Boom

There was once a world with no stars. At night, when the last the dark ate the light, a terrible loneliness would settle upon the people; a yearning ache, the jittering disassociation of lostness stilling momentum, as their hands shook, as their eyes grew wide and round and their voices fell silent.

But for that stirring hush of their breath. A monotone consonance was all that passed for life.

Of course, they killed themselves in the small hours or drank until they forgot or beat the ones they claimed to love but did not becuase all there was...was silence and fear.

The noxicity of advancement.

They say it was different, once. 

They say, there was hope.

There were other worlds...

We have not always been so isolated.

No longer, if ever it were true.

In the dwindling remnants of humanity she had grown, swiftly orphaned, adopted, forgotten about as long as she shifted and grifted and stayed silent. Food was meagre. Love something that came with a hand over the mouth and sour breath and stabbing pains. But that came later for her, after her breasts came. Ugliness a blessing in these foul days.

When the sky turned yellow with the poison of their forefathers. With the pollution the factories still produced.

Somehow, in stolen moments, she had taught herself to read and all such moments were spent so. She had discovered what used to be a library, buried, burned and damp. She understood children used to read in trees, but she had never seen one. They had leaves, like the books, but very different and, apparently, it was the heart of trees that held their story. Not the leaves, they hungered for the light like she. Sometimes she tried to read the plans that remained in the overseer's office but that was a language she could not grasp.

Sometimes she wondered if she was to be cut open whether her story would be found.

But no, she had seen that too and it was not so. It hurt to read.

Sometimes she read nothing for days.

Othertimes she destroyed the most hopeful pages, the ones that spoke of spring, of happiness, of fat children having adventures with their pets, always smiling, and eating things called sweets. Or the ones that spoke of the wonders the future would bring, of how amazing the human race was. She feared others would learn to read and know the anger she did.

She liked the realistic ones best; rape, war, violence; the rants and diatribes and caustic criticisms. See. Look. It was never hidden.

They always knew.

They choose this.

She did not feel guilt for what she planned.

It was inevitable.

It took a long time to collect what she needed, every resource was locked up tight and there was fear of rebellion despite the blasted minds of those left, who did not care for anything. The research was harder though, hunting for loose pages with cohesive knowledge. Couldn't miss a step. It was clear those books had been purged.

But, eventually, her bomb was ready.

She thought long on where to place it, unsure of the expected radius of the explosion. This concerned her. So she made more. A few years, carefully, steadily.

But, something changed. A rumour came. Not everywhere was degraded.

There was still class inequality, beyond the small dichotomy she had always known. There were rich fools, somewhere, and, as they are wont to do, they had preserved their way.  Something known as luxury.

She decided she would take this.

At 17 she had lost some of her youthful ugliness and at some point a couple of officers had claimed her. They used her hard, but kept her to themselves and rarely beat her. She was relatively lucky, better that the early ones. Better than being shared by all. Still, she planned to kill them too, if they didnt kill themselves first; in their 30's they were old and becoming bleak. Either way suited her, she would act before there was risk of another taking her.

And she was luckier than most.

She was tempted to test one of her bombs.

It took a few days to work up the courage and, more importantly, the timing. Be senseless to get caught after a single detonation.

However, it went very smoothly. Dinner time, officer's canteen, hidden in an old vent long taken over by various repairs and power circuits. 100 dead, half the building just gone; boom!

In her stories she had read of the thrill, the exhilaration, the killing lust. She felt none of that. Just a vague sadness and the small satisfaction of a thing well made. Her bomb.

Her bombs.

Boom.

She had been unsure of what the reaction would be. In the smoking aftermath the dejection briefly lifted from the workers; one smiled. She was sure a few slipped into the ruins and ensured the survivors did not remain so. Then they just carried on, back to work, back to bunks, back to gruel. Back to the nightly suicides.

Not exactly a workers revolution.

But she had not really expected that.

