Beacon of Humanity

"It never was my motivation to save humanity. All I wanted was to save you."

With a sound that was somewhere in between a chuckle and a sob, Barbara reached into her handbag and pulled out her own wallet. With a quick flip, she opened it and showed me the prominently displayed twin of my picture but she had gone one step further and had had it laminated. I cursed myself for missing this obvious solution to the slow abrasion of my most precious possession.

"I have another at home, framed, standing on my night table and one is in a photo album at my parents."

"Are you in a relationship?"

"No. Why?"

"Because I couldn't do this if you were."

I took her face in my hands and pulled her to me. As soon as our lips touched, our mouths opened and our tongues started caressing each other. Her hands came around and softly roamed my back. I revelled in the familiar feeling of having Barbara back in my arms and could have gone on forever but at some point, there was a discreet cough somewhere in the background, so we reluctantly separated.

"I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr Fischer, but we have to leave soon or you'll be late for the event in Mombasa."

I sighed, wondering how much longer this craziness would go on, how long it would take before I could return to a normal life.

"Ok. Just give me a minute to say goodbye to Barbara and the people inside."

He knew me well and I just assumed that he had planned enough time for this so I turned back to the woman I still loved.

"Thank you. You'll probably never know how much this short meeting means to me. I love you."

"I love you, too. If you ever need me, call and I'll come."

I pulled her in an embrace and hugged her hard.

"I couldn't do that to you. Enjoy the anonymity. I wish I could."

I returned to the assembly hall to say goodbye. This turned into a short speech of thanks and a couple of group pictures before I was ushered to the roof where a helicopter picked me up to take me to the airport. Once there, I boarded the private jet that had been chartered for the occasion. As I sat in my comfortable flight chair, sipping a drink served by a very attractive but overawed stewardess, I basked in the memories that evening had given me. Friends, fun, informal chatter, personal interaction, even intimacy. These were things I hadn't experienced since I had been declared the saviour of humanity and I had missed them badly.

I felt good. I felt better than good. I felt human again. I had something to look forward to because I now had hope that one day this madness would end. Sooner or later, I would be able to return to a life in which formal banquets with the world's leaders would be a thing of the past and be replaced by a barbeque with a couple of friends. A life where dishes I could barely pronounce were substituted by a burger from the grill and a couple of beers. A life in which I could attend a concert and not be seated in the dignitaries' box or even be called up to the stage to receive another eulogy.

+++

It took three more years during which the hype gradually died down and I reciprocally regained the control over my own life. The photos taken at the class reunion which showed me laughing with friends, digging into a sandwich, or eating fries with my fingers, helped a lot. More and more people started to realise that I was human like everybody else. The questions I was asked by the journalists slowly changed from the previous 'what-should-humanity-do-to-overcome-hurdle-X'-type to the 'what-do-you-do-when-you-are-home-alone'-kind. Not that I ever was alone. Or at home for that matter.

It didn't happen from one day to the next but in the world's perception, I gradually changed from being a beacon to a floodlight, to a headlight, a spotlight, a flashlight. Others stepped up to take over. Politicians. That was fine with me. I had never wanted to be in the public eye in the first place and I certainly didn't want to be in a position of power. All I had ever wanted was to be a somewhat successful scientific researcher with a good income, a loving wife, and maybe a couple of kids.

I was still wary of my influence on people. There were still many people all around the world that wanted me to be some kind of world ruler and chances were high that my meeting with a certain person or group would increase their chances for election. I didn't want that kind of power. I wanted the people to decide on their own. My personal political opinion was just that and nothing else. My announcing of the discovery of the Cure didn't make my political views any more important than anybody else's. Whenever I was pressed for an answer on a political question, I replied by stressing the importance of everybody contributing his personal opinion to the political debate and expressing that opinion by voting. That, of course, was a political statement in itself but peacefully promoting democracy couldn't be a bad thing.

