i. Society Had Been Dropped on its Head

When the bombs first dropped, people sat in their bunkers and prayed for salvation. The Catholics wrapped rosaries around their hands and prayed to the Holy Father for food; the Muslims pointed themselves towards Mecca and prayed for water; the Jews placed kippahs upon their heads and prayed for health, and yet they were left unanswered.

Just above their heads, through the thick concrete, was nothing. The wind blew harshly against whatever it could find. Dust flew throughout the atmosphere and obscured the world into a dull orange hue.

A single shrapnel of paper, a dollar bill, or a deed to a home, picked up by this wind, flew. It flew over the vast ocean before meeting the coast of New York, flying over the dunes of what a city once was. High banks of sand pierced up into the sky before falling like a wave. Up and down, the paper flew, increasing with speed over every updraft of wind. It twirled and spun through the oppressive orange fog until up ahead a single monolith stood, and the paper was forced against its concrete wall.

The monolith stood against the orange sky and jutted up far into the atmosphere, far beyond the fog. What was once a building had its facade stripped away from it down to the very bones. All that remained were windows and doors, windows and doors. Grey and black, against orange skies and yellow sands.

For a man like John, the lame act of existence was painful. Living underground yielded little creative inspiration. For the past thirty years, he had painted exactly three self-portraits, all of which depicted a man at his wits’ end, and used strictly dull pigments. To be truthful, those who died in the initial bombings were far less fortunate than he, but still, something was required to keep a man alive beyond food and water. 

In terms of rations, he was perfectly safe for about seven more years. In the small room that led off of his single multipurpose living space (Bedroom, Living Room, Bathroom, etc.), he held his supplies and machines necessary for survival. He was well off with canned goods and dried meats, his toilet could repurpose urine into water, and a small tube connected above ground to acquire fresh air. Survival was not an issue.

For John, the far more difficult matter was finding a hobby. His paint sets and canvases were prepared for use, but every time he caught a glance of them, they seemed to glare back. On some days, he sat on the floor of the small storage room and placed his ear against the air intake tube that led above ground. The air would woosh and whistle, but John listened hopefully for footsteps. They never came.

In the same storage room was a small Geiger counter. According to the handbook’s instructions, which he had read approximately 30 times, John was not to leave until the counter had fallen below 150 CPM. Reading this tidbit of information was disheartening to say the least, as the counter in the small room read 10,000 CPM. To John’s pleasure, however, this number quickly fell as the weeks droned on. Following this streak of good luck, he had begun to prepare for an expedition to the outer world once the number had fallen below the line of safety. Foolish and optimistic, he would recall later. The reduction of fallout functioned more as an exponential curve; he would soon discover that the rapid reduction of CPM in the beginning quickly began to flatten into a slow, depressing fall.

Now, he stood at 200. John was hesitant to prepare for an expedition just as he had years before, as he feared that karma from an unloving God had caused the slowing of his Geiger counter. Instead, he continued to listen to the lack of footsteps and the wind.

As a boy, John remembered, possibly falsely, that the wind was much calmer. It flowed through the holes in the trees and rustled the leaves lightly. Only during storms and windy days would it become the slightest nuisance, and even then, it would put him to sleep. Now, it screeched and hollered over him like a demon from another world. What has my world become? He thought to himself as the wind screeched onward.

He had begun to compare his existence to his grandfather’s, where, in his final months, he lay in bed, hooked to a machine. He would wake, eat, exist, and then fall asleep once more. It was not his health that caused his death, but the realization that he had begun to live the life of something akin to a bear. In which they eat and exist.

John sat next to his machine, food, and water colored urine, and did not have the energy to weep. 

ii. Salvation

Banging echoed throughout the single multipurpose living space and pierced John’s ears. The sound was amplified and pitched by the concrete walls of his room, almost subduing him to the floor.

“STOP! Stop!” He screamed, his voice sounding unfamiliar to himself. He lifted himself from his bed and stumbled to the hatch. What a moment! He thought to himself before reaching for the handles. His hands trembled.

For a moment, he thought about what this would lead to. His death? A wasteland? Flourishing nature? And for a moment, he thought about doing absolutely nothing. To let the banging of the hatch door continue to consume his residency as he went on, upon reading the manual and dreaming of painting. But no, these solicitors must mean something, he thought, like a hand from God. And so, he opened the hatch.

