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It was impossible for a regular person living in America to have stopped it. She had become so self-important that she no longer listened to the voice of one, or many , or even the voice of reason; and it was the downfall of us all. Many of us, well most of us, had forgotten what it was to survive. In America, the concept of survival was more closely related to staying ahead of the game, winning the rat race more than winning the war against death.



As a people, we no longer had the skill to live without the fast lane, the supermarket, the internet, we could not farm or hunt or build. We were like children, confused and unsure, but without the inexhaustible sources of energy they seem to possess. We were slovenly and lazy, many of us overweight- completely ill-equipped to handle the physical, mental, and emotional strain of our new lives.


As a result, many of us died in the months following the Great American Holocaust, and those of us that didn’t, struggle every day to become something new- something better. Those of us that survived the Holocaust and the terrible years that followed will always struggle to find our place in this new world.


And we will never forget.

The Beginning:

It was June, the kind of beautiful unremarkable spring day which we so often took for granted in the days Before. The sky was the soft deep blue many manufacturers attempt to mimic in crayons and bed sheets, but can never quite manage. A soft breeze caressed the tops of trees, tickled the tips of grass, and pushed the clouds as they drifted in that majestic sky. The flowers bloomed, their bright colors creating rainbows in parks and manicured front yards; birds chirped, and moths and butterflies danced carelessly, kissing each other, gently beneath blooming bushes.

When I look back on this day, I always remember the beautiful perfection of it all. Unlike many of the others I know, I will never allow that day to be changed by later events That day is the shinning beacon of what things were Before, and one of the few things which gave me joy and comfort in the days After.

I will always remember how bright the sun was, and the promise or memory of a hot day connected in some way with how the wind blew. This is what I remember of Before.

I was at work that day, working diligently in the tiny cubicle in which I spent my life. My tasks there were simple, answer phones, assist the continuous onslaught of idiotic customers, and concoct various excuses- no matter how plausible- to allow me to escape the steaming hell which was my life. Cut off from the rest of the world, most of the employees in my center would never have known the world was about to end if not for the phones.

It’s a strange thing about working in a call center- It is never completely quiet. There is always some sound, a neighbor shuffling papers, a telemarketer down the row attempting to force a sale, or some customer in your ear insisting that they are the exception to the rule you repeat seven hundred times a day. However on that day, at 2:47PM, everything went still. Every phone went dead, and the normal cheer which goes up anytime that type of issue arises, never came.

For seconds which stretched on like hours, silence deafened the two hundred some employees.

And then the phones began to ring.

No the work phones, those remained eerily silent, but the cell phones that are strictly forbidden but kept in secret by everyone in the room. My phone was first.

“Mrs Abraham?”

“Yes”

“This is Keeley…from Alex’s school. I’m sure you understand that due to the recent events we are asking all parents to pick up their children immediately.”

A cold fear griped my heart, my trembling hands were already reaching for my bag. The eyes of everyone around me were focused on my every move.

“They need me to pick up the kid. There is some kind of emergency.” I said to the room around me. “I need to go.” To Keeley, I asked, “What exactly is wrong?”

But she was gone, and so was I. I was at the door when the first wails rose from the cubicles, then the cell phones began to ring in earnest. I was out the door before the shouts of terror and the grip of panic could reach me. I didn’t need mass hysteria to drag me into the depths of fear, I had my own worries.

Jumping into my car, slamming it into gear, I barley processed the fact that the parking lot was quickly filling with screeching zombies madly pulling at their hair and fumbling with keys to rows and rows of locked vehicles.

The streets only added to my frustrations, completely out of character for a mid-afternoon weekday, the roads were crowded with cars. I cursed loudly, banged the steering wheel frantically, but traffic remained deadlocked.

Angry and frightened beyond all rational thought, I snapped on the radio.

“No reports have been confirmed regarding the damage or loss of life associated with this heinous attack. The government has upgraded the nation’s alert status to RED, but is asking everyone to remain calm. City officials are working to limit additional loss of life, cooperation is mandatory. All off duty medical and law enforcement personnel are asked to check in with their places of employment for further instruction. All other citizens are asked to return to your homes and continue listening to KLRX for future updates.”

The soothing stains of an unidentified classical piece flowed through the car, but it could not reach me. A panic so strong it was nearly crippling grasped at my heart; my breath came in short shallow gasps. I was trapped. Locked in a coffin of glass and metal. My son was in a school full of strangers. We were all going to die, and the last thing we would ever feel would not be love, but a terrifying, all-encompassing kind of fear.

I think it is times like that which give us insight into who we really are. At that moment, I wanted to give up, the stress and the fear pulled at me so hard I wanted to sink below them, allow them to drag me down into the depths of deep safe unawareness. I wanted to allow the weight of the situation to break me- to crumble me into bits so that the terror and sorrow leaked out into the car, into the street, into the atmosphere.

I opened my mouth to let it all out, prepared for tears, and wracking sobs; instead, I screamed. Surprisingly, there was no surrender in the sound, no hopelessness- only a solid, very real, desire to fight- to survive.

A plan. While I was sitting motionless in the car, I needed to know what was going on, I needed a plan of action. I grabbed my bag, fisting through handfuls of old receipts and empty cough drop wrappers to the phone hidden in its depths.

Thanking God for modern technology- for the gift of the internet.

Pulling my home page, I was bombarded by images of our last days- quote the headlines. New York, San Francisco, Miami, video streaming across the web confirming every rumor we all feared- it was gone. Everything demolished. Some sci-fi horror film come to life.

The accompanying subtext only added to the sense of the surreal. Words like nuclear holocaust, fallout, and death toll flashed before my eyes- daring me to deny the terror they insinuated.

What was a nuclear holocaust? And how does such a thing come about? How does it happen? More importantly, how does it happen to US? To America? Who would dare?

Unthinkable.

Inconceivable.

And yet, it happened. WTF! And what happens now. The thoughts raced faster and faster. What happens now? Do we all die out? Do we become horribly malformed? Perish from radiation poisoning? Do we get superpowers? Become glow in the dark? What?

A quick Google search provides the answers, a whole downloadable book on what to do in case of nuclear attack. In a blink, I have information which may keep me and my family alive.

Behind me impatient, frantic horns honk. While I was lost in the flood of information, traffic had once again begun to crawl forward. And it was forward I was intent on going. Me and mine would not become casualties of this war we never chose to fight, some sad statistic to be clucked over by sympathetic foreign tongues. We would be survivors.