Take Care

He gazed at her and saw heaven in the hell that was around him. Her dark brown eyes gave him warmth. Her white teethed smile assured him that all was well. Her soft black locs reminded him of the woman she may come to resemble as more years go by. How he prayed that more years were still to come. That they would be better than the years he has seen. "Daddy, what are you looking at?" "Only at you small girl." She laughed. "You always stare at me, Daddy." He smiled and winked back at her. They sat there surrounded by the plastic makeshift tent he had made covered with sun visors. Right there in the middle of that abandoned Victorian house on a dog day of summer. One half of it was blown away giving new meaning to, open concept floor plan. That open concept gave a view to the remains of a crashed plane. A skeleton with a sun-bleached shirt still on, read, "look to the sky and there you'll find me." On its skull was a cap that read "Billy Grove." The other half was succumbing to the environment more and more each day. The palette of the house was green and brown as the landscape before it. Termites had rotted the flooring of most of the upper bedrooms. The windows were shattered but at least there was one turret with a window opening still intact. A good vantage point to see any oncoming danger. A tree had grown into the building. Its branches and roots fixed to the house as if there was no difference from it and the structure it sieged. The world had changed.

It all started with the solar flare. The sun our savior and our destroyer. He was on the phone with his wife. She was in the sky... "Honey I can't wait to see the both of you. It was such a long meeting but I'm coming back to the both of you, my oasis." "We've been missing you she's always asking when is mommy coming home, daddy I miss mommy." "Awww my sweet sweet girl how is she?" "She's good, she's sleeping." "You kiss her for me let her know mommy loves her. Before I go- there's- situa- might-" "Dear, you're breaking up" "Take- her----." "Hello, hello Rebecca, Rebecca." He looked at the phone and saw he had no signal. Turned on the tv but there was nothing. The internet also wasn't working. No way to contact her no way of knowing what was going on.

Technology was supposed to make our lives better but when it no longer works how terrible we became. The solar flare caused a geomagnetic storm that sent the world into darkness. Entire power grids the world over ceased functionality. Transformers melted away due to the charge from the sun's plasma cloud. All communications from radio to GPS suddenly stopped. He picked her up from her bed as she laid nestled between her red-black and white striped Basotho blanket and her small brown teddy bear she called "Nikola." Outside was the truest form of night he had seen in years. There were no lights beside a distant one from a neighbor that had a generator. Driving to the airport scared him more than anything in his life. Would he see the love of his life? The only light was that of his and other cars that had come onto the road in search of God knows what, just as he.

"Terminal E Arrivals", he read on the signs. She was still asleep and he put her onto his shoulder. Before him was the airport. It appeared to be running on backup generators as the lights weren't fully on. Employees were frantically running all around him. There were other people like him looking at the arrival announcements on the screen. Dismayed that everything was reading delayed. Stopping one of the employees, he managed to ask, "What exactly is going on? Will the flights be able to land?" The employee could see the despair in his face so much so her response led to her voice breaking, "I-I-I don't know sir. We've lost all communication. We think- um- it could be everyone has lost communication. I'm sorr- I'm sorry, but we are trying to do whatever we can to fix it." But how could they, cause even if they fixed their communication that doesn't fix the communication of the airplanes in the skies. Hours went by as he sat there looking at the screen. "Daddy, we at the airport, we waiting for Mommy?" He looked at her, tears in his eyes. "Yes small girl, we're waiting for Mommy." "Why you crying Daddy? No worry, Mommy going home." They hugged each other tightly sitting on that gray chair among others waiting for those who they hoped would come. In that dim-lit airport, lights flickering, and people praying, hours into the night.

