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No Future

Dark, Light or otherwise

By Brenton FPublished 10 months ago Updated 10 months ago 5 min read
6

Hurtling

Looking back you can see everything hurtling towards everything else at enormous, incalculable speeds, impossible really, given all the available data at the time. We were watching them, they were watching us while watching those guys as well - those guys over there were watching them and us because we were watching them. It become a mind numbingly mundane slow and lethargic clusterfuck waiting to implode on itself, on us and anyone unlucky enough to be nearby. It was another in a long line of typical interdepartmental failure to adhere to communication protocols that brought us to this to right now here today. So many fuck ups in so few kilometres it would be laughable if it wasn't for the end of the world.

The Count

Exploded? A car just flew over us and landed on a balcony, TWO FLOORS UP! How many people are there in Los Angeles just gone quarter to eleven Friday morning? The census for that area alone gives us three point nine million people listed as living in and around the Downtown area. But I really don't know, don't have the latest numbers, and never will now for what it's worth. And to think today is the nicest ones we have had all month and now our parade has not been rained on, it has been shat on by gods, demons, fate what have you. The nicest summers day in a long time gone to hell in a handbasket.

Purpose

We were up behind Altadena securing the safe house for the latest Grand Jury witness when the sirens started, nearby at first but then it became a crescendo from everywhere nearby connected to the warning systems. We were up high enough and with this view we could see a wave of curtains being lifted, blinds being parted and heads coming out of either windows or doors. Then we saw entire city swept away as if by an invisible hand. Whole blocks blown to fuckery, smashed to smithereens or any apocalyptic expression you'd like to use. It was fucked, proper fucked! We had a front row seat to Armageddon as we played out in this, the end of our lives.

Everywhere I Look

I turned to face the city to my south west and I see a mushroom cloud forming just like in those bad movies and internet videos. I look to the west, the south, the north, in every direction, more dull thuds, more mushroom clouds and less hope by the minute. Cell phones won't work there's no power, all you can hear are failing sirens, people screaming, metal being torn and sheared and the dull thud of the after blasts - even though it was a minute ago, now we've got plenty of gas seepages and lots of raw electricity in the mix. Hope died in my eyes in the shape of yet another explosion, my remaining time here destined to be shaped like a mushroom cloud. My skin is crawling like its alive, either a bad case of nerves or fallout, either way I'm proper fucked. I can now smell my own burning flesh mingled with the smoke from houses, buildings and other people on fire. There is a metallic tang on the back of my tongue and my throat as well. I think I just tasted those melted people I saw down the road a bit.

Truth

Tell yourself everybody died in black and white it's easier that way. Tell yourself it's like an old movie at school when they rolled the VCR in on a TV topped trolley, and it took ten minutes of shooshing to get any shoosh at all. Tell yourself that it's a fancy lucid dream and your subconscious has lashed out on an extravagant party. Tell yourself that you are in a new 3D AI simulation and it's your job to test "The Disaster" scenario. Tell yourself anything but the truth, there is no hope in any of these dead truths, these radiated and bloated truths, these screaming and sobbing truths, these truths that are burning both inside and out, these fallen, broken and crumbled truths. Every death a truth; no further proof, required.

Now

Ugly pus filled blisters are forming on what ever flesh i had exposed straight after the blasts, that is when the flesh stays in one piece, my forearms, face and neck. I must look like a shit zombie extra in a Romero tribute. It is sloughing off under the weight of this invisible poison that now permeates everything. Domesticated animals are dying in the shadows out of the light Birds are falling from the sky faster than the feathers they are dropping. It's like a battlefield massacre and the enemy is mindlessly malevolent and invisible. Fires rage uncontrollably, egged on by exposed gas lines, an unlimited fuel supply and no one to fight them. I can imagine Hell looking on and cringing, no match for the conflagration that exists as our present reality now.

Mad

I think the term is Mutually Assured Destruction, and it was always said with the proviso that no one would be crazy enough to actually go through with it. We spoke about it, we joked about it, well, that was another incorrect guess, like a petulant child with a broken toy that seeks to smash all the other toys out of spite. The button was pressed and asses were kissed, good bye for a good fry and we are now going to cook despite our hardest feelings, our best intentions and most stoic of chins. More buttons were pressed, all of them bam bam bam bam and so on. The rich huddled off to their bunkers, their metal tombs to die in an orderly and dignified manner.

Aftermath

I wonder what sort of a beast will remain after we have gone to sniff about our rotting radiated corpses, surely no worse than the ones that pressed the buttons. Los Angeles suffered a total of seven intermediate nuclear strikes that day. Each enough on its own to totally and unequivocally annihilate an area that would easily stretch from the Santa Monica to San Bernardino. We tell ourselves we are civilised, true and just, but we never really strayed all that far from horrors of Trinity.

Short Story
6

About the Creator

Brenton F

I've beared no sick words

Junk words, love words

Fuck you words from Jesus

Lowlife: Jesus and Mary Chain

- - -

I have an eBook, a collection of my favourite pieces

Link to Amazon

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    Creative use of language & vocab

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Comments (2)

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  • Andrew C McDonald10 months ago

    Would you like to -lay a game? Global Thermonuclear Warfare. 😎😳. Very descriptive and, u fortunately, all too possible. Great job.

  • L.C. Schäfer10 months ago

    Your voice is still clear and distinct in this format 😁 Loved this "The rich huddled off to their bunkers, their metal tombs to die in an orderly and dignified manner." 👏👏

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