Tag: fiction

(Author’s Note: Early on in my blogging, to honor the old pulp magazine serials, I began a weekly serial series of various of my stories. I have decided to repost those stories. Each Friday will feature a new chapter until a story ends. Then I will begin a new story. Enjoy!)

Chapter 1 – All Is Still

Chapter 2 – I Crawl

Chapter 3: I Weep

Chapter 4 – I Hear

Chapter 5 – We Sleep

June 7

Forgive me for these short entrees. I just don’t have the strength to write much anymore.We made it to the Tree today. We were right, it is alive. How, I don’t understand. Eveline has fallen into an exhausted sleep and so soon shall I.

June 8

Eveline died today.

I felt Life cease coursing through her hand, and I real­ize that soon I too must . . .

Written Sept. 12, 1985

Part of the Cold War Kid collection

(Author’s Note: Early on in my blogging, to honor the old pulp magazine serials, I began a weekly serial series of various of my stories. I have decided to repost those stories. Each Friday will feature a new chapter until a story ends. Then I will begin a new story. Enjoy!)

Chapter 1 – All Is Still

Chapter 2 – I Crawl

Chapter 3: I Weep

Chapter 4 – I Hear

June 2

I awoke to a scratching sound. A sound? A sound! A sound means life, doesn’t it? It took me awhile to figure out that the scratching came from behind me. I spoke and remembered how weird my own voice sounded in that gray dawn, “H-H-Hello.” Like an echo, it came back. The same huskiness from dis­use, the same uncertainty, the same disbelief. Another person? Someone to share my hurt, to lean on? Another to talk to?

The scratching became louder as the other began to dig more frantically. I too wished to help and began to eagerly cast boulders here and there. No boulder, however big, was a match for the awesome strength that coursed through my veins. Soon a tousled and dirtied head of hair appeared and then a face and then shoulders, arms, legs, a body! Suddenly, two strangers were embraced in each other’s arms. So began the happiest days of my life.

Eveline and I shared so much this afternoon. How she had struggled beneath tons of concrete to find a way outside, always clutching the book so special to her. She read from it today, sharing her favorite parts with me, and I too am finding that it is becoming special to me.

“Lo, I am with you always.”

“Come to me all who are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

“Aren’t you worth much more than sparrows?”

In deep contentment, we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

June 5

Eveline and I have spent these last couple of days just simply sharing with each other and to my shame, I realize that I have been neglecting this diary. Eveline feels it is impor­tant too. Maybe another future generation will read it and not make the same mistake our generation did.

June 6

Eveline and I have decided, realizing that our strength is almost gone, to crawl toward a distant pine tree outside of Town. It symbolizes the new life we shall share together soon. From what we can tell from here, it is still living. We start­ed today and slept on the outskirts of Town.

(Originally posted here March 2012. Written in 1985 at age 18).

(Author’s Note: Early on in my blogging, to honor the old pulp magazine serials, I began a weekly serial series of various of my stories. I have decided to repost those stories. Each Friday will feature a new chapter until a story ends. Then I will begin a new story. Enjoy!)

Chapter 1 – All Is Still

Below, in a dark expanse of treeless land void of all life, stands a lone pine. Its needles are dying and begin to cover the two forms below it with a soft, brown carpet. The humans lie with their backs against the pine’s trunk, their hands clasped firmly even in death. In her other hand, the woman holds a small black book with worn edges close to her breast. The man grasps a sheaf of fast-yellowing papers. A broken pen lies on the ground beside him. Those papers hold a story that will soon be forgotten, but you must hear it anyway.
May 24

I awoke to a stillness I have never felt before, or shall again. I couldn’t hear the birds’ sweet singing or even the wind rustling through the trees. Where were the robin’s glad song and the pine’s whisperings?

My curiosity aroused, I struggled, with much pain and a­gony, to raise myself to my knees. This feat accomplished, I brushed the dirt and ash from my eyes and looked around. The sight that met my eyes made me begin to weep.

Of the pine? All trees I could see were but charred black stumps in a blackened ground. No longer would the breeze whisper through beautiful green foliage or waft a tree’s fresh scent throughout the land. The only scent that came through the air on the wings of the wind was the nauseating smell of . . .

Of the robin? The only bird I saw was a corpse lying in front of me, its beak still opened in song. His brightly­ colored feathers would no longer glisten in the sunlight. They were forever blackened by fire and ash.

Exhausted from the effort of getting up and with hope­lessness in my breast, I fell into a fitful slumber, weeping.
May 25

I awoke again to that same awful stillness. I probably will for the rest of my life. I suppose this is May 25, though I can barely see the sun through the dirty, hazy blanket Earth’s atmosphere has become. Anyway, I will enter this ac­count under that given date. It doesn’t matter what day it is anyway, I doubt anyone’s keeping track anymore. From what little sun I can see and the slope of the land where I lie, it seems tome that town is to-the north of me. I find that I haven’t the strength to get up so am beginning to crawl slowly and painfully northward. After crawling a few hun­dred yards through still-smoldering sand and ash, I collapse in an exhausted heap. There will be no more progress today. Still thinking about “progress” and where it had gotten humans, I fall into a fitful slumber. Darkness.

(Originally posted here March 2012. Written in 1985 at age 18).