The challenge for this piece was: Dystopian plus Romance, the theme had to be ‘transformation’. No more than 600 words. Enjoy!
ISOLATION:
The sun beats on the red earth and ripples of heat disturb the air with fine lines, like horizontal wrinkles in a painting of the outback. Only this isn’t an artistic rendering—it’s our life.
Despair wells and chokes me. Damn drought, damn nuclear war, damn loneliness. Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m about as likely to get a present as I am to book into a hairdresser for a trim.
After the nutter who runs North Korea dropped his first nuclear bomb the whole world went mad. Woomera became a target for a nuclear device and everyone now knows if you explode one of those above the earth the Electro Magnetic Pulse destroys all computerised devices in a split second. No time to turn them off. Nor will those doo-hickies you plug into the wall to prevent your pc burning in a lightning strike, prevent an EMP from frying your only means of communication.
I’m lonely. Stuck out here. Dan tries to keep me cheerful. Fortunately, we hand pump our fuel from a tank deep within the ochre soil. We can run the water pumps, but the grass died weeks ago.
I wonder if we are the last two people alive.
Dan calls from inside. We’re avoiding the midday heat and the kitchen is the coolest room in the house. I open the screen door and slip in, beating the flies that hover. They throw themselves against the wire screen hoping to break through. The day they succeed is the day I take the shotgun and put it to my head. Then they truly will have something to feast on.
But not today. I’ve decided to make thirty-five, even if thirty-six is a number I can’t imagine reaching.
“What?” I walk down the passage.
“Do you have any toilet roll inners?”
“I don’t keep them as souvenirs, but I can pull one out of the centre for you. We have heaps of bog rolls.”
“Great, and what about the inside of a paper towel roll?”
Is the man crazy? It’s too early in the year to be making homemade Christmas decorations. “Yup, I have one of those.”
“Sweet-as. I’ll need both.”
I’m standing at the kitchen door, and he flicks a tea towel over a mess on the table. “Don’t look, It’s a surprise.”
A roll of fine copper wire peeps from under the cloth. This is going to be some birthday present. Thanks to EMP I can’t Google ‘cardboard tubes plus copper wire makes what?’
After two weeks of tit-for-tat the waves of radiation swept the world. People died and those remaining, like Dan and I, concentrated on growing food to survive. We’ll never run out of meat.
God, it’s lonely.
Dan kisses me, mutters ‘thanks’, and shoos me away.
Thunder rolls and crackles in the distance, teasing us again. At dusk the temperature drops and it rains, and rains.
We sleep until noon, cool at last.
“Happy Birthday, beloved.”
I unwrap a board with a collection of wires wrapped around tubes. “What is it?”
He lifts an earbud and I listen as he moves the arm along the wire-wrapped roll. There’s a crackle and a voice, faint but it’s there. Then another voice, even louder.
“It’s a crystal radio. Now you’re in touch with the world.”
The black dog of despair slinks away and my spirit rises. I carry my present out to the porch, listening to the world. Overnight the land has been transformed. The wild- flowers have sprouted and are blooming. Dan’s arms circle my waist. His lips caress my neck. We kiss.
My latest novel ‘ON THE WIND’ is now available. Here is the link to buy either an ebook or have a paperback copy posted. I also have hard copies for sale. If you’d like a copy my email is deryn@xtra.co.nz (something I don’t put on social media sites for the bots to collect)
Here is the link: On the Wind https://geni.us/qFiwy
That's a great story, Deryn. So there was something after Never! And hopeful. Thank you.