Light consumed John’s eyes, and he was immersed in the smell of an electrical odor. Despite the Geiger counter reading 298 CPM, the man and woman who met his eyes were not dangerously irradiated or had clear signs of radiation poisoning. Instead, they were well cleaned and maintained, and they showed a caring professionalism.

“Are you hurt, sir?” the woman said, reaching out her hand. John assumed he looked sickly and fickle in comparison to the two well-kept individuals before him and took her arm. Lifted to his feet, John was met with a vast vista of sand and sky. A thick orange blotted the atmosphere and made it almost impossible to see past 10 or so sand dunes. To his right and left, as far as he could see, men and women greeted pale, fickle creatures like himself as they crawled out of their holes. 

“Wh- who are you?” His voice remained uncomfortable to use.

“Resident Services, sir,” flashing the badge on her chest to John, “we received an order to come and evict you all. Your lease is up.” The woman said with a veneered smile.

“What about the Geiger! It’s unsafe!” he said instinctively before even considering her use of the word evicted.

“Defective. Must be.” said the man. “Now sir, if you don’t mind, please remove yourself from your residency.” The man and woman looked at each other with a smirk and continued on. Looking as to where they were headed, John was no longer met with a vast sky, but instead a looming structure that imposed itself on the horizon. It looked to be a building from the past.

John, not having time to consider why a building of such magnitude stood on the surface, descended into his dwelling for one last time. Sand swept down the stairs and onto the floor, where his bag lay. There, he packed a tent, as many rations as he could carry, a blanket, and a knife. As he was a man of no faith, he took no time to pray, but could imagine the other tenants sitting on their sand-swept floors, praying to a God that had evicted them. For a final time, he stepped into the small offshoot before venturing into the tame wild.

iii. Delusion

A small encampment filled with small yellow tents had formed in the shade of the jutting building that forced its way into the sky. By the time John had arrived, the clean men and women had left for elsewhere, and the tenants were left with anger and bitterness towards the mysterious people. He had set up his small tent after much trial and error, maintaining a small piece of his former dwelling. 

John’s voice, still quivering, decided to make an effort to talk to the people of the encampment. As it turned out, many of the inhabitants felt the same. Their voices had no use during their solitary times, and many, including John, began to take on the lessons of a man named Tiernan. He was a singer, tall and skinny, who once sang for the great operas of the time. Because of his unique hobby, he was able to maintain a pre-war voice and began to teach the people of the encampment how to use their voices once more. 

As dusk fell and interest in Tiernan’s voice waned, the people began to gather in the central area of the encampment with their rations. The solitary people, who lived in holes for nearly 31 years, quickly remembered the joys of a social life. People talked, laughed, sang, and the oppressive desert felt as though it was no more than a mirage of hardship.

However, as John returned to his tent, which blended in with the rest, he was met with a ransacked and dirtied living space. Silly! Life cannot be perfect! He thought to himself as the reality of his despair kicked in. There he sat, the last food and water left in his hands. He did not bother to stick his head out of his tent and attempt to scream in rage, anger, and hate, but he heard the rest do the same. The air filled with harmonious rage, and John assumed that Tiernan took a moment to appreciate the chorus of voices before joining in, just as an opera would sound.

John spent the night weeping. He cried for he had not spoken for 31 years; he cried because an evil had taken his things; he cried because a devil had evicted him; he cried because no good in his life could last without an exponential darkness to follow, and yet still, before his tears dried, the sun rose along with its oppressive heat.

Tiernan’s voice, being the only one to shout louder than the rest, called for a meeting that morning. 

“Tenants! We have been robbed! We have been stolen from! What is left to do but to find and prosecute the man who has committed this act!” The air stayed stagnant, tired. “I am aware of our shortcomings, but we must unite to find this beast!” And still, the people did not respond. “Or else we will starve.” And that, the people understood. For they mumbled and shook their heads in agreement, Yes, we will find this man.

John, wanting no part of this process, chose to return to his bare tent. There, he lay upon his blanket and listened to the bickering of one hundred hungry men and women plotting to hunt, and began to drift off as the sun beat down.

iv. The Hunt

“Peasants,” the CEO spat out as he sat behind his well-polished desk, “we will have peasants.” Daylight shone into the windows of the tower, the sky was blue, and the backdrop of the city was such that a proper boss could look upon the buildings below him. “What we have right now, you see, is a lack of proper faith. People used to build grand monuments for their Gods, kill for them. Now, all we are left with is tradition. Science has refuted every claim for which is written in the Bible, Quran, however you may see it. Now, religion is simply a fact of life, one that fills an unneeded absence. What we need is a purpose-built faith. We need a God that people will die for, what people will build for. Have you got that?”

