THE YEAR 2063

Life went on its course hurryingly without too much drama for a small nuclear family like ours. Charlene had the same big tender heart and good listening skills as Alegria. She knew how to give Ousmane the yin attention that he loved so much while bringing him the yang compassion that he had missed so much because of my absence. 

Ousmane seemed to be happy with us and loved being a big brother. I could disappear at any moment, he wouldn't be the only survivor of the Leszczyńskis, all alone in the world. He would have a little sister as his reason for living, another living being to protect and defend. Knowing that reassured me for him as well as for Lynne.

'Why don't you and your dad spend some time together while Lynne and I are at Maya's?' Charlene asked from the kitchen counter. The tone of her voice sounded more like a suggestion than a question.

'We've already spent the whole week together, that is more than enough for me. I have to study,' Ousmane nonchalantly retorted with a smirk before plunging his nose back into his laptop.

Charlene gave me a disapproving look that seemed to invite me to say something. So, to avoid an argument, I expressed the first idea that came to my mind, 'He's right actually,'

'Seriously?!' Charlene exclaimed, rolling her eyes, 'Is this me or I'm sharing this house with two ghosts. Do you ever realise that humanity's just barely managed to prevent extinction?'

'Speak for yourselves, former rich countries,' Ousmane said with a giggle, his head still glued to his screen. He lifted his chin to sweep his piercing gaze over Charlene and me for a few seconds then added calmly, 'The worst is yet to come, the planet isn't done with us yet.'

He immediately plunged his head back into his device.

'Your son is as optimistic as I am, isn't he?!' Charlene said as she pivoted her whole body to my direction, 'He must have taken from his mother I guess.'

Ousmane and I burst out laughing. He too had understood her sarcastic joke. Since we had met, Charlene had never expressed optimism, ever. Indeed, Ousmane wasn't optimistic either, but he definitely didn't get that from his mother, and even less so from me. 

Unlike most people, I believed that one day planet Earth as well as mankind would resume a more natural, more harmonious way of life. The dying world inherited from the wounded men around him had taught Ousmane pessimism. As for Charlene, the artificial intelligence camp had shown her the most horrific character of mankind, and she had never forgotten it.

Ousmane had grown up outside the camps of artificial intelligence in a country that had experienced extreme poverty and exclusion for years until it found itself at the top of a rotten world where men and women disfigured inside out by huge gaping wounds were roaming the streets like zombies. 

Like me, Ousmane had lived the youngest years of his life alongside a father in the shadows to finally see the latter disappear for many years before he reappeared in his life to take him to another horizon. Three generations in a row, a sensitive little boy had suffered the trauma of abandonment in similar ways, but differently.

Yet, like Alegria who had seen my destiny in a dream, I felt deep inside that Ousmane would see the end point of our generational trauma. I was convinced that with him the trauma of the Leszczyński boys would come to an end, not by the extinction of the human species, but by a play of light: Life.

Behind his dark sense of humour and his pessimism, Ousmane hid a supernatural force in the making whose origin I couldn't define. Like an old tree whose roots dug deep thousands of metres underground, he drew his existential answers from the source instead of seeking them on the surface of our sick world.

Perhaps, he had learnt this secret from his grandparents, or from the men and women around him who occasionally took on the role of guides. Unless he had acquired this knowledge from his lived experience as an unloved child.

As for Fatou, she had taught him the entrepreneurial spirit, the family and the spiritual values ​​that would ensure him a stable human existence despite the unavoidable ups and downs of life. Contrary to tradition, his mother had never given up any of her dreams for anyone, not even her only child. She had sacrificed her time, her body, and her ambitions strategically without ever losing sight of the goal she had set for herself.

Through this act of rebellion, Fatou had demonstrated to Ousmane the power of courageous ordinary people when they dared to challenge authority, conventions, the predictable, and the impossible. Without any weapon or slogan, but with grace and ingenuity, Fatou had shown our son the path that the free men and women had been taking since the dawn of time. Through his mother's choices, he had retained for life the importance of his own choices as a man by opposition. He carried within him the audacity and exceptional creativity of human possibility.

