The Time Machine

Set in A.D. 802,701 — humanity evolved into two species: Eloi and Morlocks.

Eloi — gentle, idle descendants of the bourgeoisie, living above ground.

Morlocks — subterranean workers, keepers of machinery, feeding on their former masters.

A Marxist fable of class exploitation carried to evolutionary extremes.

The time machine reveals future history as decay: entropy wins.

The last sentence

And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers—shrivelled now, and brown and flat and brittle—to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of man.