The wish was granted. The higher power heard and had enough of it, they are bored and utter irritated with the same prayer's every day, "We don't need men, We are fine without them, Need a world without men, Why should men have all the fun?" they said its enough, and snapped the fingers! Click!
The morning followed with it's general calmness yet a storm brewing along side the Ghana coffee in the machine, men are gone from the world, the complete gender doesn't exist anymore! Poof! vanished without a trace from the yesterday and even yester years! Whole history of the existence of race on earth, men has been erased like the writing on the beach, a clean slate. But yet the one thing was left behind, memories of them being around but only within those were living, rest everything was a wiped clean, books, scriptures, paintings, statues, everything that was dedicated to or made for men was gone.
Strange thought, isn't it? Well, first the world barely noticed it, the female gender had already taken over the partial remains' from the yesterday so everything was working smooth, it was just another day at office, no one noticed a regular joe hasn't checked in. Who cares? if they don't check in for the next couple of month's, female's are good enough to head ahead without the regular joe's of the office.
Trains are running on time, children are laughing in the park, playing tea parties. offices are running smoothly, women are getting paid fairly and climbing the ladder's faster as all women understand each other telepathically and empathetically, they are completing each other's sentences even before it has been thought inside the brain, the surface of the earth has not suffered a single crack, well immediately at least. But the world has all together has gone silent, and that's noticeable, every few hours, leading to minutes and then to seconds of the day, everyday...
Then come's a day, the kids are playing in the park, no guidance, no one to look after them, while the only remaining gender is busy making the world go round, cluttering, blabbering across the keyboards in their work, making the ends meet, but the kid in the park is now bored, sad, feeling lost, feeling alone and starts crying as there is no one around she can look up to, she can cling onto just of the sake of it, just for that little nap after a hard tea party she had and the friend forgot to give her the cookie at the table, and now there is no one to console her that it is alright let's her hold a pinky finger and takes her to buy a ice-cream from the nearest ice-cream truck.
The fight in the school broke out, the girls had their own version of fight's and fight club's, pulled each other hair's till they looked they had just been jolted with 1100V's of electricity with a bruised lip and knee to no one to come aid to except the school nurse she did her best, but she needs that band aid kiss that she will no later get it once her mom returns back in the evening.
There are female pedophile's now roaming in the neighborhood, knowing there are no beardy giant's wanting to stop them in the path just by the look of it, she is now brave, arrogant and twitchy for the next pray, before she has one and disappears into the dark alleyways, it has been reported but not enough unit's to be dispatched immediately at the location as the gender is stretched thin and no one to cover for in the void's that has been freshly left behind while there are the other's societal outreaches being piled up.
The train's are running good until the coupling came loose over the period of time, no one is available immediately due to void, but the engines are useless without the bogeys attached, you get the vibe of it, the heavy work is yet to be filled in, train's are getting late, people have started reaching no where without the transport's network working smoothly, the work is now piling up on the world from high rise multi billion dollar, electricity guzzling enterprises, its trickling down from errors, maintenance bloopers, the heavy things need more newly trained worker's to take the risk, or looking down from the 50th floor and still get that bolt riveted into the girdle.
The ageing mother has forgotten her last medicine and insurance policy that has been yet not filed, with no records of her being able to remember, the hospitals has given the final notice to clear the bill and discharge or take legal actions, the border's around the world are suddenly not 100% guarded, there are void's there too, the brotherhood has gone into ghost mode, but not even omnipresent, the grenade's are no more being hugged by the fellow to save the team, no more blood stained last letter's handed over too. Female's are running it all, with whatever best they know of all, the one's that are hardened and are ruthless are gaining slowly over the ones that remain, the encore of breaching the pinned down location's are replaced by thin yet roaring battle hardened lady officer's but yet lack the immediate impulse to jump into the fire fight that the men carried before, the hesitation...
From everything the world had to offer and has to offer, now has no men in it, it has to be managed by the female's, the only living gender amongst all things living the god had blessed the land and ocean with. The catch here is, without men the population is limited and cant grow. The cross species trials from single mammals have miserably failed costing the very precious lives that remain, scientist cannot re-create a pattern into the DNA to compensate and reproduce without the male, like the many mammals could do. Is there a breakthrough here? But time is not a friend.