It was still difficult to move around freely, though. Apart from being the most well-known person on the planet, I had become rich. My social activities, like visits to hospitals and orphanages or the much-dreaded public parades, had always been free of charge but towards the end of my non-stop-world-tour, I learned that I was paid rather handsomely when somebody used my name for economic reasons. The clothes I wore were produced by my own label, the same applied for many of the articles of my daily use. I had always thought that my clothing advisory dressed me in the latest fashion and was stunned when I realised that it was the other way round. In my eyes, it had been a public relations stunt to make sure I didn't look out of place wherever I was appearing.

Rasheem, who else, had taken care of that and had a team of advisors handle my portfolio. When I found out my total wealth, I donated most of it to organisations that handled the care and placement for the many orphans or supported the countless single parent families the crisis had left behind in its wake. It just felt wrong to me to have earned so much money for literally nothing when there was still so much need in the world.

+

What was left was still enough to last several lifetimes. Towards the end of my tour, I gave my mother the money to buy a nice, nondescript house near her own, new apartment. She had sold the house I had grown up in to a charity which had turned it into a museum. As if anybody would be interested in seeing the bed I wanked off in during my early teenage years or the table at which I ate breakfast.

My house also wasn't very far from Barbara's apartment and one late Sunday morning after I had settled a little, I picked up my phone and dialled the number I still had memorised. She answered on the fourth ring, sounding a little suspicious, probably because my new number wasn't in her contact list. I still recognised her voice easily from the single word she spoke.

"Yes?"

I didn't know what to expect, so I also was a bit apprehensive when I addressed her.

"Hi Barbara, it's..."

She interrupted me with a scream I probably could have heard even without the phone.

"Seb! How are you?"

"Fine. And yourself?"

It wasn't the most creative conversation so far but that didn't really matter to me right now. I was over the moon just to hear her voice. I could hear the excitement in her voice when she replied.

"I'm ok. Where are you? Still in America?"

I frowned a little at her turning the topic back to me. I had talked so much about me during the last couple of years that I felt I could well do without that for a long time.

"No, haven't been for a while. As a matter of fact, I'm home."

"You're here? In town?"

The eagerness in her voice made me smile with relief. I had desperately hoped that she would want to see me as she was the foundation of the future I envisioned.

"I sure am. Would you like to meet up?"

"Of course. When? Are you available today?"

"For you? Always. I could be at your place in maybe ten minutes."

I was met with a silence which lasted longer than I had expected. I was just about to ask if she was still there when I heard her loudly draw in a fresh breath of air.

"I'm at home and have no plans for today. Please hurry."

I climbed into the very ordinary four-year-old car I had bought and drove over to the apartment block she lived in. I entered, took the elevator up to her floor and stood in front of her door. I raised my hand, but before I could knock, the door burst open and Barbara flew out and threw herself at me with a tackle that made me stumble to the wall opposite her entrance.

"Seb!"

With Barbara hanging around my neck, I carefully manoeuvred us back into her apartment, closing the door behind us.

"I missed you, too, Barbara. More than you can imagine. But I think, I'm back home for good now. I don't have a single obligation pending. The public has finally moved on."

"I was worried about you after the reunion. You said a couple of scary things but you looked better afterwards. Happier."

Barbara showed no intention to let go of me and I had none to force her to so I just remained standing where we were.

"I was. Mostly, thanks to you. Also, the pressure on me started to dwindle soon after. People stopped treating me like a golden calf. I was able to relate to them instead of having them trying to guess my desires."

Finally, she loosened her embrace a little.

"And what brings you to my door, Bright One?"

I felt a dark cloud move over me when she jokingly used another one of the monikers I'd been given. The Bright One who had defeated the Dark Fever.

"Don't do that. Please. I don't like any of these nicknames. I just want to be Seb again."

She put her head back on my neck and reinforced her embrace again.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to embarrass you."

"I know but I never was comfortable with the role I was forced to play. I'm just an ordinary guy caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Most of the time when I was lauded somewhere, I felt like a cheat."