Despite all my best efforts and my good will, I could only acknowledge the fact that I would never be able to resume our storyline where I had left my son. After all these years, I had resigned myself to that fact. Ousmane had also learnt to accept it without having to hate me for it. The affection that united us came neither from our torn past nor our uncertain future, but from the present that we both recognised as much more precious. Although my son would never confide to me the troubles and sorrows of his childhood as a neglected child (even if he had been told mine) I understood all his chips and cracks that I also exhibited.

I still couldn't reach Ousmane, the child hiding behind my own story despite the fact that we had learnt how to speak as equals. The child who continued to reside in each of us still felt insignificant and small. My son, who had grown into a compassionate brave man, and I would never become accomplices despite all the pain that bound us. I would forever remain the mysterious ghost man of his childhood whom he was calling 'dad' as a cry for help that I had failed to address. Yet, after all these years of trying to find each other, we never felt as close as we did then.

***

The Babel gene, have you heard of it?

I bet you have.

The news fell on us like a bomb, a miracle that no one expected or even wanted. Surviving we had done so much for so long that we didn't ask ourselves the question as to why us, and how. Yes, we had noticed that some died faster and more easily, but we had never tried to find out why we survived despite everything, and not them. When you are busy surviving, you don't really have time to figure out why; only how matters. So far, we were still there, 'Thank God! We'll see tomorrow...'

Technology helped us to comfortably endure the planet's new climatic conditions in our daily activities, but the same didn't apply to our bodies. Human skin had a hard time tolerating this sun which beat down day and night mercilessly; human eyes struggled to filter the colours of this new light that they didn't understand; the human mind with its sordid thoughts challenged the reason of nature, leading them to the worst acts on others and themselves; the human heart beat faster than the music that had kept it alive so far; the human defence system no longer protected the human body against bacteria and other viruses naturally present in its food and environment. 

Advanced medicine was constantly trying to invent a powerful enough magic pill that would reverse Mother Nature's spell. Unfortunately for science, nature was determined to reshape our bodies like the wealthy and influential men of the mid-21st century. Just before their colonisation by artificial intelligence, the latter wanted to implant chips in our brains and replace our body parts to make us half men half machines.

On the other hand, and unlike the 21st century's wealthiest minority, nature had decided not to mutilate nor violate our fragile mortal bodies. Conversely, she had chosen to sculpt us patiently and discreetly with her firm and agile fingers, inspired by her singular creativity of the moment. The men and women of the early 2060s were gradually transforming before our eyes without us even noticing. Our bodies became thinner, our skin, hair and eyes darkened while our muscle mass grew stronger.

The Borys of the year 2063 was well in his seventies'. He sported a dark oak complexion and thick greying hair that would never leave him. Despite my old age, I felt in better shape than ever and I very rarely fell ill. The same applied to Charlene, Lynne, and Ousmane. The latter had returned to live in Senegal on Lynne's twelfth birthday.

However, the transformation didn't seem to go at the same pace for everyone. It appeared that for some, the shock of the metamorphosis was destroying their bodies. The human species was evolving, but not all together, and this resulted in the natural death of large numbers of people. For those who fell dead and who for too long believed themselves to be invincible thanks to their advanced technology, the fall ended up far too sudden and violent not to ask themselves: Why us, but not them?

It was a professor named Babel who first discovered the gene in South Africa, giving it the biblical name. People quickly renamed it the survivor gene. Science immediately tried to understand it to better tame it and make it an object of desire for men who didn't have it. At first, they wanted to handle us like dolls, open us like boxes, and observe us like fairground animals.

However, Africa no longer looked the same as the beginning of the century: vulnerable, malleable, and docile. The bad memories of past centuries had deeply wounded the continent. The idea of ​​becoming once again from near or far yet another robust body good only at work for the benefit and profit of others, another commodity, mere object of desire, inhuman product standing on two legs, simply insignificant, repelled all African countries.

Soon, Professor Babel continued the research discreetly in Africa, America and the Caribbean while other countries began their own research with the black population on their own territories. This is how I had the opportunity to personally meet the professor who changed forever the course of history of the human race and the demography of planet Earth.