"Coldness and damp. An ungodly stench. The boy clutched his throat. He could see part of a stone wall. Clay floor. An old mattress darkly stained. He crouched and stepped down again and held out the light. Huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide, shielding their faces with their hands." - Cormac McCarthy, The Road
In 1964, Dr. Seymour Melman of Columbia University, an industrial engineer, estimated that the USA had enough nuclear weapons to kill every living thing on earth 1250 times over, and Russia had enough to kill everything 145 times over.
Imagine the bombs all dropped, and the dust has settled. You are alive, but not much else is. Tell your story.
I wake up from my deep sleep, hoping that when I open my eyes this nightmare would be over. It's not, and I find myself awake again in my mole rat hole, buried deep in the ground. My safe haven, the one that protected me from the bombs. The bombs that killed all my friends, family; my husband and children. Why me? I keep thinking, why did it have to be me that was left here all alone? As a religious person, in this scenario (or the one I predict I would become in such a situation as I have a strong belief that life-altering [usually negative] situations such as this one inevitably make people more religious/spiritual in some way), I can't help but think that a higher power did this to me on purpose. What was I supposed to do now? Procreate? Start a new generation of mankind all on my own? Could there possibly be someone else out there? No. There wasn't, the never-ending silence reassured me. It was me. Just me. Me and this world, left to fend for myself. But from what? I was safe. No, I wasn't. I was hungry. Yes, I am hungry. I look around. The bombs took everything, mankind was so destructive that they ruined themselves, wiping out their entire existence in their corruption. No, almost wiping out. I'm still here. I, the last of the breed. The highest of the food chain, or rather the only component of the food chain now. I sat down to ponder my future.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere- a small parachute attached to a metal box descended before me. I opened it up. There were two pills inside. One that said "live" and the other "die". Live, live... my first instinct told me. Huh, I guess that's the whole fight or flight phenomenon I learned in grade-school really showed. Even as a last resource, my first reaction was to live- to continue on. I know the heroic thing for me to do was to take the "die" pill- poetically killing the most destructive species of this planet and perhaps allowing a new one to take it's dominant place via the sender of this packet, perhaps. However, all parties present were in concord with the fact that the option of living was far better off than dying- however the horrible condition which the world in which I lived in resided.
Taking the "live" pill, I died a slow and painful death.
In 1964, Dr. Seymour Melman of Columbia University, an industrial engineer, estimated that the USA had enough nuclear weapons to kill every living thing on earth 1250 times over, and Russia had enough to kill everything 145 times over.
Imagine the bombs all dropped, and the dust has settled. You are alive, but not much else is. Tell your story.
I wake up from my deep sleep, hoping that when I open my eyes this nightmare would be over. It's not, and I find myself awake again in my mole rat hole, buried deep in the ground. My safe haven, the one that protected me from the bombs. The bombs that killed all my friends, family; my husband and children. Why me? I keep thinking, why did it have to be me that was left here all alone? As a religious person, in this scenario (or the one I predict I would become in such a situation as I have a strong belief that life-altering [usually negative] situations such as this one inevitably make people more religious/spiritual in some way), I can't help but think that a higher power did this to me on purpose. What was I supposed to do now? Procreate? Start a new generation of mankind all on my own? Could there possibly be someone else out there? No. There wasn't, the never-ending silence reassured me. It was me. Just me. Me and this world, left to fend for myself. But from what? I was safe. No, I wasn't. I was hungry. Yes, I am hungry. I look around. The bombs took everything, mankind was so destructive that they ruined themselves, wiping out their entire existence in their corruption. No, almost wiping out. I'm still here. I, the last of the breed. The highest of the food chain, or rather the only component of the food chain now. I sat down to ponder my future.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere- a small parachute attached to a metal box descended before me. I opened it up. There were two pills inside. One that said "live" and the other "die". Live, live... my first instinct told me. Huh, I guess that's the whole fight or flight phenomenon I learned in grade-school really showed. Even as a last resource, my first reaction was to live- to continue on. I know the heroic thing for me to do was to take the "die" pill- poetically killing the most destructive species of this planet and perhaps allowing a new one to take it's dominant place via the sender of this packet, perhaps. However, all parties present were in concord with the fact that the option of living was far better off than dying- however the horrible condition which the world in which I lived in resided.
Taking the "live" pill, I died a slow and painful death.
Interesting! The pills remind me of the Matched series.
ReplyDeleteI got it from the Matrix ahhaha
ReplyDeleteur so orginal NAHT
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