Coronal Mass Ejection

0.1.

Awaiting their children in the distance, Carl and Mary looked on while standing there gazing out over the green hillside. Behind them, their house stood, tall, stained, wooden. Calling their children to them, they fondly remembered on what had happened to them and how it was the hardest thing that they ever had to deal with. Their lives as they thought and compared notes, were so terrible, that there were times where they did not want to deal with it, while other memories as they spoke to one another, were the best times of their lives and did not want to think of anything more extraordinary with the exception as being their children’s birth.

Their dog began to bark crazily, there seemed to be something near the kids that alerted the dog and made him freak out. Running downhill to their two children, they stumbled and rolled some before bouncing back up onto their feet and continuing the run.

The flowers, as they were failing to admire while running toward their children and the harsh barking of the dog, were in full bloom and the world was looking better than it was so long ago. The admiring looks on their children’s faces told them everything, they were fine for one, and on the other, they were playing with their dog a little too hard.

The times that they were considering would one day, as they hoped, make a great tale and as they walked their children back up the hill, Carl had the idea to write them down.

“We should write them hon, what do you think?” his voice kind and sweet compared to her eldest, whose voice was wavering due to puberty.

“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.”

“When we get home, that’s the first thing we should do.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“What story?” asked their ten-year-old daughter and son.

“The story on how we came to be as a world.” Mary said casually as she grabbed a hold of Carl’s hand.

“We will read it to you when it is done,” Carl stated afterward.

0.2

Marching in line, they all safely made it back to the house. Looking at it now, Carl and Mary were both awes struck and feared that it would never last. It was taller than any of the trees nearby, wooden and was hand carved as well as hand built to boot. The outside had a deck and all the wood all over and throughout were stained with a wood stain that their friend and father had made. There were also some chairs that were too hand crafted and looked perfect against the backdrop of the house. There too was a grill outside on the porch where they cooked their meat and mostly ate everything. There was not a scrap of the house that was not hand carved or crafted in anyway.

Catching up to the kids, Carl released Mary’s hand and they went their separate ways. Carl gazed upon the staircase that rose in the center of the walkway right by the door. The door did not squeak yet, but he figured it would soon. He tapped on the wooden rails as he normally had done, then thought about the life he had growing up and how it was different than what he was providing to his children.

The interior as Carl walked into his study, was full of books, books of all type and sizes. He found, along the way as he grew up, books of learning (which mostly filled his home) and books to help someone learn to read. He pulled one from the shelf, it was pink and had a pig on it, opened it and giggled, then remembered how he got his daughter to read was by the help of the book that he held.

Turning to write on his desk, Carl picked up a pencil that he found along with a few others in the drawer and pulled the wooden stool up under him and sat to write. What Carl wrote at that time was nothing major, just a to do list on the house. Things like gather firewood, make a fire poker and the list went on like that.

He sat back on the wooden stool thinking it was a regular chair that they kept in the dining room or outside on the patio and nearly fell over, but a quick save made him rock forward. He then wrote: Make Study Chair.

In the morning Carl and Mary awoke to the sounds of laughter and went downstairs to see the mess the kids were making. But, upon arriving down there, they found their neighbors had entered the house and were benching the kids. Carl walked over to the man that was benching his boy and said good morning to him. The man placed the child down and rose to his feet. Standing five foot ten, he was an inch taller than Carl and arms the size of pythons, he dared not to ever try to intimidate.

“Morning Carl, Mary. The kids let us in.”

“I see that. What brings you out here Mike?”

“We were considering of inviting you four to a cookout. I recently caught a boar and wanted to share it.”

“Great! You can count on us. Do we need to bring anything?”

“Nope.”

“When?”

“This afternoon, just come back with me.”

“Let us get dressed.” Mary butted in on the conversation which for the most part forgot about her.

.03

This world stood on the dawning of a new beginning and as the four grownups thought while discussing their children and habits they had broken. There was a since of new life afoot and they were happy to be part of it. Just sitting there reminded them of their parents and what little they could remember or knew of to begin with. There was about ten hundred people in the nearby area and there was enough land for everyone to never have to meet, but meet they did, cause humans as they learned again, were a social species and did not often decline a good meal.

This meal, there were more than the four of them, it was them, five kids, two dogs and a cat that acted more like one of the dogs.

The night grew on top of them in a matter of seconds and before they realized it, Mike was lighting the torches around his home. Paula, who had rose from her seat, was making a place for them all to sleep in their living room. She loved those kids of Carl’s, doted on them often as their families were awfully close and regularly seen each other. This night however, as the full moon rose above the trees, Paula felt an urge to tell a horror story to keep the kids awake, a way to mess with Carl and Mary.

