Reboot Redux

Suddenly, everyone died.

This was only a minor inconvenience for our heroes, as they were all painless deaths, and they had no afterlives. Nor were there mourners or mourned, since they all died at once. No inheritances were squabbled over, and no one felt ashamed for not finding out about the deaths until they read Facebook the next day. Because they were dead.

Nature had a rough time of it for a while - lots of nuclear meltdowns, broken dams, continent-wide fires and the like, and the squirrels took it all rather personally, but too bad for them. After all, why should they complain? Within a mere billion years, before a slightly dimmer sun, two evolved Bonobos (though they called themselves, in translation to now-forgotten English, "Humans") stood playing a 20-year-old Ms. Pac Man machine in a northern province of Ameristanlee, a young nation that a mere 200 years before had dragged the world from monarchy to democracy.

"Man, you suck at this game," Joe tactfully informed Jose. Joe was always very proud of his tact, and of the crackerjack ring he wore on his left pinky.

"Joe, I can't practice this game 20 hours a day like you do," Jose retorted.

"Whiner."

"Diner."

"Forty-niner."

"Pizza pancakes."

"Snerrnnl GIGFLATTA!"

By then they were laughing so hard they didn't notice when Lemtata ("Man, my girl has a sexy name!" Joe always told himself) descended into the basement with a wine bottle in one hand and a handpiano in the other.

"Feeling dejá vu right now, Jose?"

"No way, Joe... say, though, y'ever feel like it did all happen before, a billion years ago and in a different way?"

"Not really, Jose..."

Joe reverently cradled his handpiano and began to sing and play.