"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein.
You hid a lot of things from me. I didn't mind. I was — and still am — young, and immature, rebellious even more so in the past, when you still walked this world instead of the stars.
Yet, as I was being held in a concrete bunker buried beneath crumbling buildings, and I viewed the world through the television, I knew I didn't know nearly as much about you as I thought; the shadows of broken edifices — of broken civilization — painting terrible murals against rewilded shrubbery.
Every so often, I would be allowed outside; within a courtyard of flourishing flowers, accompanied by women whose names I did not know, for pithy moments.
These moments are only long enough for one crisp deep breath — or to gaze up — or to touch the grass that sat beneath me.
It felt like a prison here. But I wouldn't complain.
I saw the riots, all across the planet, people marching over one enough, scrambling for the droplets of water that were still on the shelves, people leaving babies to cry; people fighting to survive.
War has existed for a long time, but hunger, longer. A news tabloid sucked the joy out of my body as they reported the trampling of a young child, only a few years younger than myself.
I lingered around the living room for a while. Doing nothing, having nothing to say, or do, the library was packed full of books, and more wisdom than I could ever read, but I didn't feel like it — not right now — and probably not for a long time.
All this prepared. It makes me wonder whether you knew — and left knowing — how selfish that would be; I don't want to think about it further.
One of the private culinarians you hired shouted, their voice echoing across the barren hall. "Dinner's ready."
I suppose it's time to go. I'll write sometime soon. Goodbye, Dad, love, Max. From Earth to Superbia.
P.S. I'm not angry anymore. Not much, at least.
OUTSIDE THE CONCRETE PRISON.
At a long table of finely polished wood, men and women, old and young, sat; Sharp cutting eyes and low-hung heads. Sunset blazing through the window, washing the insides of the dreary domicile crimson-- the color of all the blood to be spilt.
Amongst the many people sitting in this sea of government, was Cassandra. The Aunt to Maxine. A callous woman who hadn't yet had the time to sort out the pain that's been left behind by her father.
She didn't know whether she'd ever get that time, and it irked her knowing that her older brother had done the same to his daughter.
She saw her Father's insidious shadow in the bags of Y/N's eyes. Or in how he held a pen or the way he crossed his legs.
It irked her to see how similar they were.
But she had bigger issues. Like how the fulcrum that had carried the scale had broken, and the lever they were desperately holding back to prevent war had gone off carrying with it a payload of extinction to all but the microbes.
Crimson hues shaped her black tresses into a mane.
She'd barely had time to manicure herself. Feeling disgusted by her own skin, she'd often sleep on the floor in her apartment.
The ripe grape of a man — who seemed even thicker than the last time he'd appeared on national television — held his fingers into a triangle. The buttons holding back waves of gravy-filled fat-- a herculean labor.
This was our Commander-in-Chief. The President. A man who could wipe out nations with a button, the wrinkles on his face looked like dunes made of meat, and he too, was subdued into his chair. Just as everyone else was.
"War is coming," He paused. Not to start a grand speech, but to recline even further into his seat, the metal frame would've groaned if it had a mouth under his weight. "No. War has come."
He brushed his fingers through his sweaty mop of auburn hair. He cringed as he did, as if surprised by the filthiness of himself.
"As President. I decree, as my last writ, martial law."
No one seemed shocked. Everyone's eyebrows already sunk as much as they could, hiding their eyes beneath their brows. The air was heavy like a thunderstorm was rolling above, and through.
The first to speak. A thickly muscular man, like he'd been a baroque portrait of a spartan, pulled out of the paint, and given newer colors.
That was our Secretary of War. His thinning brows were platinum gray, pushing against his dark skin.
"President. Sir, if I may."
The ball of meat nodded lazily. Like he'd wanted a plate of grapes beside him to chew on and a Coke to drink in this highly important meeting.
"We've got the coordinates on 13 locations; with your command—"
"Send them. Send them all. Rather them than us. Ignore the fallout. What is 1 to 6? What is 6 to all?" He uttered.
Sharp inhale sucked all the oxygen out of the air. Leaving worried thoughts to float around unspoken. The surrealism settled deep in their bones.
She saw a handful of hands curl into the armrest.
I SUPPOSE THIS IS IT FOR US.
I WISH MAXINE HAD BEEN BORN IN ANOTHER ERA.
A TIME FAR BEYOND THIS. THIS PETTY MARTYR OF THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE. NO-- NOT A MARTYR, A MASSACRE, A GENOCIDE.
The meeting concluded with nothing more important — everyone else here for formality — as if that mattered as armageddon approached faster than the sand ticked out of their natural hourglasses.
TO THINK WHAT KILLED US WAS NEITHER PLAGUE, NOR METEOR, BUT US OURSELVES.
She left, getting in a jet-black car. Riding far from humanity. To lay down, in a wheat field, she'd always loved nature, the way frogs croaked, or how cows mooed, or how birds flew.
If she was to die soon. She'd like to say goodbye to her niece and lay on the grass. Or a river, perhaps she'll turn into a fossil that way.
She wondered how her brother was doing; the last update they'd gotten had fallen into unimportance as the metaphoric powder keg exploded.
Cassandra would pray that he was safe; but right now, she'd rather have him hug her, and tell her it'd be alright, with his cavalier smile because she didn't feel safe. Not now, and not ever.
Even more so, if Superbia-001 fell, there was nothing she could do. God has averted their eyes.
She got out of her car. She let the modest skirt get dirtied as she lounged on the meadow, arms outstretched towards the sky.
She clenched her fist over the sun a few times. Jealous of never once seeing what was beyond the horizon, wondering if she could ever be something like that, something like a star.
How unaffected they were by everything. That was how she pretended. Placing her emotions in a cage, then throwing that cage behind glass — or a few glasses — of alcohol or poison. To take her mind away from the past, or her thoughts that run rampant without supervision.
She touched her neck. A faint scar peeking over the long turtleneck she wore, a consequence of overthinking. A short stint of depression, followed by neon lights, roofied drinks, a few therapists quitting, crying in a hospital, alcohol, and musky cologne above dirty carpets.
She regretted that part of her life — but she was happy — that she failed, failed to bring life into this world. She'd hate, if this was a place that her child would live in and die in, like a pig on a farm, never again able to see blue skies.
So, she once again wondered how her brother was doing. The only good thing that's happened during her oddly ubiquitous suffering.
I REMEMBER THE PICTURE OF THE MAN. WITH WAR IS HELL, HE WAS RIGHT, I SUPPOSE, BUT—.. BUT NOW THAT WE'VE BEEN BROUGHT HERE, I SUPPOSE EARTH IS HELL TOO.
HARD TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE WHEN THE SKY WILL SOON SMELL OF SULFUR AND THE EARTH SCORCHED TO BRIMSTONE.
Men do not burn down homes as they reach the end of their lives. They leave it to their descendants, yet it seems we've forgone that for our largest home—"Earth"