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I have to let my thoughts drift over thirty years back down memory lane to find the beginning of this story and even then I'm not sure if that is the right place to start. My mind isn't as sharp as it once was and my memories are growing more and more transparent with each year that passes me by. So much has changed since that strange beginning and so much time has passed that I often wonder if everything that has transpired between then and now has been some kind of weird dream. Perhaps it has, as I've seen and experienced things over the years that still defy any explanation that I might give them. Life is just different here and so are the people that inhabit this world. After living with them for so long I often wonder if I have managed to remain sane.

My memories flow into the past, spreading out, thinning like a river branching out to meet a sea shrouded in the fog of forgetfulness. I hate getting old, and old I am indeed getting, not so much in years but in a physical sense instead. The life I have endured to this point has not been easy on me and it has given me a very intimate understanding as to why life spans were so much shorter before the human race became dependent on technology for survival. As I sit here now in what will likely become my final resting place, I can't help but think that among my people I wouldn't really be considered that old. I haven't even reached retirement age yet, and I am sadly sure in the knowledge that I will never reach that milestone. This world has done me in and the time left to me is short. I am positively ancient among those that call this place home and I have outlived nearly all of the friends I have made over the years. Only I and the memories I carry of them remain, and soon even those things will be gone. I am fifty-nine years old, and a sick, feeble, shadow of the man I once was.

The close calls, hungry winters and rough times of the last thirty some years have exacted a heavy toll upon me. I am worn out, my once strong and healthy body is failing and a creeping forgetfulness tells me that my mind is not far behind. There are so many things I have forgotten and doubtless there are some things that I don't remember quite accurately, yet despite my fading strength and weakening mental acuity, one bitterly cold winter day so many years ago still stands sharp and clear in my mind's eye. I'm sure It will always be there, that memory, even when I've have forgotten everything else for it is impossible for me to forget the day when my life changed in ways that I never would have thought were possible.

Truth be told, the real beginning of this tale lies even farther in the past yet. Since in many ways this is the story of my life one would think that it should begin on the day of my birth. However, I will spare you the boredom of the first twenty-six years of my life. Before everything got flipped upside down and turned inside out, I'll freely admit that my life wasn't particularly exciting. Suffice it to say I was just an ordinary, average guy and one who was somewhat of a loner. My home was in the central region of the province of Alberta in Western Canada. There I lived in a run down old house situated in a rather suspect neighbourhood sprawled along the outer edges of a city of nearly a million people. I had some family that I really didn't keep in touch with and I had a small group of friends that I spent time with whenever I could. I drove a battered old pickup truck and did odd jobs and construction work to make ends meet. Hardly a glamorous life, for sure, but I enjoyed it and in many ways I miss it. I still see my old friends and familiar places in my dreams and then the old memories come flooding back to wake me in the dark hours of the night to wonder if what I've gained over the last thirty years could ever make up for what I have lost.

It is so strange for me to realize now that there is but one artifact left over from that life of mine that is now long gone. I have carried it with me for years as a reminder of the person I once was. A small piece of white plastic, it is nothing but a curiosity to anyone in this world but I can't help but look at the small and slightly faded photo in the corner of that plastic card and feel a twinge of sadness and regret. I sincerely doubt that anyone I knew in my old life would recognize me now and that thought actually makes me chuckle for a moment. Most people don't like their driver's license photo but this goes a little beyond that. A much as it bothers me to say it, I barely even recognize myself. That photo was taken a few days before my twenty-fifth birthday. I was a young man back then with short brown hair, pale blue eyes, a reddish goatee and a sort of know-it-all smirk for the camera. The date on that license reads August 20, 2000. If only I knew then how much things would change for me in the next year. If someone had told me back then what was in store for me just around the corner I would have laughed and shook my head, thinking them about ten different kinds of crazy. All I can do now is sigh and do my best to shrug away those old feelings. I realize that there is no longer much point in dwelling on such things. The past is the past and the last thirty years cannot be undone. That person in that photo is no more. He died a long, long, time ago.