Boom!!! "NOOO!!!" "GOD HELP US!!!" In desperation, the crowd of people rushed mercilessly to escape, but unsure if whether to go outside or seek shelter further into the airport. BOOM!! As he awoke to see the frantic scene around him he ran with her hoping the car would still be there. A glimpse of the runway he saw as he sprinted to get to an exit. Planes were on fire having crashed landed on the runway that was visible to him. Outside, the sky showed just how dire the situation was. Planes destined to land here filled the skies barely missing each other to avoid impact. Cars were crashing into each other as they tried to escape the terminal. It was futile, they began to pile up as the exit would only allow two cars to enter at a time. Panicking, people tried to force their way through ramming into each other. BOOM!! Northwest of where they stood two planes had crashed into each other. The explosion filled the sky with fire and debris. He fell to his knees. He didn't know for sure but he had watched that plane because she had told him that her plane was Delta Airlines. As he looked on and seen the Delta fall as it was engulfed in flames all he could do was weep. "Daddy, Daddy let's go, Daddy, Daddy please." She cried pleading with him to keep going for she was scared and he was one of the two she ever relied on. He was her hero. As loud as it all was, for him it was as if it was a deafening silence. The image of his wife flashed before him and in the chaos, as he looked upon his wife and that image became their daughter, all he could hear was "Take care of her." He grabbed her firmly, flung her over his back to his neck, and told her, "HOLD ON TIGHTLY! DON'T LET GO OF ME!" Their car was still parked most of the other cars were still fighting to get to the exit. He decided to go the opposite way against traffic if there was any. Every second counted he could not hesitate and he could not afford to be less than perfect. Emergency cars sped past him as he swerved in and out of lanes to prevent hitting them. He just needed to make it out of the airport's highway. It was nothing if not perilous. All the while as he scraped past cars. Planes were still falling from the skies. She closed her eyes screaming how scared she was. Afraid to look at the devastation around her.

"Do you think the world will go back to how it was?" "I don't know. We've plunged ourselves into anarchy, maybe we don't want it to go back." It was true what he spoke. The people had left the ideals of law and order for years ever since the world went dark. No one had any idea what was happening in other places on the planet. The institutions and technology we used to have were long since abandoned. There wasn't any way of conducting business as per usual. The fiat currencies we used to have seemed just that fiat. Why bother with paper money in a world that doesn't respect government. So now it was either trade what you had or take what you don't. Pray that you didn't come in contact with those that preferred the latter. The effects of the geomagnetic storm didn't last forever. Those that were ingenious enough could create electronics and ways of communication again. Not everyone was keen on that though. People began to fear technology as if it was because we had technology that the sun destroyed it with that solar flare all those years ago. A religion I came to call 'perdere machina' had spread. The only goal it seemed they had was for us to never return to the days where we have technology again. The worst of all was the nights. No good would ever come to you at night. For not only was it the purest form of night, as there were no longer lights except what you may have carried, but people were now more monsters than those ghost stories you used to hear of at a campfire.

"Father, do you ever regret staying alive all this time? Why would you say that? It's been long and hard we became engineers in a world that hates technology." "Not all of them." "I know bu-." Beep- beep. "Quiet.." "The sensor went off Father probably a deer." "Go check it out from the turret." She scaled up the stairs avoiding the rotted areas that she could fall through. Grabbing the binoculars she peered through to find a woman and a boy. "It's a child and a woman they may need our help." "They could be scouts, be careful." The woman and child looked at her perplexed. There standing before them was a girl not disheveled like them and with goggles on her head. She wore a Basotho blanket with tan pants and black boots for hiking. Around her neck was a locket, heart-shaped. Given to her from her mother, modified by her father. Sunset was upon them the sky filled with a pinkish hue. Night would soon be approaching. She offered them food and water of what little they had. As she watched them eat she noticed as the boy paid close attention to her with every bite he took of the bread and deer she had prepared for them. The mother hastened to tell her, "Don't mind him he's just hungry." It was dark now. She escorted them to the family room with a lantern and stated she would bring beds downstairs for them to sleep on. As she brought the sleeping bags downstairs she noticed they had gone. She called out but no one answered. She touched her locket twice. In the sky, she saw a flare. As she turned around. There was the boy standing, in the entrance of the family room, saying nothing, but just looking. "Where's your mom?" She asked him. "She's coming," he chuckled "They're all coming." She chuckled after he said that and blew out her lantern. Night in its purest form. She put on the goggles. She was an engineer and so these goggles gave her the ability to see even at night. She threw the lantern at the boy's face. He collapsed to the floor. She hastily made her way to the basement. A hidden passage revealed a tunnel she ran through. On a screen, a man watched as a dot moved closer and closer to his position.

"Took you long enough to get here small girl." "I guess Father." As he embraced her and they went into the night on the motorbikes they had built, he was reminded of what was said to him long ago. "Take care of her, so that she may take care of herself."