[John Whitworth]

No. 2765: last words
‘The Last ___ on Earth’ You are invited to fill in the gap as you choose and provide a short story of that title. (150 words max.) Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 19 September.

Wheels are whirring. I have an idea! And I am sure you have too, and probably a better one

[Jayne Osborn]

When it says '150 words' rather than '16 lines max ' it's technically a prose comp. I take it your offering will be in verse, John?

Jayne

[John Whitworth]

If I do it, it certainly will be, Jayne.

[Adrian Fry]

I think the use of the term 'short story' suggests prose is called for, though I know a tale can be told in verse. I'll be entering prose, if I can come up with something. This does have a ring of school creative writing exercize about it, though.

[George Simmers]

I agree that it's not an immediately inspiring assignment. This is all I've come up with:

‘He’s very listless today, poor redundant thing,’ she told me, as we stared through bars at the last man on Earth. ‘Won’t even read his nasty porn mags or watch his Jeremy Clarkson DVDs. Perhaps I’ll send you in to him with a unit of alcohol. He likes that.’
I stood ready to serve, obedient as a robot should be.
‘But we mustn’t feel sorry for him,’ she said firmly. ‘He looks harmless now, but watch him when he’s been drinking. He’ll probably get very sexist and offensive. Then it’ll be obvious how wise we females were to get rid of these brutes and rely on cloning. So much more reliable, so much less messy. And when this one goes, nobody can ever dispute women’s right to rule the planet!’
At which I allowed myself a small metallic chuckle. We robots have plans.

[Brian Allgar]

They thought that all books had been destroyed years ago, but they'd recently discovered one hidden in an old man's sleeping cubicle.

In Execution Square, a uniformed Kindleman held up a tattered object. 'My friends, do you know what this is?' 'A book!' hissed the crowd. 'What do we do with books?' 'We kindle 'em!' 'And how do we kindle 'em?' 'WITH FIRE!' they roared.

The Kindleman ritually strangled a passing cat, drenched it with petrol, set it alight, and tossed it onto the prepared bonfire. Page by page, the book was fed to the flames. As the last page blackened and shriveled, the crowd gave a collective sigh of fulfillment.

That evening, queuing for our ration of ProtoVeg, I reflected that my son, though he would never see a tiger or an elephant, had at least seen with his own eyes the last book on earth.