The Wasteland Society

The Pros and Cons of Living in a Post-Apocalyptic City

It has been 14 days since they arrived. Since society was left behind in a wreckage of dust and darkness. The hunger and the cold nights are terrible, but there is something so much worse.

The smell.

The stench of decay which hovers above the corpses, seemingly endless. The horrific and painfully noticeable smell of the rotting flesh. It's even worse than having to look at them. Their shrivelled skin and bloody faces are nothing compared to the miasma filling the air.

Mavis stopped writing, checking her small leather watch. A rag covered her face, secured at the back of her head in a tight knot. Almost 6pm. She got up and wandered outside, waiting for the now familiar broadcast to play from New York's bomb siren speakers. As her watch struck 6:00, a deafening and charismatic voice gave the announcement.

'Congratulations! You are now one of the twelve citizens of Earth to still be alive! We are almost concerned that you'll all survive the next few weeks, and we can't let that happen, can we?' The man laughed mercilessly. 'I suppose that all we can do now is wait. Remember, if you're the last one surviving, you will join us as part of the true human race. What a wonderful prize! Have a good night, and a good remainder of your fragile life.'

Mavis sighed, walking back inside. She would rather die than join them, although the thought of being the last person alive was very intriguing. It was the one reason that she kept going. Lying on the couch of her adopted home, Mavis signed her journal with her name and signature. She wasn't even sure why she wrote her experiences down. There was no one left to read the words that she had written. No one left to care. She flicked to a new page in her tattered book. In the title space, she wrote 'The Pros and Cons of Living in a Post-Apocalyptic City'. She drew a line down the middle of the page. Marking one side as 'pros' and one side as 'cons', she began to think. Her list, when finished, looked something like this:

Pros:
-It's quiet
-Everything's free
-I don't have to put up with other people
-I can do whatever I want

Cons:
-The smell
-The amount of dead people
-The lack of electricity
-There's dust everywhere
-My friends are dead
-My family is dead
-I'm lonely
-Buildings are starting to crumble
-It's dark
-I'm bored

Mavis stopped herself from writing. She decided that it would only make her feel worse. Instead she wrote 'etc...' at the bottom of her list, sighing. She remembered back to before they dropped the bombs. Before everyone died. At the end of her page she wrote in small handwriting.

To think that we saw them as angels. We were blinded by their wings. We were blinded by their beauty. We were wrong. The human race shall no longer admire the beautiful, as it is what ended everything. Beauty ended us.

Mavis closed her journal, placing it at the side of her sofa. She closed her eyes, drifting to sleep in the deafening silence.