A Short Story: Wastelands
A ruined world once again greats the beaming sun. Where once civilizations stood only ruins remain. Buildings cast shadows along the remains of a deadened environment. Roads that wind unused and abandoned. Cars that were once used in everyday life have been forgotten. Bulletholes and fires thrash the land. Malls and skyscrapers that once stood as monuments of the living, will now forever breathe nothing but dust.
Amongst the remains of a wasteland, a man emerges from a manhole. Standing and gazing on a damned world. He began to sulk fearing the wasteland swallowed his home.
Dropping to his knees he screams, “Why have you done this?!” Tears rushing down his face following the shape of his face to the tip of his chin and dripping down into the earth. He gets the strength to get up and move on.
In the distance, he sees a familiar structure, a corner drug store. He sees the possibilities of a place to gain medicine and rations. Just as he makes it down the street he passes a rat scrambling around. The rat seemingly disappears behind a small bus and the man grips a piece of wood on the road steadily as he begins to sweat. As the man approaches the rat he hears gnawing, the rat comes into view, and the man freezes.
His gaze starts at the bottom noticing the rat chewing a shoe. He moves only his eyes, witnessing his life and the pairs of shoes in front of him. The gnawing gets louder.
“2.” The biting gets even louder. The world seemed to vanish and it was just him frozen in the ominous eye of the rat. The chomping becomes so loud the man screams so loud to drown it out. The man viciously slams his wood. The chewing stops. Breathing heavily the man continues screaming in rage as he avoids the gaze of the 2 figures riddled with holes.
The man drops his weapon and begins to reflect on his standing in the world at that exact moment. He gains the courage to move the bodies to lie down. He didn’t like the sight of a body gunned down eternally looking down. The man backs away from the 2 figures who seemed to get light by closing their eyes.
He turns away just in view of a beautiful verdant tree. He forgets about his worries for survival but instead has a new intention. The wasteland was no longer a place for death but has a new meaning of resurrection. He begins his journey not looking back.