Callisto

Old World Blues

Smashed pictures that lined the desk beside the window of the room bore images of people and places that meant nothing to her. One image displayed the form of a young girl wearing what looked like a woolen coat, holding the hand of a taller woman whose face looked like that of a plastic doll saturated in scarlet, indigos, and violets. She may have been the mother of this child, who painted her face in a much thicker coat than the Hanakh could ever use for their tribal markings. Whoever these people were, they were long gone. Rain-Born wondered if they could have survived the great collapse of their world. She knew better than to hope against the odds these two would have faced in the Deadlands.

One picture suddenly caught her eye.

She held it close to her face, the broken glass of the picture frame pricking her finger slightly before she confirmed her suspicions. There she was! The little "pug" in the arms of the girl with the woolen jumper. This picture locked the dog's form in place and time, where she was licking the girl's face in petrified happiness. Rain-Born smiled at the innocence of the image and spared a look at the sleeping dog with her children all around her.

There you are, she thought. In a happier time. I wonder if you have waited here long. I wonder if you still wait here for this girl to return to you.

She placed the picture on the little cabinet by the mirror. It was almost like a shrine to this home's old owners. She touched her palm to her chest and inclined her head before the picture, uttering a small prayer to the Great Spirit that this family might be reunited one day.

Rain-Born realized that she could never build up an accurate picture of the Old World from a single room and reasoned that consuming some morning rations might be a better use of her time. But she was struck by one object in the room that she could not comprehend. No matter how she looked at it, the thing defied explanation. She sat and stared at its form while she ravenously chewed on a tiny piece of Stalker jerky, trying to visualize this object"s possible usage.

It was a rectangular structure (why had the old ones been so obsessed with this shape?) with a hollowed-out center where its mechanical innards were draped like long locks of thin hair. A thin antenna pointed at the ceiling like a Stalker's sensory organ. Those beasts used it to communicate in the canyons of her home. Maybe this object held a similar function for the humans of the past?

"Anything good on the box?"

Jespar's voice reached her from behind as he wiped his tired eyes and joined her, staring at the metal contraption.

"This box, Jespar, what is its purpose?"

"Hah!" He giggled mischievously. "Tell you what, I'll show you."

He approached the object and picked up a small device at its feet. He dropped it from his mouth into Rain-Born's open palm, and she saw that it was a dust-caked oblong with several buttons attached to its barely stable surface.

While she pondered the strange nature of the thing, he walked off somewhere else. She jerked her head up suddenly, seeing that he had disappeared.

"Jespar?"

"Goooooood morning, ladies and gentlemen!"

Jespar's tiny head poked up from the box"s rotted cables and filled the rectangular hole.

"This is your host, the miraculous, the magnanimous, and the marvelous mistake of nature J-E-S-P-A-R. That spells Jespar, baby. It's a beaut-i-ful morning here in post-apocalyptia, and I hope I'm not comin' on too strong when I say you're looking fiiiiine today! Coming up, we got some advice from our resident weather expert on what to expect in the next few days (spoiler: it's rain. Lots and lots of rain). We got some early morning interviews with tribal warriors, mad spiders, tentacle monsters, and even a walking, talking shadow! How's that to kickstart your week? Now, I know some of you folks may be feelin' those Monday blues kicking in, but daddy-o, when you see Martha's recipe for baked arachnid leg, you're gonna be spending your whole morning in the kitchen whippin' up some of that sweet, sweet spider (disclaimer: giant mutant spider may not be suitable for consumption by children, animals, pregnant women, old people, people under 12cm, and generally anyone whose taste buds haven't given up the goat). Stay tuned, folks, because we've got the cure for what ails you right here, right now, and it's nothin' but the chill vibes this old bull terrier's putting down. On with the show!"