The First Catastrophe

Small tendrils of green peeked out from under the gravel.

The sun shone hard and dry on the place. It smelled of death, and reeked of fear, and was poisoned with blood. The buildings were stone and marble and concrete and cement, yet they felt hollow. They were empty. The inhabitants who had given these buildings purpose had left, taking all that life with them. They stood as silent guardians, sad watchers, waiting for the day that people would come back.

They would not.

No sounds lived in this place. A tragedy floated in the air, like a bitter taste on the tongue, one that even many glasses of milk and cubes of sugar could not remove. The people who had lived here had gone. Never to come back.

They could not.

It had been ten years to the day, on this day, when the sun had been unusually harsh. Ten whole years. Some of them had children, some of them had died. Some of them were in their dying throes. They had been told that the effects would last well over a thousand years. They were told to give up hope, they could never return. Most of them did give up hope, seeing their colleagues and comrades dying, skin boiling, turning red, turning black, recovering, to give a bit of hope. Just that one bit was the straw that broke the camel’s back. They thought, maybe not this time. Maybe not us. The calm before the storm. Then they would die. Most gave up hope. A few did not.

They did not.

The wind whistled, shrill, shocking. In this place where there was no noise, but the silence shouted murder. Weeped for the tragedy that had occurred. The wind whistled.

That day, many of the husbands had gone, in hours throughout the night, thinking it was okay. The wives didnt. They had a terrible feeling, every single one of them. Yet what did the husbands care. Wives always have a terrible feelings. Ninety nine times out of a hundred they were wrong. They were not wrong this time.

They were not.

The first batch of husbands that went in were the workers at the plant. Called in for an extra shift, it is nothing to worry about, it is nothing serious. Just need some extra hands on deck. Then came the firefighters to put out the fire, by that time, the explosion had woken everyone up. Some were watching from the bridge. None of those would survive either. Watching from a distance, out in the air, where the poison was spreading. Not one of them would live past the next five years.

They were told nothing would survive, all would be poisoned. It had. Everything shrivelled, leaves turning to brown, then withering crisps of black, a single touch and they would turn to powder. Trees cracked, split from the inside, opening up like flowers when the sun broke the sky with its light. Over time, everything returned to the earth. Gravel was the only thing left. That too was poisoned. The air breathed fire.

Small tendrils of green peeked out from the gravel.