By
MICHAEL HANLON Last updated at 15:13pm on 4th January 2008
You wake up late because the radio does not come on. Outside there isonly the sound of the wind, and of the birds in the trees. The roar ofjumbo jets coming into land is absent.
And, most shockingly, so is the everpresent rumble of traffic.As the day wears on, the full, horrible, bizarre truth dawns: you arecompletely, utterly alone.
This is the intriguing plot of what is turning out to be thefirst movie hit of 2008, I Am Legend, starring Will Smith as(apparently) the last man alive on Earth.
To wake up and find oneself the only human alive, marooned ina modern world in which everyone else has disappeared or been killed bysome mysterious virus, is both the stuff of nightmares and of fantasy.
For this would be a tainted paradise, a world in which you could doanything you wanted. You would be a god, a king, but your kingdom wouldbe empty.
Those of a more rugged individualist bent would, one suspects,relish the challenge of remaking the world in their own image. But whatis the reality? How long would the average person survive if they wokeup to find themselves the only human being left on the planet?
After coming to terms with the shock and the grief, the lossof loved ones and the sheer bewilderment of it all, how quickly would21st Century Man, whose practical skills extend no further than wiringa plug and putting up some shelves, be able to adapt to a world wherehe was responsible for every aspect of his survival?
Survival experts have a priority of necessities. At the topare water, food and shelter - the shelter, in a world full of emptybuildings, would be no problem. But what about sustenance?
A man can survive six weeks without food, but only six dayswithout water. With everyone gone, no electricity and no maintenance,the pumping stations and treatment works that supply water to the tapswould soon stop working. There would be a large amount of fresh waterstored in domestic tanks, but this would go stale quite rapidly.
In fact, our survivor would have to rely on that symbol ofmodern decadence, bottled water. If he or she broke into a largesupermarket, they might find several thousand litres of the stuff -purified, sealed in handy storage containers, in the warehouse out theback.
Fortunately, supermarkets also contain a great deal ofpreserved food. Most tinned meats and vegetables have sell-by dates acouple of years hence, but the reality is that you could probably liveoff it quite safely for decades.
A couple of years ago, Manchester couple Les and Beryl Laileycelebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a tin of chicken theyhad been given as a present . . . in 1956. It was fine.
So, food and drink would not be a problem, although fresh foodwould be off the menu after a few days, unless our survivor could growand gather crops, and fish or hunt - which would be problematic formost of us.
Fishing rods are easy to come by, but how quickly could you lay your hands on a rifle or shotgun, for instance?
And as weeks turn into months, and months into years, therewould be other problems. It would be a good idea to get out of thecities, for example.
In the book The World Without Us, published last year, author AlanWeisman speculated what would happen if 'Earth's most invasive species'(us) was suddenly wiped out.
It wouldn't take long, he pointed out, for the works of Man tostart crumbling. Of course, some of our buildings would last a greatlength of time. After all, our world is littered with thousand-year-oldedifices, and there are even a few twice that age in regular use -probably the most complete being the Pantheon in Rome.
But few of our structures have been built to Roman standards.Without regular maintenance and subject to the ravages of rain, frostand heat, most of Britain's often shoddy housing stock would start tocrumble and become dangerous within a decade or so.
Roofs would lose their tiles, eaves would lift and walls wouldabsorb moisture, woodwork would rot and everywhere vegetation wouldpush its way through concrete and asphalt. In the long term, oursurvivor would have to choose a solid, stone building dating back acentury or more.
There would be another, everpresent-threat to our solitaryurbanite: fire. One lightning-strike could set off a city-wideconflagration, with no fire brigade to put it out.
The countryside would not be without its hazards, either.Food, paradoxically, would be far harder to obtain, and forays into thecrumbling cities and towns would be needed to replenish supplies.
Some areas of rural Britain would be worth avoiding, not leastbecause a potent threat to our survivor would come from Britain's twodozen or so remaining nuclear reactors, mostly dotted around thenorthern and eastern coasts.
If their staff vanished, and as back-up power supplies failed,a real danger would be that one or more would go into meltdown ascooling pumps failed.
The equivalent of several Chernobyls could render big areas ofthe country uninhabitable. With prevailing winds as they are, it wouldperhaps be best to head for the westernmost parts of the country oreven try to escape Britain altogether.
Assuming our survivor avoided this radiation fall- out,hygiene would be an issue - if he chose to remain in the city, he wouldfind the lack of mains sewage and drainage a problem after only a fewdays, as the pumping stations failed, while rivers would probably betoo polluted to bathe in.
The only hot water would come from a stove, and washingoneself and one's clothes would be a chore (fortunately the world'sshops are full of many, many lifetimes' worth of clean clothing).
As for our survivor's health, the lack of any other people tospread infectious diseases would be a blessing, but the risk ofaccidents would be a constant worry - even a broken limb could quicklyprove fatal if the injury was not dealt with correctly.
What about transport? With no regular maintenance, most cars would last only a few years before they give up the ghost.
Obtaining fuel would, first, be a matter of siphoning from thetanks of abandoned vehicles, then breaking into filling stations,unscrewing the fronts of the petrol pumps and drawing up fuel from theunderground tanks manually.
But while the roads would be mercifully free of traffic jams,after a decade most of them would become horribly overgrown with weeds.After 20 years, many would be impassable except in the most ruggedfour-wheel-drive vehicles. After 50, trees would be growing through themotorways.
Fortunately, civilisation would have equipped our survivorwith the ultimate instruction manual - the combined wisdom of themillions of books contained within the world's libraries (with no oneto run the servers - and no electricity - the internet would shut downalmost immediately, although individual computers could perhaps be keptgoing indefinitely using some sort of solar power generator).
How to mend a broken car - and how to mend a broken arm, howto hunt, how to sail a boat . . . it's all there in black and white.
Yes, life would be hard and sometimes brutish but written helpwould be on tap. Provided he kept his wits about him, was of areasonably practical bent and was lucky enough to stay healthy, oursurvivor could enjoy many years of relative comfort, even luxury.
There would certainly be some pleasures to keep him or heroccupied. But it would be interesting to see how quickly nature regainsthe upper hand.
How long, for example, before escapees from the zoos madethemselves a new home in the wild; how long before the forests begantheir march into the cities?
What would happen to all the domestic animals? Would packs offeral dogs become a threat, or would man's best friend remain on goodtems with the only representative of our species?
Interestingly, there is one place on Earth that offers a clueas to the likely wilderness our survivor would inhabit. The onepreviously inhabited area that has been abandoned by humanity is thatsurrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant, which has been empty fornearly 22 years.
Amazingly, nearby cities have become havens for wildlife, theempty streets echoing to the sounds of howling wolves and a hundredspecies of songbirds. The radiation which chased man away has been kindto nature.
For the surviving human, there would certainly be fun to behad with the remains of our civilisation. An enterprising 'last man'could raid the museums and galleries to build a temple to humanachievement, containing the finest works of art.
He could decorate his home with Picassos and Da Vincis, fillhis garden with Rodins and Michelangelos. He could drive any car, wearthe best designer clothes.
But in the years to come, these pleasures would surely paleand our survivor would face a far bigger threat than starvation,thirst, radiation or even disease.
For as years turn to decades, our survivor would discover thegrim truth: that humans did not evolve to be solitary. We are tribal,pack animals. Our survivor would probably swop all the treasures of theworld for a single companion.
It is intriguing (and makes a good movie) to contemplate beingthe last survivor. What fun one could have! In reality, once thepracticalities had been dealt with, he or she would almost certainlydescend into madness.
It would, quite literally, be Hell on Earth.