The years have passed by quickly and it seems like only a few days ago that I began a journey that will seem to you to be at best fantasy, or at the worst, the ravings of a madman with too many years of lonely isolation in the wilderness under his belt. Trust me when I say it is a difficult thing for even me to believe. I have had doubts for years as to the reality of the world that was forced upon me. It's not that I'm unhappy with the circumstances that fate laid at my feet, nothing could be further from the truth. It's just that change can be a difficult thing to deal with and the transition from my old life to a completely new and different one was so sudden and so complete that change is what I had to do to survive. I didn't have much choice in the matter when everything and everyone I knew was lost forever and I was thrust as helpless as a newborn into a world gripped in the chaos of a stone age civilization. Technology and the human race are nothing but images from one's dreams in this world, or as is more likely, apparitions from their nightmares.

I still do not completely understand the means by which I was brought into this world but I have recently discovered that there was a purpose in the minds of those who brought me here. A very strange purpose it is and I have yet to fully believe it even though the many pieces of the puzzle I have worked so long to put together point towards it being truth. That is one of many reasons why I have decided to tell my story. Perhaps hundreds or even thousands of years down the road, some curious explorer from a burgeoning, growing civilization will find this record of past events and begin to understand in some way the gifts given to them by a race long dead.

But where exactly to begin the real story? I still am not sure, even though I have put so much thought into it. So many memories flare vividly to life when I reflect upon my first few weeks on this world that it is difficult for me to pick out a good starting point. Those images are just as fresh in my mind now as they were thirty-three years ago when I awoke alone and injured in a small and run down cabin tucked away in the heavily forested foothills at the base of a range of craggy, snow capped mountains. I still recall the sights, scents and sounds that assaulted my senses when I opened the door of that cabin for the first time and stared incredulously at my new and completely unfamiliar surroundings. I remember the wind being cold against my face as I stared in shock at the tall spruce and pine trees that stretched out as far as I could see in all directions. I still vividly remember the snow and the distant mountains across the broad valley that I would come to know so well in the years ahead.

And I remember Sharra. If not for her I would surely have died out there in the snow that day. It was she who found the strength to overcome her fear of the unknown and pull me into the safety of the cabin. Somehow she managed to find it in her heart to tend my wounds and nurse me back to health. It was also she who gave me the absolute shock of my lifetime when I finally managed to get a grasp on who and, more importantly, what she was. I think it was at that very moment that I realized that my life would never be the same again. Several rather unnerving weeks followed our initial meeting and in those early days of fear and disbelief I never would have thought that the bond that would slowly grow between us in the years ahead was something that was possible by any stretch of the imagination. Actually, if I recall correctly, I wanted to run far, far away and do a lot of screaming along the way.

Sharra... I miss her more than it is possible for me to put into words. She has been gone now five years and when she passed from this life to the next she took a large part of me with her. At times I feel like a shadow, an empty husk, nothing but a withered shell of the person that I once was. Nothing can fill the hole that her passing has left within me, I understand that, but such are the realities of life. There is happiness and there is pain. There is rage and there will be regret. Just as all things must have a beginning, all things must also come to an end. Death is but another journey and one that comes full circle back to new life. That is an important truth that Sharra and her people have taught me over the years and I truly believe it. Perhaps I will find her again in that next life, I can only hope.

Before Sharra departed this world she left me with her memories of the twenty-eight years we spent together. I think she knew even then what I had in mind, that I would someday return to this place of dusty relics and ancient memories to record the stories of our lives for those that would come after us. I think she also knew that having those memories of hers would make me understand that despite our differences she had enjoyed all of the years we had spent together.

She knew in her always perceptive way that such things would help ease the emptiness of the years I would have to spend without her and I am forever grateful to her for her gift.

I will do my best to show things from both sides of a story that was at times confusing, awkward, terrifying or just downright hilarious. Sharra and I had different perspectives on things and saw the world in different ways and there were times that that proved to be quite entertaining.

Well, it's time to get this story started. I've finally got the starting point in my mind and the memories are starting to carry me away...