The river rushed with an unyielding force. It crested above Jack’s head sending him swirling through the waves. How could he have been so stupid he thought, cursing himself. He had set the trap very gently on the side of the river knowing animals would be coming for water. He had already collected two other traps, a small rabbit and a squirrel. They would have fed him two meals at least. He came to inspect this river trap and saw it had found a prey. He approached it rapidly, not being aware of his surroundings. He heard the branch snap behind him and the shadow that blocked the sun turned his heart quickly. He turned to see the large bear already in attack mode, standing on its hind legs and snarling at Jack as it plunged towards him. 

He did not have time to dodge or evade so he threw his arm up and outwards knocking the bear back slightly. The force sent him stumbling back, and into the freezing Missouri River. Now he fought the waves, catching air occasionally, tossing and turning, trying to find something to grab onto. He spun for minutes, growing tired. He hit a shallow bed and it scraped his legs but he was able to get a grip on a large rock. Cursing he pulled himself up, his meals lost to the river but he was alive. Jack headed for shore and took in his location. He was far from home. Time to head back upstream and hope the bear wasn’t there. Or that he wouldnt freeze to death in his wet clothes on the way home. Jack knew he needed to be smarter to continue to survive like this. Something had to change.

She took his hand gently. It was unexpected but welcomed. He looked at her, a beautiful thing peering at him behind bottle coke glasses.
“Do you want to talk about this?” he asked, looking at their hands entwined for the first time. She smiled and looked away towards the setting sun. It was a good enough answer for him. A while later her head rested on his shoulder and they sat there watching the world fall asleep. To grow old together without the dullness of language.

“Mondays are the worst.” He remembered saying such things. Now he didn’t even know what day it was. He knew it was fall because the leaves were turning golden brown, but there was no sense of days, no weekends, no holidays. It would have been football season now. Crowds would have been walking down this Georgia main street on the way to the old high school football stadium.  You would have been able to smell the hot dogs and bbq grilling, hearing the PA announcer in the distance like a ghost announcing players names.
But now the street sat silent. The football stadium was deserted, although the bleachers provided respite from the sun if you found your way underneath them. In those days Fridays were tolerable. You had a game to look forward to and a cold beer. He imagined how it felt on his hands, the chill of alumnium, the sound of the can cracking open. The cold pour into his throat, and the instant relaxation that followed. He had found a six pack last year. It was expired but he drank it anyway. It was one of the worst things he had ever tasted. And it threw most of it up later that evening. But if presented with another beer today in the fall autumn sun, he would undoubtably do it again.

Tall empty buildings, alone in their memory of humans.
A single bit of sunlight shines through their empty husks,
Concrete and leftover waste, a lone spark in an electrical conduit somehow still powered. Flickers on and off into eternity.
Numbers on doors mean nothing.
A few ants traverse ripped carpet still scavenging for food.
A plant on the rooftop grows wild eating the sunlight whole.
A bird chirps in the distance singing a song.
There used to be a melody here.
In a place of constant noise.
In constant pain.
In constant laughter.
In constant bustle.
In constant joy.
In constant life.

The thunder was constant. It never stopped. Sometimes Ezekial could imagine the silence he used to hear. Thirty two years as a librarian, it was a quiet life. Now the Tulsa corridor just stormed, a constant raging sound of fire and tornadoes. He had rescued what he could from his small library, knowledge for a future society. But he often asked if he was delusional, his doubt growing with every lightning strike. Are there children out there? And if so was anyone even spending time to teach them to read?

He hoped so for the alternative was that he wasted his time here, preserving things that only gave history to a time before. And maybe, none of it mattered. None of what came before, and nothing existing in the ongoing storm. Another crack of thunder, another dark cloud on the horizon, pure malevonce, the atmosphere cleaning, erasing the words for the next generation. A windmill of time, and sand, and flood. The story had been told before, and would happen again, but could anyone ever know the conclusion?

“People used to watch those,” he smirked as he pointed at the old flat screen tv on the wall.
“Like they stared at the wall?” Heather asked curiously.

“Well yeah, but mostly they had it on in the background while they looked at their phones.
“What’s a phone?” the young girl asked.
He laughed at that, rubbed his hands through his thick brown hair.
“Well originally they were things you could call family or friends on. But eventually they became like a drug, something everyone became attached to.”

“Sounds bad. What would they watch?”
“Oh everything. Some people even made shows where they just lived in a house together.”
“That sounds nice. Better than always being on the move.”
He thought about that. Yeah, it was nice to have a home. But they no longer had such luxuries. Had to keep moving to avoid the road gangs, and to search for food.
“Did people like the world before?” she asked. He spoke quietly then,
“Sometimes. Yeah maybe. But most of the time they just wanted more.”