The option's have run out, the cards are all played, the time is unlimited, resources are massively abundant now, the population though is the only non renewable resource left which is getting depleted faster than any other resource's, with every passing day the age factor is playing its role, the silver hair's are fading across the world, possible a next 100 years are left for the population to either find a way to repopulate, find a way to extend their existence or they would eventually all wither away like dust on a windy day, leaving behind world left for the green's, that's what's left of it.
There are so many aspects that each gender specifically cover, which is unimaginable, yet it puts a 'my god' feel when we sit down and just think about it, even more when you put it into word's, it becomes a unfathomable abyss, which only get's darker as you seek more deeper, quieter. A white noise is what we would find, I guess at the end, screaming in silence.
The silence of the world was now deafening. Women had pushed boundaries, conquered roles, managed industries, governments, homes, and even wars, not just the one's with gun powder but with the emotional turmoil they were feeling without a counsil to their error's, miseries, loneliness yet they were proving to be surviving - at a cost which was depleting faster with every wrong decision. They were proving they could survive, lead, and thrive but many aspects and segment's they gasped with a nostalgia, with an feeling of void that somethings were better when men were around, could have been they felt the grunt? or just lazy like the good old day's and that men took care in their free time but none could question their strength anymore while they are gone, strength is no more an option - its the only choice. Yet, something lingered in every heart, an emptiness that no innovation, no committee, no laboratory could fill anymore. A void.
The granted wish was never about survival but the blessing was about balance. The perfect harmony of Ying and Yang, the echo of good and evil, the joy of action and passion.
The laughter of a father swinging his daughter high into the air.
The protective presence of a brother walking his sister home at night.
The quiet endurance of a husband who works silently so his family never feels the weight he carries.
The unspoken bond between a son and an ageing mother, where no words are needed — just his presence, now everything came to women unfiltered, untethered, nothing holding back, nothing soothing it down, a neat whiskey without water.
The other gender got a jibe at the creation, the care they thought was possessiveness, they felt it was the duty so to be done but in reality they were connections. And with the men gone, the world was no longer a home, just an efficient, well greased but a ticking time machine which was fading. I read once where it was so beautifully creative that the garden needs to be filled with multiple flower's, flowers of colors, smell, sizes, but a garden with one theme of same flower becomes boring, becomes unsmoothing, not natural, its garden because it has a variety, some are good, some are beautiful, some are just ordinary but their presence is important, the plugs in the walls.
It was never about women could do it all. There had been never any doubt that any other gender was lesser than the other, all were given the limbs and eyes that other had, the same gray matter that thought few thought's milder or stronger than the other, like the different flowers in the garden, But, the question was yet to be answered and still remain's unanswered, should they have to? Should either of the gender be survivable if the alternate was obliterated? Was that ever the point of humanity — to see who could replace whom?
The higher power, the 'param atma' as the Indian mythology denotes the almighty, had only granted the wish to show one thing, not that one gender is stronger than the other, but that life itself was designed to be shared. The creation was already thought for, the misfit is designed to be fit, Men and women — different, flawed, misunderstood at times — but together, they carried humanity forward, the interlocked into each other like a key to its only lock. It was the heart for the love. It was the creation of the creator to be in continuation in his image, his strength.
While the time flew past, the grass grew and got cut, the rains and droughts came and went by but all these while the truth that burned hardest was: Men had been here all along, in the shadow's manier times fighting battles no one saw, no one heard about, the ones that they left at the doorstep before entering their home, the mood that immediately snapped to something more reliable to save the sanctity of the place he was going to be for the next few hours before he began the wrestle again, breaking inside but smiling outside, carrying those transparent burdens on his shoulder's that only shrugged quietly so others wouldn’t have to. Their struggles were invisible, and in their silence, many assumed they were unnecessary, deal able. But very few knew even within the circle of the males that everyday they were seating at table where the dealer was always new, when the cards were dealt with no certainty of his win each time but promised it bruised his ego to make him humble and smile.
Silence is never absence. Mind that well, absence often comes and screams louder than anything else once it start's getting noticed, its like seating in the world's quietest room and slowly and gradually your ear's start picking up sound's that was never heard before, scaring with the new unknown even though those sounds were always there - omnipresent. And same were the men!
So, the question is not whether the world could survive without men. Clearly, it could not. The question is: Why did we ever believe they didn’t matter enough while they were still here? while they still are?
________________________________________
Do let me know in the comments, your views, I would love to gain a new insight, this was my fictional tete-e-tete with you all.
(Image is AI generated with help of Gemini)
