There may be errors, i haven't had a chance to read over it really well yet, give me input please
Post-Apocalyptic: it rolls off your tongue in spurts. Post aPoCalyPTic. It pops. I’d never thought that I would live to see the empty cities that the words bring to mind. I did. The world was burned to death in less than 36 hours. 6 billion dead. I had managed to be one of the few to live. Those of us who survived this horror congregated in the smoldering cities that once stood, I was in a place that used to be called Tucson, Arizona. I liked it in the desert, it hadn’t changed much with the war. The ground was still burnt by the sun. The world was still flooded by the monsoons. The only difference was the people. A city that once housed near one million people now held a few thousand. Houses crumbled and people pretended like this was normal.
Radio was the first technology to be reclaimed from the ashes. It was convenient and it helped to let people stay in touch. The people on the waves said that we were rebuilding our country, and that other nations all across the world were doing the same. But the people who used to be in power were dead. We needed to elect new leaders. It didn’t matter to me. Here in the desert, I couldn’t care less about the rest of the world.
I’m hungry.
There are a few “diners” spread about, they are more than just places to eat, they are the last social institution left. No schools, no clubs, no work. Just these places. The food is good, but there are no menus, even if there were you wouldn’t want to see them, what you eat here is better left unknown. You just hope that it wasn’t related to you.
The diner had more patrons than I had ever seen in a diner since the burning, 40 people.
They have a radio on, somebody near must have salvaged a radio transmitter. The radio that was blaring was old and sounded tinny, it added a metallic ring to the voice coming out.
“God is with you, God will never leave.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “God love us, God is the light.” The man on the radio was naïve, there was no way he could believe the shit he was spewing. “We need to put our trust in God if we want to have eternal life.” The man’s thick southern drawl combined with the bile that he spit made him sound like a street peddler.
My plate quickly found it’s way across the room and into the old tube radio, ruining it’s sound.
“Why the hell did you do that?!” The man who was apparently the proprietor of this place said.
No answer would be befitting so I get up, put some money on the table and walk out. Into the sun. One hundred and ten degrees, in the shade. This place is far from Eden, no garden could survive here. God left us with a bang, he left us and took his children with him. What were we? We were the unwanted ones, he left us behind because he couldn’t love us, sinners all.
My “house” was in view. An old apartment building, of which I occupied several rooms. Dilapidated, old suncooked adobe, and despite the desert, moldy. It was collapsing in on itself, dying slowly with a flourish. Empty burned out cars in the street in front of it, a war zone. My house, I enter and make my way to the room in which I spend most of my time, a library. Randomly I pick a book, “The Martian Chronicles”. I have read it several times before, but it is a good read.
Later, at night I walk up to bed, stairs creaking under feet. My room is dark I use an oil lamp to light it, I found a barrel of oil in the basement a long time ago, I could probably sell it for food or some service, but for now it is just mine, to light my house. Next to my bed is something I have never seen before, a rope. How it got there I don’t know.
Five minutes later I am stringing it up over an exposed rafter. The noosed end around my neck, chair underfoot. Rock back and forth, drop. No snap, but my vision goes blurry, tears welled up. I feel my body going tingly, the last thing I think, how funny it is, I survived the end of the world, but I couldn’t survive myself.
Linear Mode
