Apocalypse.

-
 The room fell into an unrelenting darkness as the power died. One minute bright as day under the daylight bright LED’s and next - black. My hands groped under the sink for my flashlight, its meagre, almost flat battery beam barely making a difference. My phone buzzed with an insistent urgency: "EMERGENCY ALERT: Unidentified celestial event detected. Seek shelter immediately. Stay tuned for updates."

‘Celestial event,’ I thought, ‘what the fuck is a celestial event?’ 

The announcement, devoid of details, was a bit of a worry, as helpful as it was useless. Celestial event? Seek shelter? I was in my kitchen, was that shelter? Did I need an umbrella? Should I start digging a cellar? I mean, really? And then the last bit - Stay tuned? Tuned to what? My phone? I asked Alexa but, of course, no use. I went up the internet. What internet?

Eventually I found a radio - and it had batteries! The reports crackling through the static like desperate pleas for help. Apparently power grids had crumbled, plunging cities into chaos. People were being told not to panic - a sure recipe for instilling panic. I was, I admit, just a tad worried by it all. Worse, the kettle didn’t work so no cup of tea.

Luckily, I had gin. And tonic in the still cold, but dark, fridge. No lemons though.

I listened to the wireless. I tried to text people but none of the apps were working and neither was my phone - literally zero bars. Useless.

In the dim light of the radio's display, I drank my gin and ate buttered cream crackers. Reports spoke of anomalies in the night sky, celestial aberrations that defied explanation. The celestial event was, by all accounts an unexpected enigma. A government minister came on saying everything was in hand and that it was a freak act of nature and nothing the government could have foreseen. That’s when I knew we were in deep shit.

A day passed. Society frayed at the edges, and after two days since it went dark there was widespread looting and rioting. The radio said that Marshal Law had been declared and there was now a curfew. Some blokes turned up with a load of bottled water. Some ladies arrived with some cold steak and kidney stew and potatoes. A policeman knocked on the door and told me to stay at home. Everything stopped working. Literally everything, including the radio and my phone. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Oh no.

At the end of day two I ran out of tonic.

And then the local yobbery decided that this was their moment and started breaking into peoples houses and stealing their stuff from right in front of them. It got nasty. There were knives and the odd shotgun. Brave pensioners defended themselves. Some of the yobbery became terminally unwell as a result.

By day five there was actually a body blocking my front gate. And it stank. The water blokes just threw a couple of bottles at my front door. Steak and kidney stew lady was nowhere to be seen. A policeman, armed to the teeth, kicked the body to one side, came up my path and knocked. He asked if I’d got anything to eat. I gave him my last tin of mandarin segments and then he told me to stay at home.

And then, on day seven, very suddenly, the lights came on. And so did the fridge. And so did my phone.

I still had no tonic though, so I made a cup of tea.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eli

-
Eli squinted, the unforgiving sun blazing relentlessly above. It has been years. A lifetime of this relentless brightness. His aged face, which bore the creases of someone who had lived through a particular era, looked out over the shimmering dunes of the desert, which seemed to go on forever. The tales of a bygone era, when the celestial expanse shimmered with countless stars and the serene glow of the moon illuminated the world, had faded into obscurity. Here, the past seemed to slip away, the moon a distant memory.  He embodied a bygone era, a living testament to a time when Earth's deteriorating ecosystems compelled a frantic quest for a fresh abode. This desolate, scorching planet, Proxima B, had provided the solution. But what is the price?  However, a gust of transformation swept through. The days gradually and inevitably became cooler. The sun appeared to sink lower in the sky. After months of careful observation, Eli confirmed a clear trend: the sun was gradually lowe...
Read more

The Kite.

-
He was definitely what you would call a weird man. No doubt about it. Bartholomew Wizzle lived in a charming little town that was like something out of a story book. The streets and alleyways were all narrow and twisty, with interesting nooks and surprising squares. The buildings all ancient and astonishingly close together. There was a Main Street, but it was mostly a market place and although the Main Street was paved with large stone slabs, the rest of the streets and alleyways were cobbled with the local blue-grey cobble stones from the silvery river that ran through the town. The town was surrounded by whispering forests and rolling hills. It was delightfully old fashioned and quaint. You wouldn't call Mr. Wizzle a regular guy. Nope. Not in a month of Sundays. What he was though, was a master of the esoteric arts, a dealer in anomalies, and a merchant of wonders. Hidden along a winding cobblestone alley, his little shop held an assortment of oddities, many of which would amaze...
Read more

Archibald

-
Archibald Wordsworth, a librarian of eccentric tastes, was a man of unique curiosities. His mind, constantly bubbling with a whirlwind of ideas, frequently became engrossed in the most peculiar of topics. And on this lovely spring morning, the humble pigeon captured his eccentric fascination. With a passion rivalling that of the most devoted bird enthusiasts, Archibald had immersed himself in the study of these winged inhabitants of Austin Majoris. Recently, he was regularly spotted sitting by the library window, captivated by the mesmerising spectacle of their elaborate movements along the bustling city streets. "Pigeons," he would mutter to himself, his eyes sparkling with an intriguing glimmer. "Intriguing beings." Some may view them as mere pests, but I see them as the true rulers of the cityscape, gracefully manoeuvring through the busy streets and narrow alleys despite their humble origins in the towering rocks and cliffs surrounding the city.” His colleagues ...
Read more