Prologue

Ah...! The 21th century. It began on January 1, 2000 and will end on December 31, 2100. The first century in the 3rd millennium of Anno Domini era or Common Era.

The beginning of the 21st century has been marked by the rise of a global economy and Third World consumerism, deepening global concern over terrorism and an increase in private enterprise. Effects of global warming and rising sea levels have continued, with eight islands disappearing between 2007 and 2014. The Arab Spring of the early 2010s led to mixed outcomes in the Arab world, resulting in several civil wars and governments overthrown. The United States has remained the global superpower, while China is now considered as an emerging global superpower.

In 2017, about half (49.3%) of the world's population lived in "some form of democracy", though only 4.5 percent lived in "full democracies".

The European Union has greatly expanded in the 21st century, adding 13 member states. Most member states of the European Union introduced a common currency, the Euro, and the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union.

With the proliferation of mobile devices, more than half of the world's population obtained access to the internet (2018 estimate). After the success of the Human Genome Project, DNA sequencing services became available and affordable.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world, causing severe global economic disruption, including the largest global recession since the Great Depression.

At least the Wikipedia page says so. But simple words cannot express the events that happened after these years. If one can, then it's going to be long. It's going to be sad. But one can still summarize the later part of the century. The years when civilized men and women forgot they were civilized. The era of barbarianism. The quote from the TV show Game of Thrones summarizes the rest of the century. "Winter is coming"

The first thing that started this is snow in Texas, 2021. Snow in Houston doesn't happen every winter, but it does happen. In fact, since 1881, it has snowed 94 times in Houston. Then the snowfall in the Mediterranean basin. Snow is common in the mountain ranges outside of Athens, Greece, but rarely does it fall within the city limits. Then it snowed in the Middle East, covering parts of Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and Israel in rare white blanket. The region is known more for being dry and hot than snowstorms. But a huge dip in the jet stream similar to what's happened in Texas allowed polar air to plunge from the Arctic into the Middle East where it interacted with a storm to create surreal scenes.

Over the years in the decade it snowed at least once in all areas above and below the tropics. The tropics faced less rainfall. In places where agriculture was dependent on rain water faced less crop output. The food production of the world slowed down. Crops were dying either of bad weather like snowfall or by drought because lack of rainfall. The production still kept with demand but food insecurity has begun. People started buying in bulk. However developing countries became more dependent on agricultural imports. This caused the relative price of food to increase. By 2040 in some countries food has become unofficial currency.

Scientists and researchers around the world who ever baffled with climate changes have finally found where things went wrong. Instead of global warming and rise of sea level, the world average temperature was dropping. When lockdowns were initiated during first few months of 2019 pandemic the world's air circulation was impacted. The sudden loss of greenhouse gases produced by fossil fuels changed warm and cold air circulation. That somehow started spreading then existing greenhouse gases over the entire surface of the earth. When life became normal the new gases also started to spread in this new circulation system. But instead of trapping the heat the gases reduced the light and heat coming from the sun. This was because the greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels were somewhat reduced because of afforestation and sulfur dioxide released by volcanoes. A lot of volcanic eruptions. Mostly from already active volcanoes.

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is the most voluminous chemically active gas emitted by volcanoes and is readily oxidized to sulfuric acid normally within weeks. But trace amounts o SO2 exert significant influence on climate. All major historic volcanic eruptions have formed sulfuric acid aerosols in the lower Stratosphere that cooled the earth's surface similar to 0.5 degrees C for typically three years. While such events are currently happening once every 80 years, there are times in geologic history when they occurred every few to a dozen years. These were times when the earth was cooled incrementally into major ice ages. This happened to be one of those instances. A new ice age was here.

I was born in 20th Century. By the time 2040 came around I was in my 50s. I was professor of philosophy. I taught university-level students on the writings and logic of numerous Philosophers. During the school year, each morning I read the news, eat breakfast, and look at social media for a little while at my computer in my home office. I catch a bus to campus at the last possible minute to teach my 10 a.m. class, so I'm out the door by 9. I stand in front of a room of people and explain things for two hours without a break. Then for two hours I sit in my campus office while students come to ask me questions individually. Sometimes this is just to clear up confusion about material, sometimes it borders on a therapy session. If no one comes for some time, I run and grab a bite of lunch. Then another two hours standing in front of a room explaining things. Then I come home.

So, on a Tuesday, I would be working four hours straight through for the most part with a portion of an hour at each end commuting. Since I have had some business world experience as well, I can say that four hours teaching like this is at least as demanding as ordinary desk work for 8 hours, because you spend the 4 hours on your feet and talking incessantly, each day, something different from the day before. It's quite exhausting. When I get home I don't do much except watch TV or do housework, though I do spend some time in the evening responding to student emails.

Wednesday, I usually take off, unless I've fallen behind in preparations.

Thursday, same as Tuesday.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, I spend between 8 and 12 hours reading the (invariably extremely difficult) material I've assigned, unless I have committee work to do, or am grading exams.

During the summer I do not teach. I get up, go to my home office, and work on my book projects for 4–8 hours, sometimes longer, 7 days a week, no days off.

That all went wrong so fast as food crisis began. I wasn't married nor was I in a relationship with anyone for long. I dated in my 20s and 30s. But as I got older I wasn't interested in dating anymore and wanted to settle down. But love and women eluded me as Teflon on Teflon. After a while I got in terms with. As Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great's third wish that, both his hands be kept dangling out of his coffin to let people know that he came empty handed into this world and empty handed he will go out of this world. I came to accept I will pass way alone. Well I got that wish.

One morning after riots started because of food shortages few people broke into my house to rob me. They broke in when I was having my morning coffee. Three men rushed into living room from the front door I left open to let fresh air come in from warm day. The one in lead leaped onto me with a knife in his hand and stabbed me in my throat. The best I could do was, throwing the hot coffee on his face. As he let go of the knife, I pulled it from my throat and stab him in his face through his left eye. As he fell back I was tackled by the other two and bashed on the head with an iron rod in their hands.

I could feel the death approaching me. With blood flowing out my throat and consciousness fading, my last thought was how these people got into my home. Breaking into a gated community with armed security. As life was left my body and light dimmed from my eyes, I heard a voice ask me something.

"Do you want to have another chance at life? Do you want live life again in this mundane world or do you want to go on a quest? I will give you another chance at life either way. So tell me 'recently deceased', what will you choose? The process of creativity and life is one of death and rebirth, that's constantly happening over and over again. Whether it's an actual death or just a shift in perspective, that cycle is forever continuing. As a person, that's just something you have to accept. Will you just accept this? Or will you break this? Will you accept this quest? Trust me it will be an adventure through the cosmos"