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.

Honored to have my poem Without Oxygen lead off this beautiful 5th issue of Anomaly, which is free to read here.

https://www.nomanszine.com

36
The way the heat rose from the road played tricks on Sally’s eyes. She lowered her sunglasses to notice the vapors disappearing.
“Yo, you ready?” called Fred , a lanky man deep into his forties. She looked back to him loading his motorcycle up, recalling the day they met. She had been left by her initial group in an abandoned bar off of route 66. She had come down with a fever there in the middle of winter, and her people were scared, none of them of science or understanding. She remembered her mother crying as she went to sleep and when she woke the next day, the fever gone and beaten and no one there to smile at her anymore.
She survived for a few days gathering things from the bar, opening old cans of juice and olives, until she heard Freds engine roll through town. Without thinking she ran outside, excited for the sight of another living soul.
Fred saw her as he passed and slammed on his brakes, turning the bike as he did. He sat there idling for a long while, his helmet on, considering the young girl. Finally he lifted his helmet, took a direct look at her and waved her over.
They had been together ever since. He never asked her story, never asked for anything. Sally imagined like her, he just was happy for someone to spend the end of the world with. No questions, no demands. No blame for faults, no expectations for being something else.
Just two people, a motorcycle, and the heat of the pavement and miles to journey till the end of the road.

Her father sat slowly sliding one boot off, then the other. His worn hands shook as he sat them aside. He lowered his head for a moment of contemplation. Annabelle lifted her head from the straw bed she had made on the floor earlier that evening.
“Papa. Are you home for the night?”
He looked at her, his hard brown eyes relaxing as he stared at her.
“Yes dear, I’m here. Father Joseph is watching the tree tonight. We can go see it tomorrow if you’d like.”

The thought filled her with excitement. Annabelle stared hard at the ceiling watching the shadows of the dimming fireplace rise and fall on the wooden  beams above her head. Slowly she drifted back to sleep content in the adventure of the next day.