Good morning all and welcome to Monday Morning. Can you feel it? A new week, a new month laying before us. And it finally feels like spring, the season for new growth and new projects. Or at least that’s how I feel. And I have to say I am feeling pretty good starting this week. So without any further ado, let’s jump into the first prompt of the week. ready, set, Write!
Not a bad way to kick off the work week. It is definitely something I can work with later. I also need to think about writing my prompts before listening to the morning news. I’m thinking there are influences.
Monday, April 4th: They climbed over the rubble.
The climbed over the rubble. Rubble was about all that was left. Here and there a few metal pipes jutted out from the mounds of debris. Most of them leaked the last driblets of water they held before the attack. A few leaked gas and had been the source for several explosions early on in the return of the inhabitants. Some of the areas where the shut off valves were too damaged to function were still roped off as crews worked to secure alternate means of disengaging the fuel.
Most of the sites had been cleared and as the gas dissipated from the cordoned off sites, more and more people began to search their former habitations. Not all of those searching were former inhabitants. Some were simply scavengers. Thomas was of two minds about them. Those looking merely for valuables to sell, profiting on the horror of the moment, he despised. Some however were simply searching for items to cover immediate needs. He saw one woman nearly weep when she managed to find a half torn bedspread and unearth it from the rubble.
He couldn’t blame her. The last few nights had been bitterly cold, the winter settling down in earnest. He held even less animosity when he saw her use the blanket to wrap up the two small children she had with her. Those were scavengers he could live with and in fact encourage. In the past week it seemed more and more were falling onto the lists of the dead.
There were those who died in the initial attack and those who died in the days that followed. Now that there was a stretch of peace, at least for their small corner of the world, there were some that finally succumbed to wounds they tried to ignore while there were still things that needed to be done and people relying upon them. Now that there was no immediate task, they seemed to curl up upon their wounds as though registering them for the first time.
It wasn’t that there was time for idleness, there was still more to do each day then they could get through. But it wasn’t the immediacy of a battle field. The workload was heavy, but there was time for a breather. For some that breather was the signal to stop breathing all together. There were those with no visible wounds who also seemed to pass away. Whether the damage was internal or if it was a mental decision he couldn’t say. No one was investigating and he believed others were claiming internal bleeding for all, regardless. No one was doing full autopsies now. It was better to assume physical damage than to think other thoughts.
This morning two people were found frozen to death.
It was the new horror they were facing.
A new enemy set to kill them even as news of possible peace talks floated in from the east. There was talk of this sudden ceasefire becoming permanent. Thomas knew peace would be a good thing and it would boost morale. The truth was that here on the outskirts of the empire they would be left to get through as best as they could for quite some time to come.
Ten til Midnight 