2050 Post Apocalypse

His name was Alexander, and I loved him. I always had and always would. I knew as sure as I knew he hung the stars in the sky every night. The earth was still recovering from the nuclear holocaust of 2018. The ozone was so damaged by the blasts that we could no longer live in the sunlight without the shield. We called it the dome. So every night he would crash the shielding for awhile, so that we might bask in the radiance of our love and the stars.

Humanity had barely survived the last war. They wouldn't even call it that but I thought of it as World War 3, the war to end all wars, i guess you could say. They had nearly extincted themselves, only in small pockets of isolated survivors were there any humans lefts. Conception was rare,because of the nuclear fall out, so we still wandered at our chances of survival.

I was a child when, they began leveling cities, what disease didn't kill, the bombs and games did. They fought each other like diseased rodents, I remember barely escaping times over when one of the gangs would come rolling down our streets in clash with another one on our drive.

I met him then, he was a child, as well. He was leaving as his family was evacuating. The wars in the streets had bled into the corridors and even homes. Many families left. He gave me a locket and told me he would find me there, in the after. Inside the locket was an inscription, "When you seek me, you will find me."

He is my world. Freedom walks by and winks at me, in his eyes. I hold my breath in anticipation of each night. A place where for a moment, we can be alone to breathe in the vast complexities, of the night sky.

Although I am older now I can still remember a time before this one, a time that was dark, the skys thick with smog, the stars obliterated by light, pollution always a breath away. Our lives hung in a constant state of delicate balance, from tyranny to tyranny; from tyrant to tyrant, we struggled for life and breath.

I can’t say that I am sorry that they are gone, the numberless hoards that blocked the stars and lived all day to make war, consuming us all. For we have peace now, in this lonelier space and freedom from oppression and senseless waste. What we have is survival.

There are rules. These are kept. And because the earth is kept, its life no longer hanging in the balance of pride and greed, it has began to mend itself.

In the beginning, after emerging from the bunkers that we had shored up in for the remainder of the last of the plagues and wars and such, it was a little hard to adjust. It was quiet, and different. The earth's presence was determinedly taking root and under and over in playful frolics and flirtatious submissions and dominances, nature was gaining and saving ground.

But yes there are rules. Here are some.

1. Energy is derived from renewable resources. Wind, sun, and water.

(Motor vehicles are a mad mix of battery and sophisticate/primitive gearings and steamings)

2. One does not take what one cannot use. (section 12;7, for addenums and specifications)

3. All waste is strictly prohibited, what one cannot reuse, one is responsible for the proper biodegrade. (We are, as near failed caretakers. now on a viably felt visitors permit if you will.)

4. One must work. It has been deduced that even the smallest contribution to a community produces less wasteful citizens, and more of a viable existence.

5. Freedom is a privilege. If one cannot give respect, one cannot demand it.

6. There are hiearcheal societal structures, some things are just not open for debate.

7. People are not policed. They are expected to be the responsible civilians that their humanity entails. If one dies in nature, one cannot blame another, as all safety is clearly outlined and stated in the Handbook of Survival, when one adheres to these basic principles of love and respect one is free to live in security.

8. The earth is tended, both aspects of wild and domesticate, the domesticate aspect being lesser than the first as of current.........

......and so on it goes.

And so here I am now, beneath a starry sky and a earth that is, gratefully, mending beneath me. I stave off a certain rush of joy at my knowledge and place, and rummage through my mind instead for contentment.

The crickets chirp, secadas hum and the sound has lost its once foreboding. The sense of doom that used to be palpable in the natural element has been replaced with the more harmonious adjusted content of certain life. The frogs croak at one another in the moonlight. The lion roars as king, and the owl looks wise, and winks.

p.s. My love holds me and I am anchored to this moment, and I breathe, Thinking, as the locket sits cool and heavy against my neck.I think of the irony of the inscription, as it is to me. I watched and looked for him my whole young life, when I gave up, he came and I didn't recognize him. Now that I have, the words of the ageless quote hold their weight. Leaving me to wonder if perhaps, until I recognized more totality in love, and life; the collective of such, in hushed undertones and repose waited for me to see before they could find me.