A weird silence fell over us. Partially, it was the comfortable silence between friends that understand each other without speaking. But the other part was that of strangers not knowing what to talk about. We had both changed in the years since we were a couple.

"How about going for a bite to eat?"

She looked at me happily for having an idea on how to break out of this stalemate.

"I'd love that."

We walked to a restaurant nearby. It was a simple local pub and for me, that was more than just ok. I had had all the fancy meals I could deal with over the last couple of years. A traditional Rösti with bacon and cheese held far more appeal over me than some extravagant dish with ingredients I didn't even recognise.

At my request, we were seated at a table where I was able to turn my back to the room. This helped us until we had finished eating and had coffee served. It had been wonderful to reconnect with Barbara but then it all went downhill fast. It seems as if the waitress had alerted some of her friends.

"Oh my god! You're really Sebastian Fischer!"

I turned away from the young woman, trying to hide my face.

"No, I just look a little like him."

It didn't deter her. Ten minutes later, despite my protests, everybody in the restaurant was asking for a picture with me and more people were coming in after they had heard about my presence. Soon, I had lost all control of the situation and I had to watch helplessly as Barbara was first pushed aside by the demanding crowd and shortly after walked out the door while the turmoil still got bigger and bigger. It took me way more than an hour to finally get out of there myself and by the time I reached Barbara's apartment, all I found was a note attached to the door.

'S. I'm at a friend's place. I'll call you. B.'

Barely capable to suppress my tears, I made it down to my car and drove home. I so desperately wanted to call Barbara to apologize and just hear her voice but her note made it clear that she didn't want me to contact her until she was ready. But what I could do was to call Rasheem and ask him to send support to Barbara to help her deal with the fall-out that was destined to hit her when the pictures of her having lunch with me were published. He promised to send her my former public relations representative.

After anxiously waiting for three days, I couldn't stand the tension anymore and phoned her but she didn't answer. I followed that up with a text begging for her to talk to me. It took her five more days to return my call. The conversation itself was as short as I had feared, following her prolonged silence.

"I'm sorry, Seb. I wish I was as strong as you. I wish I could handle the publicity and treat you the way you want me to but I can't. You're Sebastian Fischer, the world's most treasured icon. How could I live up to that?"

"There's nothing to live up to. I'm not some kind of superior being. I'm just the guy who pulled the short straw. Occurrences like at the restaurant will decrease. It's just a question of time."

"But I can't keep you for myself. You belong to humanity."

That hit me like a hammer. What could I possibly reply to this? How could I counter this horrible argument?

"If that's how you think, there's not much I can do, is there? Farewell. I wish you all the best and nothing but happiness for your future."

I think I managed to keep the emotions out of my voice. I didn't want to make it any more difficult for her than necessary. The tears that had threatened to fall all through our call spilt over as soon as I hung up the phone. I had lost the one person that had given me hope of a normal life. If not even Barbara was able to get past the image that had been branded upon me, nobody would.

She knew me better than anyone, maybe even than my mother. More than anyone she had to know that I wasn't the half-god I had been made out to be. She was the girl I had lost my virginity to. She had been on the short end of my first couple of clumsy attempts to make love. She had had to calm my nerves before tests at school.

As I walked through my house, I pushed the buttons to lower the shutters. I wanted to lock the world out. My work had contributed to the survival of the species and despite everything, I was proud of that but it came at a cost. Even if I was out of the public eye, I was still not part of society. I seemed to belong to some kind of transcendental species. One of a kind.

Over the next couple of months, I tried to disprove my own theory that I was destined to remain alone. Once I invited a famous American singer I had met at a charity gala for dinner to my home. I had hoped that her being used to the spotlight might help us connect but throughout the meal, she kept giggling nervously, and almost fainted when I took her by the hand to lead her from the dining to the living room to sit on the sofa. 'Oh-my-god-Sebastian-Fischer-is-gonna-make-love-to-me-now'. I called her a cab instead.