“A young lady,” as Paula began reciting a tale from her younger days that she remembered, “was driving home after a long vacation. Sometime after midnight, a very heavy storm begins as she notices she is almost out of gas. She sees a sign for a gas station and convenience store and pulls off the interstate to fill her tank. The place is obviously open, but deserted, run-down, and old. She almost drives on, but concerned she might run out of gas, decides to stop, and just get gas. As she pulls in, a tall man with a badly scarred face comes running through the rain. He pumps her gas, and the girl rolls her window down just enough to hand him her credit card. He grabs it and runs back inside.

“The scarred man comes back, tells her she will have to come inside, because her card was denied, and hurries back inside without allowing her to respond. She really does not want to go inside and considers driving off without paying. However, she decides to go in very quickly, take care of the bill, and leave as soon as possible.

“When she gets inside, the man grabs her arm and tries to talk to her. His voice is rough and difficult to understand, and she thinks he may have had his voice damaged in whatever accident scarred his face. The man gets increasingly excited, and the young girl becomes more frantic. She finally wrests herself from his grip and runs back to her car, leaving the station as quickly as possible. She sees the old man through her back window yelling and gesturing her to come back, but she keeps driving.

“She turns on the radio to help her relax and sees something move behind her. She looks in the rear-view mirror, just as a man appears in the back seat holding an ax. That is the last thing she sees in this life. The scarred man at the gas station had been trying to warn her.”

The children were full of life and questions as they repeatedly asked her. She was bombarded and answered as many as possible including of those regarding when she and Mike were to marry and have kids of their own.

“That’s when you know that you’re married, you have babies.”

Paula laughed and said, “That’s not the only way you two, but you need to go to sleep before the boogeyman gets you.”

“Night!”

“Good night my happy brats.” Mary said poking her head in the door.

“Night Mom.”

The shooting of an owl reminded them that they and nature were close in relationship and for what mankind once had so long ago, was not going to resurface anytime soon. It has been fifteen years since then and what a wild ride it was. They all thought fondly on those who protected them, and to those who were or became lost in the madness of the times.

.04

The people that remained all believed that they were immune to whatever the planet could throw at them. They had all been through so much that nothing was able to stop them from becoming more than pebbles in the Earthen soil, but someone who stands in the light. These people were resilient. These people knew how to survive, as so they thought, but the one thing they all missed, gathering in more than one family at a time.

Dawn approached on Carl and Mary as well as with Mike and Paula who had been talking all night outside by the campfire. They figured that they had to find more people to include in their circle, but they had no idea where people were and how to go about finding them. It was not like they could post something on Facebook to let someone know they were looking for friends anymore, but instead, they had to go searching for them. Mike volunteered as the one to go out searching for them.

The morning sun was bright as they left Mike and Paula’s house. As they left, they found the world bright and full of life. The trees that surrounded them were brimming with life. From plants climbing the tree’s trunks or animals playing in them, there was life afoot everywhere. The birds were brightly colored and sung beautifully in the early morning, as to where the smaller animals were running about and bouncing across tree to tree as they scurried about.

Mike had left for the old city earlier that morning with hopes of finding others near there, Paula watched the house. Carl and Mary along with their children left for home. The walk that way shown the bright and sunny path, as to where, the foliage that lined the road overtook the trees that bore them. As they walked, their path darkened and the lining from the sun which was showing at one point, was out no more; darkness remained and nothing more lived other than the dirt on the surfaces floor.

As they came out of the overhanging tree limbs, each person thanked the sun once more for shinning upon them. Continuing to walk onward, they trudged through the morning muck and mud that the morning dew had laid upon the ground. The sun making each piece of grass and each fern that sprouted shimmer with the early rays that fell onto each one.

Their home in sight, they gathered more strength as they came upon the well to where they gather water and pressed onward. Their legs tired and strained. Their backs in a load of pain from the night before and finally making it, they collapsed on the deck chairs that surrounded their porch.

0.5

Thinking about jotting down the events of the evening, Carl set forth into the study and pulled out a large stack of papers from his desk drawer. He had found the papers, as he remembered on the floor of the few houses that he lived in before he and Mary built this one, the one that they were staying in. Mary entered the room and walked up behind Carl and wrapped her arms around him. She then kissed him on the cheek, then neck and asked him if he was going to write their story.

“Yes, I ama about to.”

“Great,” she said tapping him on the shoulder, “I’ll leave you be to write. I love you.”

“Love you too.”