カミコはゆっくりと罠を仕掛けた。彼女の相棒である、なめらかな白い狼は、見張りをしながらも、じっと見張っていた。近頃、京都の外のこの地では、あまりにも多くの悪夢が徘徊している。
カミコはキャンプ中に全てが起こった。友人たちが次々と通り過ぎていったが、ある晩、土砂降りの雨の中、カミコはテントから、そしてその後の数日間、彼らの砦から流されてしまった。目が覚めると、この白い狼が金色の目で彼女を見つめていた。目覚める前に殺されていたかもしれないことは、カミコにも分かっていたが、狼は凶暴な兆候を見せなかった。カミコはもう一度罠を確認し、立ち去ろうとした。もうすぐ食料が必要になる。冬が近づいており、彼女の隠れ家である森の奥深くにある廃寺は隙間風が入るものの、適していた。しかし、食料はすぐには手に入らないだろう。そして、彼女は自分だけでなく、友人であり四つ足の仲間でもある狼にも食料を与えなければならない。彼女は太陽を見上げ、それが大気中で踊るのを見ていた。日本であれ、それともどこかの外国であれ、同じ太陽を見ている人は他にもいるのだろうかと彼女は思った。冬に向けて罠を仕掛けることに戻った。

Kamiko wa yukkuri to wana o shikaketa. Kanojo no aibōdearu, namerakana shiroi ōkami wa, mihari o shinagara mo, jitto mihatte ita. Chikagoro, Kyōto no soto no kono jide wa, amarini mo ōku no akumu ga haikai shite iru. Kamiko wa kyanpu-chū ni subete ga okotta. Yūjin-tachi ga tsugitsugi to tōrisugite ittaga, aru ban, doshaburi no ame no naka, kamiko wa tento kara, soshite sonogo no sūjitsukan, karera no toride kara nagasa rete shimatta. Megasameru to, kono shiroi ōkami ga kin'iro no me de kanojo o mitsumete ita. Mezameru mae ni korosa rete ita kamo shirenai koto wa, kamiko ni mo wakatte itaga, ōkami wa kyōbōna chōkō o misenakatta. Kamiko wa mōichido wana o kakunin shi, tachisarou to shita. Mōsugu shokuryō ga hitsuyō ni naru. Fuyu ga chikadzuite ori, kanojo no kakuregadearu Mori no okufukaku ni aru haiji wa sukimakaze ga hairu mono no, tekishite ita. Shikashi, shokuryō wa sugu ni wa te ni hairanaidarou. Soshite, kanojo wa jibun dakedenaku, yūjindeari yottsu ashi no nakamade mo aru ōkami ni mo shokuryō o ataenakereba naranai. Kanojo wa taiyō o miage, sore ga taiki-chū de odoru no o mite ita. Nihondeare, soretomo doko ka no gaikokudeare, onaji taiyō o mite iru hito wa hoka ni mo iru nodarou ka to kanojo wa omotta. Fuyu ni mukete wana o shikakeru koto ni modotta.

Oleksander paced in the small breeze tent set up at the edge of the Sahara in Morocco. He sipped on mint tea, a delicacy to his Siberian tongue. He missed the homemade moonshine at night though. The remaining governing body here at the edge of sand and dust had clamped down on anything they used to allow tourists.
Still this heat, and the sun, were nothing but beautiful to Oleksander. He was glad to be gone from the seed farm and this job was rather peaceful. No one actually seemed interested in harming the science officer he guarded and he and the three members of the security patrol got along well enough. Jorge was a drunk from Venezula and had the worst of this part of their trip going thru some small alcohol withdrawals.
Oleksander rode his first camel yesterday in preparation for the trip into the Sahara. The guides made fun of his approach and his camel didn’t make it any easier, tossing him left and right. But still he got the hang of it.  Two more days here, in a sliver of civilization, before heading into a new world unlinke anything he ever experienced before. He paced, his hands holding firmly onto his cup of tea, and thought of his family, gone in the winters of Russia. If only they could see all this orange.

The crack in my watch still tells me the time as I squint between the shards hiding in plain sight. I’m wondering what my next meal will be, and how stale it will taste. I found a bottle of bourbon yesterday and have it stashed for that next kick.
I need a new pair of shoes.
There was a dead body a few days ago. It has been a while since I came across one. Usually by now the bones have been picked clean by wolves or vultures but this one was fresh. I probably should have said a prayer, or checked his pockets for his name, or chewing gum, but I just kept walking.
The sun is so bright I can’t open my eyes all the way till night fall.
I hum a Coldplay song. God I hate that song. But I sing it anyway.
I’m wondering what my next meal will be. And if it will pair with my new bottle of whiskey.

It sounded like fireworks. It almost brought back childhood memories of the 4th of July.
America’s independence. A thing to be proud of once. A thing that brought people together. Parades. Hope, family.
It sounded like fireworks. But the only noise left in the wasteland was the occasional gunshot, for food, family. Survival.
It sounded like fireworks. A memory of a world we left behind, for greed, gamemanship, and hatred.
Now the birds chirped, and tall buildings grew moss. Because we couldn’t work together, to continue that dream of independence.  Freedom was never free, but we at least had a day to blow stuff up.

It sounded like fireworks, but the noise was just hiding all the cracks in the world.