Kelly Talbot

Kelly Talbot

After the Apocalypse, Day 114

Rachid stopped pedaling his bicycle and looked toward the sky. The sun’s halo glowed brilliantly along the roof of a Denver skyscraper on the west side of the street. It was after noon for sure. He stepped off his bike, put down the kickstand, and removed his backpack. He did his best to estimate the direction where east by northeast might be. Dad would have known the right direction. His jaw tightened in irritation. Then shame and sorrow scrunched his eyes. He resolved not to cry and relaxed his face.

He unrolled his prayer mat and cleared his mind of such thoughts, focusing on his prayers.

He used to hate praying. It felt like some duty that had been thrust upon him by a quirk of cultural identity, and he had resented it. He had always performed the prayers mechanically by rote, practically leaping from his mat when he finished them.

Now it was different. Praying filled him with a profound sense of peace. It cleared his mind and his heart. He felt closer to Allah now.

Even so, he wasn’t sure precisely where Mecca was or what time he should be praying. He was pretty confident that Allah would forgive him for that, as he had no way of really knowing. And there were no people left to judge him, Muslim or otherwise, in all of Denver. Maybe America. Maybe even the world.

In that sense, he was finally free.

And yet, Rachid could still imagine what many Muslims might say, particularly from the Middle East. That he wasn’t a “real” Muslim. That he was an American impostor. Who the hell were they to judge him, anyway? His relationship with Allah was between him and Allah. And he knew it.

There was no one left to force Rachid to be whoever they wanted him to be. He pondered this for a moment. Who did he want to be? Now that he was free of his father’s overbearing nature, the prejudice of Christians and Jews, the stereotypes foisted on him by America, and the constant appraisal of his worth by fellow Muslims, what did he actually want?

Rachid slowly rolled up his prayer mat and strapped it to his backpack. As he climbed onto his bike, he remembered where the Denver Public Library was over by North Lincoln Street. They surely must have Aramaic-English dictionaries, Qu’rans, and books about Islam. He could learn to pray properly, not because anyone said to, but because it was a way of showing Allah that he loved Him. He would become his own imam.

A cool breeze blew through his hair, refreshing him. He gazed upward toward heaven. The sky was a deep blue sapphire, unmarred by a single cloud. It was breathtaking.

Kelly Talbot

After the Apocalypse, Day 347

The Grand Haven lighthouse slowly grew taller and wider, blazing scarlet in the morning sun against the misty western sky behind it. Jackson kept his eyes fixed on it as he strode forward, immersed in the surreality of the moment. The cement pier, still wet from last night’s rain, squeaked under his shoes with each step. He watched the red grow and grow until the blue on either side disappeared and he was inches away from its surface. They had just repainted the whole lighthouse two years ago, and it was perfect.

For now, anyway. Nobody was ever going to paint it again. In theory, that was okay. There were no more boats. Nobody was going to need it anymore. Jackson understood that, but he also recognized that the giant steel structure would eventually fall into disrepair, the paint would flake away, the metal underneath would rust, and the whole tower would crumble. That would be centuries from now, long after he was gone. Even so, Jackson felt a wistful nostalgia as if he were in that farflung future, wishing back for today.

“Sure, Jackson. That’s what you’ve got to feel melancholy about,” he muttered softly, and then he chuckled at the absurdity of such a notion.

He strolled the rest of the way to the end of the pier. Sometimes he still hoped to see old Hank or Marnie sitting in a chair with a fishing pole, like in the old days. A lot of people used to come here to fish. Jackson had never understood how they could have the patience to just sit there all day long.

A seagull caught the breeze coming off of Lake Michigan and let it buoy him upward, and then, spotting something from the corner of his eye, curved a wing and arced downward into the spray. It emerged, joyous and triumphant. There was something majestic and soothing about that. Jackson gazed at the gulls diving for fish for what seemed like hours.

When he finally turned to head back up the pier, he resolved to come back tomorrow morning. Not to look for Hank and Marnie. To watch the gulls. Hell, he might even go into town and find a fishing pole.

Kelly Talbot

After the Apocalypse, Day 421

Tomeika carried her folded stool and plastic bucket out to the row of tomato plants behind her house. She sat down and gingerly pinched the mites and aphids from the leaves of her plants. Many of the tomatoes were starting to color now, but hundreds of little yellow flowers were still forming. This was a good year for tomatoes.

As she shifted her weight, she felt the cell phone in her left pocket press uncomfortably into her hip. She stood up, pulled the phone out of her pocket, and stared at it. The damn thing hadn’t been charged in over a year. And it had been even longer since anyone had called her. It was silly to still be carrying it around. She pulled her arm way back, ready to hurl it over the fence into her long-dead neighbor’s yard.

No, that wouldn’t be right, she reflected. It was funny, how the little things still mattered somehow. The ideas of propriety, respect, civic duty, right and wrong. She walked into the house.

She couldn’t put the phone in the trash. There was no one to pick up the trash any more. All of her food waste went into the compost pile in the corner of her property. What to do with an old piece of plastic that nobody needed anymore? She opened a kitchen drawer and slipped it inside.

Bella padded into the room, rubbed against her legs, and purred.

Tomeika picked her up and petted her, looking outside at her dwarf lemon trees. It would still be weeks, maybe longer, before the fruit were ready to be harvested. That was a shame. She yearned for a good lemon. She positively ached for one.

“That’s okay Bella. The good things are worth waiting for, right?”

She carried the cat outside and set her down. As Bella prowled the garden for chipmunks, Tomeika walked over to her row of tomato plants. She plucked a ripe plump cherry, popped it in her mouth, and squeezed it between her teeth, feeling the sweet juice across her tongue. She held it in her mouth for almost a minute, savoring the flavor for as long as possible, until she finally had to swallow it.

Humming softly, she resumed tending to her tomatoes.