Après les Apocalypse

Copyright 2020, PostScriptor

I ran across a prompt from another author that I thought was amusing. This short tale is the result. I've placed it in SciFi/Fantasy due to the post-crash of civilization aspect. Hope you enjoy!

**~**

I saw her struggling up the hill that I was sitting on.

I had really been sitting here peacefully contemplating the skeleton and ruined flesh of what had been, until very recently, one of the great cities on earth. Just imagine how foreign it is to me, thinking of Los Angeles that way. Most of the time the only thought I had given the place was cursing the bad traffic and wondering why they didn't just build some more damn freeways!

Now, like a bad horror/sci-fi post-apocalypse movie, I was regretting my lack of gratitude for all of the things that civilization had made available to us all. Theaters. Restaurants. Grocery stores. Museums. Even the opera down at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion that I only attended under protest to please my wife. Well, ex-wife. Damn. I'd actually grown rather fond of 'Nessun dorma.'

I picked up my water bottle (lots of bottled waters left at every 7-11 store) and took a swig.

The woman -- at least I assumed she was a woman from her long locks and the dress that she was wearing -- was getting close enough now that I could start to discern her features. She seemed, even at this distance, somewhat familiar. Maybe it was the way that she walked. She was the first other living person that I had seen in the two months since the great collapse.

Oddly enough, although the people who ran the machinery weren't alive anymore, a lot of things were still running, as it were, on autopilot. I suspected everything would begin gradually winding down as fuel ran out and parts broke with no one to replace them. The second law of thermodynamics would guarantee that order would deteriorate into chaos without energy added to the system. I had been living by looting the now unprotected stores full of goods but empty of customers. I was finally able to dress in the exquisite clothes that I'd envied in my old life, but couldn't afford. But now, there was no one who cared how well I dressed. Oh well. You can't win them all.

The woman was getting closer and I was truly becoming nervous. It was most likely an illusion; my mind was desperate to escape from reality. But the figure kept coming ever closer. I could feel the panic setting in already. She stopped about 20 feet in front of me. She looked and rubbed her eyes and then looked again, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing either. Neither could I, if that gave her any comfort. I blinked twice and she was still there.

"Chris?" she asked, her voice was weak and sounding much less aggressive than the last time we spoke in Court when our divorce was granted.

"Hello, Martha. I'd ask how you were doing, but I think I already know. It's good to see you. I'm glad you survived."

She nodded and sat down next to me. I offered her my water and she took a sip.

"I guess that divorcing me because I wasn't ambitious enough seems a bit trivial now, doesn't it."

She nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Chris," she paused before she spoke again, "And I guess when I started shouting at you and told you I wouldn't sleep with you again if you were the last man on earth has kind of gone out the window too. It's okay. I was just lying to hurt you anyway."

I just nodded and took her hand in mine. I didn't even bother to gloat. After all, we were going to have to make it together, or we wouldn't make it at all.

At that moment I had an epiphany: the two of us had a better change of surviving together than the two of us apart. Who knows, maybe some wild beasties had survived too, and two of us could fight them off better than just one.

Come to think on it, maybe I needed to break into a gun shop someplace and get some ammo and firearms.

The second thing I realized was that I had been lonely and missed Martha. She was actually pretty nice when she hadn't been ragging on me for not pushing for promotions and raises.

"Chris?" she started to ask something.

"No. This is a new beginning for us. I'm not Chris anymore. Call me Adam. I'll call you Eve."

We smiled at each other and sealed it with a kiss.

I hope that Eve was still able to have children; we had a civilization to restart!

***

I just realized that Lit. never posted this story because it was a couple of words short, so I'm throwing it up again.