Aftermath

The sun began to set over a dark and desolate cityscape,

Whose fallen towers and shattered windows revealed there was nothing to salvage,

Whose cracked roads and dust-caked streetlights showed no living human was to be seen,

Whose grey clouds and miasmal fog painted a scene of death and decay.

And on those rotting streets, there lay a sea of bodies,

Whose charred, crackling flesh still sizzled, hours after the impact,

Whose screams still echoed in the air, plastered on their blackened faces,

Whose coal-black corpses nearly blended in with the singed asphalt.

And around these bodies, almost no sound could be heard,

Except for the soft buzzing and squeaking of this city’s survivors,

Except for the rodents and insects, who stumbled out of their burrows with ease,

Except for the new inhabitants of this wasteland.

And as they examined their broiled home, they searched onwards for food,

As they scurried from rock to decrepit vehicle,

As they picked up the titillating, rich aroma of freshly-cooked meat,

As they found the mountains of corpses strewn about the crumbling terrain.

And so they feasted, tearing off steamy chunks of fatty tissue and chewing with vigor,

Savoring this meal which allowed them another day on this cruel planet,

Savoring their having survived that awfully loud “boom,”

Savoring their ability to live among a townscape of death.

Slowly but surely, the rodents and insects began to turn frail as well,

Succumbing to the weakening effects of radiation,

Succumbing to the ferocity of this new, chaotic Earth,

Succumbing to the realization that something is very, very wrong.

And so the sun continued to set over that dark and desolate cityscape,

Whose denizens were now nothing but ash and roasted muscle,

Whose mile-wide crater signified the beginning of a new chapter in human warfare,

Whose message to the world was this: The last age of Man was upon us all.