Blue Planet

During the war, Raymond was more afraid of the bomb than the war itself. He wandered through life in the background, happily ignoring goals and achievements and ambition. He was the sort of man content to take a back seat and let the alpha take charge. At work he simply shuffled into his cubicle at the back, and read the labels as he reached his spot, Alvin Asher, Jacob Byrne, Colby Cutter, Nash Dexter, and himself, Raymond Jones. The small chair and desk were like old friends of his, and he regularly watered his now dead plant. However Raymond was a man afraid. A man afflicted by a sort of paranoia that would keep him up at night. His shadow was small and fleeting and his steps hurried, knees slightly bent. His biggest fear was to be left alone. Completely and totally alone, and his dreams consisted of nightmarish post-apocalyptic landscapes, and he in the middle, yelling at the wind. He’d wake shivering, feeling sand in his ears, his hands reaching out for his wife. As a child he’d hated the game hide-and-seek, because he’d open his eyes to find himself alone, the people once before him gone, scattered like dust in the winds. It was equally bad if he was hiding, because he’d eagerly find a spot, curl up, and find himself alone. The basis of his want for children was due to the fact that they were noisy. The Jones household was always loud, what with the three kids (Sue, John, and Jack, all freckly and redheaded like their father), the two dogs (Busby and Biloxi, both Irish setters) and the red steel gramophone Raymond had gotten at a fair several years prior. His first wife had passed soon after their children’s birth, her yellow hair and fair complexion taking insult at the sun, and delicate eardrums giving out. And then one day it happened. Just like any other day, Raymond followed his routine, kissing his wife’s freckled cheek, ruffling the kids’ hair, patting the dogs, (or was it patting the kids and ruffling the dogs’ hair?) and climbing into his old faded red car. He’d walked down the same gray hallways, along his usual route for maximum efficiency, and reading nameplates as he went (Asher, Byrne, Cutter, Dexter) and settling in his small dusty chair in the back office. Outside, the bomb fell like a goose diving into water. Then the light spread like a ring, right before the explosion. The sound was unlike anything Raymond had ever heard, like a thousand angry wild beasts and creatures roaring angrily and violently in his ears. His whole body shook, and he thought his lungs would never again be able to draw breath, and that his heart surely had been crushed. The heat licked at his body, and his clothes gave way in several places. Then it stopped. The silence after the End was like nothing Raymond had ever heard. He pulled his arms away from himself and stood from his spot on the floor. Outside, what looked like snow, but was likely ash was falling slowly, almost beautifully. The world seemed to be dyed blue, even the clouds covering the sun above. He was alone.