A quote: “First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.” ~~ Dale Carnegie
I’ll start with a story …
*******************************
It wasn’t easy to keep it a secret and the longer the drive the more suspicious glances I got.
But the payoff was wonderful. She had always dreamed of a real vacation getaway. Somewhere she could spend as much time as possible in sweats or a cozy robe, coffee on the balcony, evenings with a view of stars with no possibility of light pollution.
We climbed, twisting up a road that wasn’t much, and the approach showed little more than a grass covered hill dotted with wildflowers. Out of the truck, I walked her around to the front and my wife of 3 decades squealed like she was 16 again.
The next morning, I brought us out coffee on the front balcony as she drank in the view, the distance mountains, the pines swaying in the breeze. Her smile was as bright as sun just cresting over the mountains.
“Hon, we’re here for good.”
Her smile faded, “What?”
“The City is falling. It could be this week or next month. But we can’t go back.”
Her eyes grew wide as I took her hand, “I’ve made every provision for us. And…” I tipped my head towards the foot of our mountain where dust was rising.
“The kids are joining us. We’re in charge of our own future now.”
*******************************
Now, it’s your turn …
.
.
.
.
.
.featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
When I was little, Uncle Archie and Aunt Mindy had a lakefront property. Their house had a huge patio that went right out to the shoreline, with a dock where Uncle Archie kept his boat tied up. The living room and dining room faced it, and had a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass on that side, with tall glass doors to go out onto the patio.
Sometimes someone would leave one of the doors standing open, and it would reflect images of the lake and the distant mountains on the other side, only at an angle slightly askew. When I try to explain what it’s like to have transtemporal clairvoyance, to see into other timelines where things went differently, I often draw upon that visual.
Except it doesn’t really give any sense of what it feels like to see familiar people and places, but different from what we know. And sometimes it’s the slight differences rather than the big ones that are the most upsetting. The sort of things that make you think if only rather than now that’s weird.
Cameron says: I walked to the deck as she was watching the clouds pass through the mountains. She looked at me with a mildly reproachful look.
“You were up late last night,” she said. The anger in her tone was fake and it soon gave way to her smile.
“Sorry,” I said. “There was a lot demanding my attention and I wanted it dealt with so I don’t have to do work for the next decade.”
“Mm,” she replied. “Aren’t the grandkids getting ready for college?”
I grinned. “Three of them, yes. I made sure the scholarships were waiting for them. Come April, they’ll have a nice surprise.”
“And did I hear you yelling at people around eleven?”
I shook my head. “I spent the better part of two hours explaining why certain companies were going to fail and what should take their place.”
We watched a hawk go gliding past for a moment. “But it’s done. I’ll do the standard checks on the accounts in a year.”
She leaned against me. “I’m impressed that you can invest so well.”
I grinned. “We’ve been alive for a few centuries, dear. We have to learn things in order to keep from getting bored.”
Darleen Click says: Members of the Howard Families? 🙂
Cameron says: heh. Makes sense. I mentioned in a previous story that there is this thing called the Methuselah Gene that stops people from aging around the early 20s. I just bring up those people every once in a while. -:-)
Sheila Garrett says: Abby found Miz Carrie in the basement kitchen, filling two large kettles with water from the tank on the wood stove. She spoke immediately. “Harry says you’ve been outside. We’ve been stuck in this stinking basement for three weeks waiting for you to say we can leave and you decide that you’re going to leave first. Well, me and Harry are leaving. We’re going back to our own house and you can’t stop us.”
Carrie barely glanced at the young woman. “Of course. I told you that you could leave whenever you wanted. But could I get you to help get this cart to the other side of the basement before you start packing?”
Reluctantly Abby agreed. Minutes later they entered a room with two blanket wrapped figures centered on plastic tarps on the floor. Carrie motioned for help getting the kettles beside each figure, grabbed a shallow dish and a rag from the bottom of the cart and flipped back the blanket.
Abby nearly screamed. “What is that!?”.
“My neighbor.” Carrie replied. “They’re the closest ones we found. This is what three weeks of radiation exposure looks like.”
The woman on the floor moaned, “Why didn’t you tell us…if you knew.”
“Not enough time, honey. Modern missiles can get from Asia to the U.S. in just under a half hour. The fallout from the closest bomb to us took another half hour. I called my family, I called the people who work for me, I barely got the cattle under cover.”
Carrie looked up at Abby, tears starting down her face. “I saved you and your baby. Do you really want to leave?”
Shaking her head in horror, Abby fled into the basement.
5 Comments