Time Enough at Last

Time Enough at Last is an episode from the American series Twilight Zone, directed by Johm Brahm. It was adapted from a short story written by Marilyn Venable which was published on the science fiction magazine If: Worlds of Science Fiction on January, 1953. The episode was originally aired on November 20, 1959.

The episode tells of Henry Bemis, a bank teller who has a passion for reading. Unfortunately, his habit is ridiculed by almost everyone, including his boss and his wife. One time, he spent his break reading inside the bank vault where he could not be disturbed by anyone. Then suddenly, a loud explosion outside knocks him unconscious. Upon awakening and stepping out of vault, he has found that the world has been destroyed killing everyone and leaving him the only survivor. The extreme loneliness he felt almost drove to him to committing suicide until he found a library with its books still intact. With his sadness gone, he goes to arranging the books he would read for years to come. But upon picking up the first book, he stumbled and broke his glasses leaving him unable to see, and thus, read all the books.

The episode touches various subjects including the derision of literature, dangers of technology, the post-apocalyptic world idea, and other topics. But to me, what seems to affect the current times would be the dangers of technology. If I were to create an adaptation of the story, the plot would go something like this:

There is a scientist who is researching on recombinant gene technology finding a way to cure most of mankind’s currently incurable diseases by splicing our DNA with that of the most able-bodied animals. His ideas are shunned by the scientific community for being too “crazy”, breaching all ethical boundaries. The scientist nevertheless continues his research in his own hidden laboratory.

One day, he finally succeeded on creating a virus capable of strengthening its host cell. The virus was able to make cells immune to almost all diseases ever recorded. The scientist made clones from the original virus, and with these, he was able to cure almost anyone, giving him fame, riches and success is life.

Over the years however, they discovered the clones used were faulty. Everyone hosting the clone virus died one by one, until only the scientist, host to the original virus, was left. Out of grief, the scientist attempted suicide but discovered that he could die due to his extremely fast healing rate, brought about the virus. And so alone, never dying, he wandered the world repenting for his actions.