Shortly after, I was contacted by the management of a renowned Indian actress. She came complete with a marketing plan. Six months of relationship, then a big public wedding, right on time for the release of her latest movie, two and a half years later the divorce. I would receive a share of her royalties during the time, otherwise, our finances would be kept as separate as our bedrooms.

During this time, I also tried to reconnect with some of my friends from the past but, just like Barbara, they couldn't look past my public image. I invited several of them for a barbeque and they all showed up in suits and ties. I just showed up at the bar where we had been drinking beers since we were legally allowed to do so but no matter how much I tried, I never was really included in their discussions.

For the second barbeque, they at least showed up dressed casually but it never became a relaxed gathering and every single one declined my third invitation. By chance, I learned that, in between, they had a couple get-togethers to which I hadn't been invited.

A few weeks after the contact from the Indian actress, I was invited by a noble family from Saudi Arabia whose patriarch then blatantly paraded every woman between sixteen and sixty-five for me to choose from in order to get me to marry into their family so that they could expand their influence. I flew from their palace and the country.

Those experiences derailed me more and more but to be honest, after Barbara's rejection it didn't take that much. A week after the return from the disaster in Saudi Arabia, I rose from my bed, still feeling empty and lost. Being thirty-three-years-old, I had to accept that I'd never be able to build an intimate relationship with a woman and that nobody would ever regard me as their equal. I might have turned off the light but I couldn't escape my role as the Beacon of Humanity. While I brood over a mug of coffee, I came to a conclusion. During the years travelling around the globe, I had sometimes half-jokingly told Rasheem that I'd go to a monastery to find my peace and that was what I intended to do. Sort of. I wouldn't go to a monastery but I'd find myself a place far away from civilisation and keep to myself.

I took me two weeks to find the right location. With the help of the ever reliable Rasheem and the financial advisory team, I anonymously acquired a small island in the Great Barrier Reef. Before the Dark Fever, it had been a luxury holiday destination but the economic crisis following the depopulation had led to it being deserted. After I had bought the island, I had a contractor remove all signs of civilisation but one building. One bungalow was restored and I had a sun-driven - sun, not solar - desalination device installed. When they were done, there was no electricity, no running water, and no technology other than the water treatment. I had read up on survival techniques and learned how to maintain and repair the desalination equipment.

Shortly after the workmen had finished, I was dropped off by a tearful Rasheem. His attempts to dissuade me from my self-chosen solitary life were doomed from the beginning. Not even my mother had managed to stop me. To bid farewell to her was probably the hardest thing I had ever done and to ease my conscience, I made sure that she was at least financially independent for the rest of her life.

Rasheem insisted on giving me a solar-powered satellite phone as a means for communication in case of emergency. I allowed it, in exchange for a promise to not come visit me unannounced. Once he had left, I turned the phone off and stored it away.

+++

I settled into a quiet life, living off the island and the sea. I spent my days fishing, tending to my vegetable garden, occasionally picking the naturally growing fruits, and meditating. After the hectic that had controlled my life for the better part of the last nine years, it was a thoroughly soul-cleansing experience. Rising with the sun, working for my living, going to sleep when the sun set. There wasn't much exploration to do. I could walk around the island in roughly half an hour.

In the early days, I cried a lot at all I had lost. Not the money, the fame, or the worship. I couldn't care less about these; I mourned my disentanglement from humanity. I mourned the fact that I had to pay the price for the survival of humanity which wasn't even my achievement.

It took me a long time to recognise the irony of the situation. For many years, I had been permanently surrounded by people but always felt alone. I had yearned for companionship and suffered from the lack of it. Now I had voluntarily isolated myself and actually felt better than I had in a long time. I thought about it a lot, I didn't have much else to do after all. I came to the conclusion that the resolution of the dissonance of being alone in a crowd was at the basis of my feeling better. The fact that my feeling of loneliness and my physical solitude were finally congruent made my hermit existence bearable. There were days where I wished for company. In the beginning they were few and far between. The longer I stayed on the island, the more frequent these days became. Not enough to actually do something about it but I felt that the day where I would turn on the sat phone was approaching.