I sit down on the bottom step of my porch at seven in the morning. The air is sweet today, filled with the scent of fresh spring flowers. My wife comes to sit down next to me, to enjoy being simply alive. The street is filled with people, not a car nor truck in sight. A child trips and falls walking, but noone laughs. Someone extends their hand to help him up, and the child thanks him and then goes his way once more. The street, a dirt road, is lined with many houses, none large or obtrusive though, just large enough for the persons living inside to be comfortable, maybe five rooms at most. The large oaks and maples rise high above the landscape, piercing the sky in their natural majesty. I wave hello to my neighbor across the street, another man in his mid-twenties. He smiles and returns the greeting, then goes out for his daily jog through the vast woodlands. I kiss my wife and step inside for breakfast, a simple box of cereal and some milk. My wife comes in to join me, and she asks what I plan to do today. I don't really know, I tell her, but I'll probably help the volunteers at the recycling plant for a while. She nods, saying that she'll be back from the medical lab by the time I get back. She's worked there for three years now, helping find cures for diseases that may spring up. We haven't had any sickness for ten years now, after the work of Dr. Levy, a geneticist who found the cure for AIDS and other STD's. I was happy she volunteered there, because she always came back feeling that she'd saved the lives of thousands.
We haven't had many deaths around the world for years now. Noone grew old thanks to genetic advances, and diseases were cured as soon as they broke out. Every person was sterile, but people chose what age they wanted to be when they talked to their local genetecist, so there were still children. Some people chose to live as animals, splicing their DNA or simply changing it completely to that of the chosen animal. People still got angry, but crime was at an all-time worldwide low since everyone was provided for. Everyone was given the things they asked for by the "government." Government was a group of people from every walk of life, children, adults, genetecists, half-breeds. They brought ideas from their town councils to the main coucil, and everyone was represented equally. Arguments rarely broke out. There was no such thing as money, and people worked only because they had forever to live, so there was no need to worry about wasting time.
Everything was recycled. In the past thirty years, recycling was refined so that almost everything could be reused. There was no waste. Trees were rarely cut down, and resources were starting to replenish themselves since the growth rate of population was zero. Homes were made of stone and wood for the most part, with metal reinforcing them. Factories found ways to keep the air clear of contaminants, and were built to be able to produce mass varieties of products so that once the demand was met for a certain product, they could move on to another. We had found the most effective way to do these things.
How did these things come about? What had changed us? The Great War. The apocalyptics said that we would all be killed when the Great War came, but there were those of us who survived. Our immune systems were strong, and were able to withstand the biological weapons that countries hurled by the armies. There were very few of us that survived, but those of us that did were all the wiser for it. We knew that the evil of powerful men was the cause of so much death, the destruction of our families and friends. Some said that were the chosen of some God, others simply noted the fact that we were lucky. I was thankfull every moment of my life to whatever granted me this second chance at life.
I returned from the recycling plant in the late afternoon to my home. I met my wife as she was was walking down the street from the lab. I kissed her and we decided to go out for dinner. We ate a dinner of "fried chicken," which was the flavor of chicken superimposed onto what would now be considered tofu, though of a consistency equal to chicken. We drank heavily, and there were no age restrictions on such things. We lived forever, and sickness did not affect us, so why should there be? We talked of how our days were, myself not having anything interesting but the conversations between my coworkers. She however, talked of recent studies in the treatment of mutating diseases. They were mostly caused by some of the fallout after the Great War, and were found in some of the corpses of the victims and a few species of animals. Her lab was tracing Credenia (one of the mutating viruses) in horses, trying to find some sort of pattern in it. Afterward, we put our paper plates in the trash, where they would be taken to the recycling plant in the morning. We went for a walk through the woods, then returned home. We lay down in bed and . . .

I wake up from the dream, a scared teenager one more. I heard sirens outside as the police chased after some nameless criminal for some crime or another. I knew that if the world ended this moment, I would be totally alone, with no signifigant other, not even a lover. I would die not knowing whether there was an afterlife. I would see loved ones die and be interred or burnt after their bodies ceased to breathe. I knew that the others would be cruel and that my feelings would not be taken into consideration by them. I looked up at my ceiling and wondered. . . Is this as good as it gets?