800 words
AFTER THE WAR
by K. Kaze Fox
The old man walked down the path. It was an old path, one well worn, but it was his path regardless. He sighed and shook the perspiration from his hair, glancing at the shoes stuck in the tree. He turned in, walking the dusty, dirty path between two glass canyons. Those canyons had a whole network of caves inside them. He vaguely remembered them, thirty years ago, before the war, before the forests reclaimed what was once a city. Ah, yes. Buildings. That’s what they were called once. And, when the light hit just right, he could still see “Corner Bakery Cafe” through the plants growing on the stonework.
He stopped in an opening. With a heavy grunt he pulled his pack off and tossed it on the counter with a heavy thud.
“Skinner, give me a good deal this time, or so help me…”
“All right, Joe, let’s see what you got.”
Skinner, a twenty-something woman with cat ears instead of the normal human ones, opened the case and started pulling out pieces of metal. “Good find, this time. I’ll give you forty-five.”
“Damnit, Skinner! That’s fifty kilos in there. And I had to go into the bad lands to get it. Come on, give me at least one credit per kilo!”
She turned around, her black tail indicating a bit of annoyance. She handed him a credit chip. “Okay. Fifty. But only ’cause I like you.” He nodded. “See ya next week,” she said as he walked out the door and back down the dusty gravel road.
It wasn’t long before he found himself inside the Westin bar almost half a kilometer from Skinner’s. He ordered a drink. He would have preferred Whiskey, but alas, in this age he was lucky to get Rot Gut made by fermenting whatever they could get their hands on. It’ll probably make me blind, he thought, but at least it numbs the pain. He held the metal cup to his lips and his mind wondered.
Before there were morphs, and before the damned war destroyed almost everything in the world, there was Genie. Joe met her in Dallas, where he was working. They fell deeply in love. He remembered walking through the club district with her, smiling like some cat that ate the canary. She loved to walk, fearless. He never understood why, even in the bad neighborhoods, she didn’t flinch. It’s just what it was.
He remembered their wedding day, holding her hands in his, while they each recited their vows. He remembered swearing his oath to her. An oath he never broke, even thirty years after…
Joe took a drink and winced as it burned his throat.
He remembered his little girl, Ruth. The baby that he worked so hard to protect. She turned sixteen and wanted a scooter. Oh, that damned scooter. He swore that it would be the end of her. Every time she got on that thing in the Dallas streets, his heart stopped. He was afraid every time someone came to the door, he thought it’d be someone uniformed telling him something happened to his baby.
She was eighteen when the war started. Just eighteen years old and she was headed to Berkley to start on her engineering degree. She was going to change the world. She was in the air when the first missiles hit the land.
He took another sip, ignoring the other patrons of the bar. For a literal hole in the wall, the place was always busy.
The wind whipped the young man’s face as he waved to his mom, dad, and sister. Joe couldn’t keep his eyes dry, but somehow James kept things in check, smiling and excited. Genie hugged him tightly. Ruth told him to keep out of trouble.
When he was a kid, he was always fascinated by airplanes. He even took flying lessons as a teenager. He was accepted to the Air Force Academy for flight school. Joe never heard what happened to him during the war. He was a pilot but things became a complete disarray when Washington was nuked. Supposedly the United Nations was now in charge, but it didn’t affect Joe’s life. But a lot of the U.S.’s records were lost during the war.
Joe shook out of his reflection and went back to his drink. He sniffed softly, feeling the cold streak on his cheek. A single drop of salted water fell into his glass. There was some commotion at the entrance of the bar.
He looked up to see what was going on as he drained the last of the glass. And his blood went cold. “It…it can’t be,” he whispered as his cup bounced off the bar. His eyes connected with the new comer and he started shaking as he got up to meet them.