It was the fifth night in cell 16, my reflection staring back at me. The lights had gone out on the evening of the second day, leaving me and the rest of the people here shrouded in darkness after 4pm. No one has come to check on us since then, and the food they left me ran out yesterday morning. There were sirens outside, but they stopped yesterday too. I don't know what's going on, or if I'll even find a way out of here, but I hope the family is okay. Jesse always was the dumb one, getting into...
the city was empty
winter empty, not
summer empty
snowstorm home-bound, not
bound for Myrtle Beach, or
flown to Florida or
wherever the hell
the neighbors went.
Christ, doesn't anyone stay
home anymore?
Sit on the deck in frayed nylon
beach chairs?
I can't even find them in
the stores anymore.
what happened?
where did everyone go?
it's the city...
it should
never
be
empty.
The year was 1986. September the 27th to be exact. I lay on a hospital bed spewing into a cardboard bucket whilst the midwives clucked around the bed. I knew what they were thinking. I knew they were judging. My belly moved up and down like a giant rock and fear gripped me harder than any contraction could. How did I get here? This wasn't supposed to happen. I'd had plans to leave home but not like this. University, air stewardess...anything but this. My new husband held my hand tightly as I pushed the boy into the world. He was...
Millions died during the War of the Worlds in 2080. Not just on Earth but on our sister planet, Gaia. The worst problem was a lack of water, the oceans and rivers poisoned, rainfall scarce during those times, not like in the early part of the century with nearly daily showers, floods especially in England.
I was a child during the war and helped my dad keep our secret. Wells on our land. Water coming from underground sources, still pure enough to drink.
We could not share, we would have been killed for even a cup of our water.
Sometimes...
Some mornings, when the sun rose just right, it was almost like nothing had happened. This was one of those mornings, a bright red dawn. I climbed out of my truck, zipped up my black hoodie and stretched to the sky.
Maybe it was all a dream? Surely it hadn't actually happened. I had gotten drunk, partied too hard, fallen asleep in the truck just outside of town, and now I could head back, and home would be home, and the residents would be people I knew and not those things.
I had nearly convinced myself of this happy thought...
For a short time before television, people walked past store fronts to satisfy their lust for fantasy and projection. No actors, just mannequins, so a little more imagination was required. There was also some exercise, and words that more closely resembled conversations in between the fantasies.
Accordingly, Robert and Ruth were able to have a different life than their analogs 50 years later, Sam and Shirley. Ruth knew she could not afford the dress. Shirley assumed they could earn the money later. Robert and Ruth raised their children together. Sam and Shirley were separated before the second child was a...
I lost my grip on the wheel. The heavy wood slipped through my freezing cold wet fingers, the boat was out of control. Not that I was ever in control. Just a clueless passenger trying to help when the Captain was swept overboard in the rain lashing gale.
Ear shattering sounds followed, groaning, creaking, feeling myself being thrown upside down as the ship started to sink. I could see people trying to hold onto someting, all in vain. Bodies floating past me. Terror.
I must have passed out. Found myself in a lifeboat with a small child and a woman,...
At least the cold would keep the goods from spoiling.
That was Fred's first thought as he lugged the heavy packages from the back of truck, balancing them awkwardly as he struggled through snow. Luckily, the hospital was only a couple blocks away. Delivering the cargo on time without any fluids leaking or parts spoiling shouldn't be a problem. The last thing a transplant patient needs is complications.
Thank goodness for the cold.
The present is moving too fast for the future, and I am deathly afraid of not feeling this world. But it is not time that is our enemy, but our minds that hold it. Oh to be the turritopsis nutricula, the everlasting jellyfish, invading our planet as we speak. Ever fecund, ever flashing, forward and backwards, too beautiful for time.
The Moon would never be the same again. No more bands, no more over priced beer. No more after prom parties.
But that really isn't any concern of mine. I always hated the place. It was where the worst times of my life went down.
The one that stuck in my mind the most happened because of a girl named Erin. I'd just moved to town and for some reason she caught my eye. I spent a while trying to get her to go out with me, but I couldn't ever get anywhere with it.
Then one day I got...