Paroxysms of Caesars

 I

It was a cold, dark, rainy morning in late September, one of those days that signifies the summer was truly over, as Carrie Woods skipped through the streets of Manhattan on her way to school. Dozens of tall, silver, glass towers reached up hundreds of feet above her to the gray, cloudy, sky and threatened to crumble on her. Many of their windows were broken and their formerly fancy apartments were empty now.

Occasionally, Carrie's black school shoes jumped into a puddle of water that had collected along her path, thinking, 'My feet are going to get wet anyways, so I might as well enjoy it,', as she marched slowly on. The only thing ruining her fun was the severe lack of warmth offered by her school uniform skirt that didn't quite reach her knees.

Carrie joined the long line of people marching down the pristine marble sidewalks on their way to work or school. She put her hand to her forehead and saluted the soldiers with their big scary guns and bulky black body armor as they stood guard on the sidewalk and walked past them. A giggle passed her lips along with the gesture. Some of the boys were actually cute, and Carrie wanted them to notice her. She enjoyed pretending to be one of them. A couple of the soldiers gave Carrie long, lecherous looks up and down as she continued to walk by them.

Carrie was lucky-being the daughter of an army officer, as well as very pretty, and scoring highly on her school tests, meant that she was allowed to continue on with school past the the seventh grade instead of being forced to go to work. She was sixteen now, in what would have been called the eleventh grade back in the older days, and nearly ready to graduate and move on to college. Unless she was claimed by a man and married before graduation, of course.

II

Jason Taylor drove past the rusted out shells of cars long ago abandoned as they sat against the curbs while he slid through the nearly empty streets of Brooklyn behind the wheel of a large, rusty box truck. There was barely any traffic this morning with so many people choosing to stay home and warm indoors on a miserable, gray day like today. The streets were filthy, filled with garbage and the many homeless of the city.

The truck pulled to the mouth of the Brooklyn Bridge and sat, waiting amongst a long line of other vehicles, to be inspected. As he waited for his turn, Jason watched the orange and yellow rays of sun that did break through the clouds as they reflected off the tall glass towers of Manhattan.

Two sentinels, looking no more than twenty years old, in their camouflage uniforms, with black helmets and large machine guns slung across their chests, stood before a large tank at the entrance to the bridge. As soon as Jason saw them, his heart began to pound and his hands to shake. He beat the steering wheel in time to the music playing from his speakers in an attempt to cover his nerves.

Only those people who lived or worked in Manhattan were allowed onto the island now. After Hezbollah had pulled off their biological terror attack in the city and killed hundreds of thousands of people nearly a decade ago, Manhattan was cut off from the rest of the world, guarded and patrolled by heavily armed troops to keep the wealthy inhabitants who insisted on staying in the city safe.

The car ahead was allowed to pass and finally it was his turn. Jason wiped the perspiration from his forehead, under his long, dissheveled black hair as he allowed his vehicle to roll a couple of feet closer to the guards.

One of the soldiers approached the driver's side window with his hand on his gun and asked Jason, "May I see your work permit, Sir?"

Just beyond the hood of the truck stood a second soldier with his gun raised and the barrell pointed directly at Jason's chest, ready to pull the trigger and end Jason's life in a second if he even so much as thought about doing anything shady.