She's Better Off

In the time it took for Miranda to go grocery shopping and come back, her husband had packed and left.  She noted without conscious acknowledgement that his truck was gone though the idea that he had left on a fire call skimmed across her brain.  Miranda brought in the groceries in two trips.  She unloaded food and goods purchased with her husband in mind.  While unloading the second set of bags, her subconscious mind mentioned she couldn't hear his fire and police scanner, which was always on.  It wasn't until she saw the dust-free rectangle on the side table in the living room that she allowed herself to realize he was gone.  Feet feeling heavier with every step, she trudged upstairs and made herself look at his closet and ill-closed dresser.  She made herself look in the bathroom and saw her own toothbrush missing.  Miranda found it later in the toilet.

"I Lived through a Stupid Coup"

At the start of the fall of their government, no one believed it was the start of anything.  It was stupid.  It was dumb people with big mouths being loud.  A curse of the intelligent is to believe that nobody could be that stupid.  By the time the election rolled around again, it seemed that no one could ignore the depths of stupidity to which so many would sink.

A tank rolled by Hannah's house, tearing up the already ruined street.  She was briefly outraged, then remembered the remaining gas in their SUV had dried out.

Douglas G.

Douglas died in 1995.  Twenty-six years later, a former elementary school classmate tried searching his name again on the internet.  If you had told Douglas at any point while he was alive that someone in the future would be using a computer to search worldwide records for his name and picture, he may not have believed you.  He would have been fairly certain, however, that his obituary would be written by then.  By then, he was dead for three years longer than he had been alive.

Jessica thought it likely that he wouldn't have even remembered her.  After all, the last time they had seen each other was 5th grade.

The Extinction of Man

To Seth, it was an inexplicable feeling.  So alien that he couldn't even express that it was a feeling.  He thought perhaps it was his dinner, unsettled.  Seth's mind only brushed across the idea that the feeling had been there for much longer than this particular evening.  Perhaps it had burned since he was in his early twenties, when he peaked, but didn't know it.  He bought antacids and ate them.  He drank antacid liquid.  He swallowed antacid pills.  The feeling not only lingered, but grew stronger.  No general physician could have helped Seth.  While a psychologist may have been able, they, too, would not have been able to help in this case because Seth would and, indeed, never could articulate the source of this feeling.

If Seth had the emotional intelligence, the desire for inward analysis, or even the language, he might have said this: I am afraid of becoming extinct.

Lost: Telling vs. Showing

He was lost in the music.

Head bowed and swinging side to side, the drumsticks were extensions of his arms, beating out a rhythm that drove the undulations of the crowd.

She felt lost.

Even though she sat still past the point of being uncomfortable, her mind ran into wall after wall, thoughts bouncing off and stumbling into the next barrier until, in a blind panic, they screamed inside her head.

All seemed lost.

Huddled as they were in the building's basement storage, the sounds from the streets was finally too distant to hear.  One of the women, the only one still clutching a child who seemed to be younger than ten, started to cry.  Nobody hushed her.

Pop, Pop, Pop

Many times Maggie thought she heard gunshots when they were only fireworks, lit in the streets, far too long before and after the Fourth of July.  Did anyone lighting those dumb things even feel remotely patriotic, she wondered, or just playing at war or arson.  Real gunshots didn't go on for as long.  Real gunshots didn't seem to echo as much.  Pop, pop, pop.  Triplets.  One, two, three.  One broke the glass.  Two cracked a mirror.  Three killed a baby.

Heart-Shaped Locket

When the patient in room 225 died, Hera was the one who found her.  As a nurse's aide, she knew the head nurse would page for "Dr. Blue", who wasn't a doctor at all, but rather code for death.  Hera had seen death before, of course.  She didn't think anyone in the world hadn't seen death by now.  But this one stopped her.

The woman looked peaceful.  Her face was smoother than it had been and she seemed to finally sleep.  It was probably because the pain was gone.  No more furrowed brow or pinched lips.  No more tensed muscles or fretful movements, trying desperately to find a position that was comfortable.  The sheets were draped and smooth, as if the woman knew she was about to die and straightened them herself.

Hera stepped closer.  The woman's hair had been brushed--how had that happened?  Did she brush her own hair, too?  The hospital gown was clean.  Perhaps the night shift had changed and cleaned her.  The woman's hands were folded, one atop the other, calmly, neatly.  Hera couldn't stop staring.  Most in the hospital died in agony.  Most were covered in the filth of the end, their hands clawing at their own faces, at the air, at the inevitable.

She never touched the dead, but Hera found herself reaching.  She lay her hand atop the woman's.  They were cool and smooth.  Hera held the woman's hand.  As she finally pulled her hand away, she felt the necklace chain.  How could she forget?  The woman always wore a heart-shaped locket.  She had screamed herself raw when a nurse tried to remove it.  Since the woman was at the stage where she could no longer speak, they could only speculate.  Children?  Parents?  Spouse?

The locket slid easily from the woman's hands.  Hera opened it.