Her officers survived, and more rumours came. Believed an accident, a malfunction. Some bosses higher up were curious, the explosion had released a lot of energy and if they could figure out which redundant system had caused it they may be able to harness it. Too have a turn around.

There would be visitors.

She looked at her bombs. Did they not know the making of them? So simple, really.

They came in cars. They came with escape plans.

She let them stay a day or two, until the dark loneliness began to eat the light of their eyes and the air to scab their soft skin, to hear what their opinions were. They did not suspect bombs, even when they found a bit of casing that had partially melted but not been destroyed. She was rather disappointed, there was an odd lifting sensation when she had imagined them understanding, being curious. Perhaps it was hope, she put the thought aside. They were no different.

She placed her bombs; overseer's office, one of the dorms, three around the factories, two on the wall. Boom, boom, boomboomboom, boom boom.

The flames were beautiful. So much light!

They had never seen such bright.

Then, she knew wonder. Such colour.

If only there was still paint, or cameras, or...then she saw the way metal glowed and melted, the sparks, the billows of smoke curling through the glow. She wept. She began to understand the stories she hated. But, too soon, a few who had not crisped in her lovely blazes came running to the cars. They were injured. She told them she was a medic, a word she had learned along with a few gestures. They were familiar with the concept and allowed her to help and she easily guided them to the car she had chosen, pointing conveniently to one of the new holes in the wall but undamaged. She had already hidden more bombs and other necessities beneath the rusted chassis and the wheel cavities where they were not likely to be found.

Surprisingly they offered no argument about her leaving with them, but she was stemming some serious blood flow from a man with medals. Little plastic, sparkly things. Did they mean he was rich?

Did they have...sunshine there?

If not: she would bring the fire.

They travelled through several disintegrating days, the man with the plastic medals died expectedly and the others were worried about being disciplined for the lost cars. It was his orders, they said. It was the factories fault, they said. Medics are useful, they said, and kept her on. She watched them drive, cognating the pragmatic bare of it. Stories did not often describe that but for the oft sexually connotated shift gear. These cars were more modern if in terrible repair.

She liked the speed of them, even if she hated what they represented.

The landscape was rubbled, flattened, the horizons lost to smog and shadow.

The next place was not much better than what she had known. More factories. More pollution. More people.

Not riches, nor sunshine. She was not sure she would ever find any, that there was any. Bunkers, perhaps, but not here. But this was better than before. She stayed a short while. Stole ingredients. Left bombs, and booms and carnage. She admired it in the rear view mirror of the car she stole when she left with no direction or idea of where habitations were. But she didnt need that, she followed the remains of a road worn with recent tracks from wheels larger than hers.

The next place was richer. Some people wore colour, once or twice she heard laughter. She tried but only managed a strange huff huff. Here the children were kept separate. At first she thought it a school, that they remembered how to read, remembered stories...maybe even nurture.

But no. No, just corralled early, delegated, bred with first bleeding. Controlled.

Closer to the rich folks, then, that was certain.

She stayed longer here, regretting the enthusiastic amount of bombs she had  detonated before. She needed to make more. They were more watchful here, though they had nothing really to protect; no art, basic food. But dismay and the lonely dark did what it always did and her relative freedom continued. 

One night she lost a bet with a woman. She had seen her earlier, kicking a cat. She had always liked cats, the way their eyes caught and reflected the light but never stole it, the way they hissed, the way, occasionally, they would let you scratch behind their ears. She lost her coat in the bet, its cut was markedly different from the uniforms here and the woman had liked the way the collar stood upright and framed her face. They were about the same size, similar dull hair.

And bodies often burnt beyond recognition.

After the woman left, she entered the officers dwelling where she worked she set off her bombs, boom, and left.

Undoubtedly suspicions would be aroused by now. She kept the car.

The next place; boom. The next place; boom. The next place; boom. Each as tired and welcoming of death as the last.

Everywhere, hope had died. Until.

