Looking Ahead

So today is Friday. The end of the work week. The beginning of the weekend. And the lead up to part two of "The Afterdom".

After very little deliberation, I have decided to continue this apocalyptic short story by breaking it into a series that I will roll out randomly over several weeks or months. Right now, I have not plotted any of the story and I have no clue where it is heading. I love writing this way, because it turns the writing process into an unpredictable adventure. It also is exciting, because it creates opportunities for you - my loyal readers - to get involved. Your comments will help shape the story arch, flesh out the individual personalities of the characters, drive the action forward, and ultimately help define the theme. Whether you're a writer or not doesn't really matter. This series is a experiment that will hopefully turn into something great, but if not, I think it could still be a great opportunity for a group of people to have some fun and share an experience together being creative.

 "The Afterdom" (part 2) will be available on Monday 11.3.14

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 Have a great weekend!

The Afterdom

The world is dark. The light has fully evaporated and the cold solitude has taken hold. It should still be the middle of summer - if I recall correctly. But who knows. The days are growing longer by the minute. The stars have literally fallen out of the sky. Fortunately, only one hit the earth, but that was enough to change my life forever.

I used to roll my eyes when I sat in church and heard the preacher yelling about hail, fire, and brimstone. I guess he was right. The end is real. Where there once were fields of potent wild flowers, there are only dirt clods covered with mounds of mold spores. When it rains, a toxic slimy gelatinous goo oozes steadily from the ground. The run off has contaminated all the oceans, lakes, streams, aqueducts. Every fluid ounce of water is worthless. Even the occasional low lying cloud that floats upon the arid winds seems to be off. Sometimes I think they are trying to tell me something. A tragic scandalous secret maybe. But the low lying clouds can not be trusted. The word lying is in their names for pete's sake. The clouds do seem to be laced with a faint hint of silver. Possibly mercury has poisoned them. The few trees that still stand have been reduced to naked bones. The skeleton trees were magnificent at one time, but they no longer tower to the sky. The termites and carpenter ants cut them down to size. That is - before the toxic fumes of the Afterdom sealed their fates too.

We are the remaining three.

Call Of The Sasquatch

Wooooooooooooo!

"Did you hear that?" "Yeah... yeah, that was definitely a squatch."

A pair of beatniks banter back and forth over their two-way radios like a couple of tweens on their first sleepover. A loud knock causes their celebration to come to an abrupt halt.

"Was that?" "Shhhhh.... just give it a minute."

They wait for several awkward moments - just staring off into the black distance.

"Man! Why does it always have to be like this?!" "I know! Gosh.... this site is definitely squatchy. There is absolutely no evidence to prove otherwise."

A Real Medical Condition

A long narrow 1950's style kitchen. On the far side of the room is a countertop with a white ceramic sink. Behind the sink is a window that allows warm sunlight to politely enter. Below the counter are white-doored cabinets and above... open faced cabinets that house drinking glasses, dishes, and various nicknacks.

A figure makes it's way across the cold tiled floor over to the counter.

Carl is the oddest looking young man you would ever want to meet.  Exhausted and disheveled, he reaches up to one of the shelves and takes down a glass. The glass looks like it has been broken several times but has been repaired with elmer's hot rubber cement tape sticky-tack glue. If you take a closer look, you'll notice that all of the other glasses and nicknacks in the cabinet are in the same condition.

Carl gingerly places the glass on the counter, then walks over to the refrigerator. Like Wally or the Beaver, he takes out a thick glass jug of milk. Cold creamy white goodness poors into the glass - almost in slow motion.  Then Carl chugs the entire glass without coming up for a single sip of air. He slowly returns the glass down on the counter - exhaling a sigh of disappointment; then he just stands there, looking out the window for several awkward moments.

A car honks outside, but it doesn't surprise Carl one bit. He mozzies to a door that is at the end of the counter and pokes his head outside. The honking car is parked by the curb with Carl's co-worker, John, anxiously sitting inside. He rolls down the passenger window and barks across the lawn.

"This is the third time this week, Carl!" John says. " Hurry up, will ya! We're going to be late... again!

Carl waves off the complaint and heads back inside.

The Power Of A Western

The sun sits low on the horizon. The haze of lingering dust swirls in the wind. The squeaking of a rusty swaying saloon door and the clanking of spurs are the only sounds we hear as a mysterious figure – an outlaw – makes his way down the wooden sidewalk. The sidewalk that links together what’s left of this shabby town. It seems to have been deserted years ago. When the Roughriders heeded the call by Roosevelt, there was no one left to defend the good law-abiding citizens and faithful church-going parishoners. They had no choice but to leave… or to die.

The clanking of spurs is over taken by the at too familiar clack of a revolver being sprung shut. The sidearm shows no immediate signs of aggression. It just lays comfortably in the weathered right hand of the mystery gunman. But it won’t stay that way for long.

Movement. The lacy curtains in the window above the hardware store just moved. A slice of light reveals the black bean eyes of a another cowboy deep within the shadows. Realizing the dangers of staying out in the open, the patrolling cowboy down on the ground takes shelter behind an abandoned wagon. ‘I know you’re there!’ he shouts. ‘We both know how this ends!’

He waits for a reply. Silence. 

A falcon streaks across the sky. It’s shadow racing across the ground. It’s squawk assaulting the silence.

The mysterious figure is not use to being on the losing end of a barrel. Indignantly he shouts, ‘You should have never come back!’ A drop of sweat slips down his face and into his eyes. Though it burns like fire, there’s not a chance in this world that he will risk diverting his attention from that window.

Click… With the flick of its hammer, the passive sidearm becomes aggressive.

Run For Your Life

A clear water pools on the asphalt. The tension on the surface is so tight that not even a single ripple rolls across it. The perfect canvas on which the city’s scrapers are painted. They stretch northward into a crisp blue sky. Fluffy clouds softly shrouding the undefined edges of the picture’s frame.

Splash! The black sole of an Italian leather shoe suddenly decimates the tranquil picture as it plunges deep into the pot hole. A business man dressed to the hilt is running… running for his life. A fowl stench is racing right behind him… hurled along by the fiercest of winds. Despite all his best efforts, Evil has escaped his regimented conclaves. He knows it’s determined to free all his other dark secrets as well, so he is running to baton down the hatches… to triple lock the gate. The inevitable will not be the inevitable as long as he had a say. Not today – not any day.

As an adolescent, he never participated in track and field (or sports of any kind for that matter), but he manages to effortlessly leap over obstacles like trash cans and fences and rusty shopping carts disregarded by the vagabonds. The fear of public humiliation seems to rocket the man of constant sorrows to superhuman heights. Glancing over his shoulder from time to time, the man realizes that Evil is nowhere in sight. He did it? He outran his past with just a little effort? It couldn’t be that easy… or could it?