“Ye-yes sir.” an intern gulped. “Sir, would you like a rundown of your schedule for today?”

John awoke to his body being dragged against the coarse sand by a man of large proportions.

“You have the right to remain silent! Anything you do or say…” and the voice trailed off as the man mumbled to himself, “I forgot.” Nevertheless, John and his captor remained on trail towards the courtroom, where Tiernan and 99 other hungry men and women sat upon the sand with rage in their eyes. John tried to loosen the restraints at his ankles, but the cords would not come loose. His upper body yet again fell to the ground.

Orange sky was all he could see before Tiernan’s face entered his vision. It was the first time he had gotten a good look at the man. Well-shaven, with a mildly receding hairline, he looked to be around the same age as him. He looked built to be a singer. He had a wide neck, good posture, and he carried himself with authority, for he was standing above John with the power to end his life. Chatter filled the air, and Tiernan allowed it to build before raising his hands as though a conductor.

“Silence!” He yelled. “The man before us is suspected of thieving our goods. How do you plead?”

John mustered up the courage to yell with as much power as Tiernan. “Not guilty!” He screamed to the crowd in the shell of a confident tone.

“Expected.” Tiernan said. “Then how can you explain your absence last night from the celebrations? And this morning? If not to maintain a stockpile of stolen goods, what else could you have been doing?”

“Your honor,” John said weakly, Tiernan smirking at the title, “I was present last night, I simply left early.”

“Then why were you absent this morning?”

“I was disinterested.” Tiernan turned his back towards John and raised his hands in preparation for a grandiose gesture.

“Disinterested! So, we could assume that you are simply disinterested in society! That, possibly, you only wish for your own survival, and not your fellow tenants?” At that moment, a man raised his hand through the quiet chatter of the jury.

“I didn’t even see him last night!” And the crowd erupted in agreement. From the yells and screams, people were slowly carried into a trance of camaraderie towards the common goal of destruction. They all arose at once as John squirmed in his restraints and Tiernan stepped back to view the obliteration that would occur soon after. The faces of the hungry men and women merged into a ghastly beast that frothed at the mouth and twitched in the eye as its claws extended before poor John.

Then, as though divine intervention, a chime of one thousand electronic droning instruments filled the air, and the beast turned its attention towards the tower. The low droning of one note soon separated into many that harmonized in a horrific melody that pierced the ears of the tenants that now lay debilitated on the floor next to him. Tiernan looked upon the tower and its music with tears, as though the face of god had been seen. Suddenly, the droning stopped, only to pick up once more with a voice to match it. It spoke.

“Een vein neet trum,” it spoke in an odd tongue. One woman picked herself off the floor and bowed before the tower. “Een vein neet trum, Een vein neet trum,” it continued, before the woman began to follow its gibberish. “Een vein neet trum,” she said, raising her hands up and down in complete prayer. Many lifted their heads to observe the insanity of the woman who prayed to the tower, who bowed down to a concrete monolith.

However, she continued just as the droning did. Then, a thud. A tan bag lay before the woman. From the tower! The tenants thought. The woman paused to raise her head from prayer, and, hands shaking in disbelief, shook the contents of the bag out into the sand. 

All at once, every Tenant thought the same. “My (God, Allah, Brahma), food!” Then, another man began to do the same, bowing in prayer to the tower. Then, another, and in totality, all began to bow. With the tower, all at once, the crowd began.

“Een vein neet trum! Een vein neet trum!” And the god listened, and the sky rained food.

Soon, the people would be commanded to build a house for the tower, then, for themselves. In exchange, food would be distributed per prayer, in small amounts. John would settle down to live above ground in a small concrete cube just within the shade of the tower. People made a community out of prayer, and occasionally, festivals such as eviction day were celebrated with great food and drink. The tower had ears and eyes that understood what the people needed, and some questioned how, but most thought back to the times when they had nothing and proceeded onwards. There was nothing more prosperous than the little village beneath the tower.

The 100 men and women of the small bunkers had morphed into one, greater person.