Hold the Phone, Earth…It’s Raining
They all thought he was mad—my old man, the medically discharged ex-military vet. According to my community, he would always just be his diagnoses, the paranoid schizophrenic. He had laboured tirelessly to build this belowground bunker. It has now become my safekeeping. He outfitted it with canned goods, radiation PPE, and innumerable bottles of water. To the outsider looking in, he appeared like a man who was losing his marbles. And maybe I too — yonks ago, I mockingly believed such things myself.
I realize now he was the only one that had his head screwed on tight. I don’t deserve to still be here.
Russia and the States had been at a boiling point for some years. Talks of an all-out nuclear war quickly swept aside. Quickly, painted over with the “fake news” brush by the non-believers and the know-betters. People went about their daily lives, blind and deaf to the glaring reality playing out on their high-definition televisions.
***
The combativeness unfortunately caused the spilling over of such tensions meteorically, this propagated the dropping of many bombs. Each uniquely destructive, causing an incongruous climate catastrophe. Levelling structures that once were ceasing nature in its tracks.
The collective ignored such climacteric warnings. Surely, they wouldn’t have realized what was happening to them in the end… I often wonder if such things are true. It continues still to keep me up at night. A flash of light, a wave of heat, a release of nuclear radiation, a fireball, a blast of air, and finally the radioactive fallout. Into the blackness, into nothing. There was no tunnel of brilliancy welcoming them to the other side. Such a place wouldn’t have survived anyhow… I don’t imagine. The things hadn't disintegrated is now forever crooked. A scene of devastation and household effects such as clothes, shoes, propane tanks, refrigerators, and crumbs of human existence.
God, I think he has also left me in this sea of ruination. Possibly he too just ended up fragmented turned into dust with the rest of it.
***
I have yet to feel the sunshine kiss my face. There are only months of hiemal temperatures to greet me now. Costal estuaries no longer have signs of life, and the birds? They no longer chirp. Humans are now the endangered species. Maybe we deserve such an ending as this after all. Frankly, I believe I may now be the last of the dodos.
Father instilled in me the expertness needed to secure and wear my radiation suit and mask. And for that I am thankful, because my daily outings now comprise venturing outside in the air which is now envenomed. My assured death without protection would forever be there to greet me in the perfect shade of blue if I hadn’t such a getup. I have yet to see any aliveness outside myself, neither person nor beast. I can’t be all that there is…
***
A hallowed-out restaurant still stands. I aforetime foraged anything of use out of here. As I sat on that dilapidated stool, nostalgia post haste flooded my hippocampus. It momentarily blinded my reality. I took the most mundane things for granted in my past life. I still daftly wish this restaurant would suddenly become a beehive of piggishness.
Unready, I felt a drop on top of my head. The sky cracked oh-so slightly. It was raining. Possibly a sign, of some sort? Hold the phone—I’m getting ahead of myself here… Humans haven’t been the only thing to vanish from the face of the planet. I understood that somewhat, although I’m still unable to fully digest it. Sanity, it has ventured further and further away from me; I fear. My mental health has exploded, it is also a forgone.
***
No different that a prisoner I am, but no bars keep me locked up. Surely, I must reek of desperation to shorten this barbarous sentence of mine. I wish parole was an option… somehow, I no longer believe escaping a death penalty is possible.
I hope he still exists…
I was without options. My mind had other plans, though. I couldn’t help but to wonder how many prisoners would claim to have “found God” if they were in my situation and things could amend back. If it could all go back to bygone days. If he exists… he wouldn’t owe me his guidance. I was the furthest thing from pious a soul could get before everything turned to shit.
I prayed anyway.
Hope that someone could still find me — because it is, beyond everything, my last source of oxygen. Without it, I shall likewise disappear into the nothingness.
***
I stayed in that hallowed-out restaurant for quite some time. Although there was no way to measure a stint like that here. My feet they were weighty. They like felt like rectangular cinderblocks… simply because calling it a day will do that to a fella.
Then it happened. Another raindrop. It fell into my open palm. And several more thereafter. This time they fell upon my lips, and the taste… it’s something I’ll never forget. It tasted just like hope.
Comments