She was watching the flames, drinking alcohol whilst sitting over the warm engine and trying to imagine what stars looked like, if they were like the sparks that drifted but harder, steadier, brighter, further. Then she came, hair as red and yellow as the flame and skin as mottled too. Take me with you, she said and smiled, take me too.

She shrugged and asked her if she could read. No but I do have grenades, the other replied. She took her and it was strange to have another with her. She supposed she could be a spy, or intending murder, and the thought broke up the monotony of driving.

The girl said the bunkers had been looted long ago, they could go there but there wasn't much to see. And there wasn't, just a hole in the ground...though she did find a book. Whole if torn and pages stuck with damp. It was a love story about shopping and she read it aloud when they couldn't sleep. It had lesbian sex scenes in so they decided to try that and both liked it better than being raped, being used, and in the others history being bred. Her child was long dead, she said with no emotion when they lay sweaty in the back seat after. The stretchmarks on her stomach were softer than her breasts, her lips.

She thought she began to know something of pleasure, maybe of love. They both despised the concept of shopping and longed for the flame.

The next place; boom. The next place; boom. The grenades made such noise, and ate up the distance she was used to, but oh how the rubble and bodies flew!

The next place; boom. They got shot at there, unexpectedly, in the dark but were only grazed by makeshift bullets, screeching laughter into the unhallowed night.

They decided not to steal guns, to stay pure.

It was a statement.

And then the road ran out.

They had noticed a brightness on the horizon. Was it fabled sunshine, they had asked and frowned, the ever present chem clouds obscuring certainty. The storms that shifted constantly confused the hours between dim day and dark night. Still that direction was better than none and their decisions had led to an awakening of what used to be a fundamental human emotion; curiosity.

Perhaps it was sunshine, they shrugged, perhaps it was riches.

It was neither.

The road ran out at the coast, travelled first through endless stretches of concrete, a broken once city. all cracked and scabbed and materials long pried loose. Bones littered. The road sheered off and there was water. Endless water all the way to the horizon, black and oily and on fire.

An ocean of fire.

So this is the end, she had said. As she had began.

It's always waiting, the other replied.

It cant be fixed.

They found another book.

Of sorts. She thought perhaps it could be called a compendium, but modern and old fashioned all at once with traces of foil still clinging to the rippled surface of fused plastics and still bold font. Inside were photos of sunshine; day spilt in angled luminous in all sun shades, like her hair. In the firelight of the ocean her eyes gleamed umber traced in green.

Inside they found riches; farms fruitful and green, deserts purple with bloom, fish leaping waters, a kaleidoscope of evolutions varieties of life; including people, their buildings whole, then shattered; their smiles gleaming; their hands on swords, on guns, on bombs, on painted grotesque screaming on pier sides darkening with an expectant future.

They found hands raised in defiance.

They found the seeds of defeat.

They found the way to the moon, a distant dream, now, of an unseen thing.

Just smog.

Just endless clouds.

She almost remembered something, but shrugged the smile away.

Later, sitting on the roof of the car and holding rare warmth, the flame sun one asked; you reckon we could siphon it?

She glanced at the remains of the city, crumbled and dusty and grumpy with past. Likely to find something salvage, but where would we pump it too?

Depends on the substance. Do you think the air could replenish?

After a while she sighed, no, and they quieted. She touched the pages, the leaves of the only tree they had, and said; we shift it, convert it, or we linger and make more permanent.

Bio-domes?

Perhaps. We could hold out.

If it worsens, we all die anyway.

If it doesn't we're sitting on a fucking profit.

It was too late for them to conceivably hope, as neither had ever known such or that such could be.

But it was a good start.

The ocean continued to burn, and in their wake the rubble stirred with wary, shifting numbered feet of those the bombs didnt find.

And some decided to seek the fire first before the nullity of their drudgery took them in the self held night. Others took things, and moved. Migrated. Changed. Hunger was always hard fast anyway.

They began to think in choices.