death, who is beautiful, will kiss me and take my hand. There will be nothing but dark and stone and many stars, each one burning brighter than humanity ever has. 

Story copyright © 2000 Michael Liska