*My character is going off the archetype “Midwife: survivalist, feminist, quick-witted, perceptive”.

My name is Felicity Simone Cixous Jones. A mouthful, huh? You can just call me Flick, that’s what my friends call me. My mom had the grand idea of giving me names after feminists icons, but instead of just choosing one she chose two. Simone De Beauvoir was one of the founders of modern feminism and Helene Cixous was a novelist most well known for exploring the subconscious and bisexuality.

I think it’s kind of cool to be named after such bad-ass feminist icons, but I think my mom just gave me those names to feel better about being a single mom. She wanted a kid, but didn’t want to commit to a man, so she just got knocked up and then here I was. Not as cool of story now that I’m saying it out loud.

Any who, my childhood was pretty fun. Mom and I did everything together, she is my best friend. She homeschooled me my whole life until college which was awesome because I didn’t have to learn all of the stupid things my friends learned in public school like Trigonometry. I got to learn about political movements, take field trips to museums, and learn various life skills.

For such a feminist like my mother, you wouldn’t think she would have encouraged me to learn how to cook, clean, and garden- but she did. I was raised as a vegetarian. I’ve only ever had meat one time at a birthday party when I was mad at my mom and ate a hot dog. It made me sick so I’ve stayed far away ever since. All of the things we ate pretty much came from our garden or from the farmers market in our community. It was really fun and interesting to eat sustainably my whole life, but it made it so I was in for a very rude awakening when I decided to move to New York City for college.

My senior year of “high school”, I decided I wanted a change. Don’t get me wrong, I loved growing up in a small town and loved being friends with everyone in the community, but it got a little old after a while. So, I applied to NYU and got accepted. I left home thinking my mom had prepared me for everything I ever needed to know, but I was very wrong.

The city always has this weird odor, like garbage burning in the distance or something. There’s organic food, but only sold at food chains like Whole Foods for a huge up-charge. I tried to start a small garden outside of the window of my dorm room, but it was no use. The most I could grow was a few herbs that died off quickly in the snow.

I had become vegan 3 years before going to college, and it was easy at home. However, my NYU meal plan is hardly vegan friendly and I had to give it up. I tried to keep it up for as long as possible but it was too expensive in such a pricey city.

I’m still working out how to navigate city life and I’ve been here almost 3 years. It just doesn’t seem to come to me like it comes to everyone else. I thought about leaving, giving up on my Sociology degree and working in my hometown where I knew everything so well, but I want to challenge myself. I want to learn life from a new perspective, I want to meet all kinds of new people, I want to live in a way I just can’t at home.

Still, though, nothing beats going home to see mom. She doesn’t have a cellphone because she thinks they emit too much radiation and they’re dangerous, so we don’t talk much. We write letters, which is cool, I guess. My friends tease me about the fact that my mom is insistent on writing letters instead of buying a cellphone to call me but I think it gives our relationship character.

I miss her so much.

With a name like Winifred Hart, she was destined to be peaceful. Winifred means “blessed peace,” and Hart is obvious. Her parents imagined a world with no poverty, discrimination, or hunger, and Winifred grew up with the same mindset. Since her first day of kindergarten, she has been giving countless compliments about how kind and considerate she is to all people and animals.

She was likely the only person in middle school popular for their personality. Winifred has always considered everyone a friend, and never forgets a person’s name or the many personal stories that are shared with her.

Winifred did not have many life stressors. She lived in the same modest home slightly further than the suburbs for her entire life. Although both of her parents made a lot of money, they donated most of it in order to help achieve their goal. Winifred met many people of all different cultures, and learned to be accepting of differences.

However, just before she began her freshman year of high school, her father had a stroke. He survived, but his personality completely changed. Her father no longer wanted to save the world, he was angry at it, and he was angry at Winifred. His anger, caused by the stroke, was often directed at Winifred since her mother worked until late at night to make up for her father’s lost income when he was eventually fired.

Most children, especially at the age of fourteen, would believe that these actions meant their father did not love them. That was not how Winifred saw it. She was able to understand at such as young age that it was not her father’s fault that he was no longer the happy and loving person she had known. Winifred believed, and still does, that her real father is still there, he just can’t be seen. She claims that she can see him sometimes by looking into her father’s eyes. He is still the father she loves.

Throughout high school, Winifred remained kind, and ended up actually being blessed with peace, regardless of the difficult circumstances she faced. She is currently only a few months from graduation, and wants to start a nonprofit to help provide food and shelter for the growing homeless population in the nearby big city.

“When you feel defensive, examine what you fear” and “Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals”.

Looking out at the hazy horizon, my breath stuttered and my chest tightened. The lookout is still ablaze on my left, but my eyes have become unseeing, my body unresponsive. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Everything had been planned! I had everything set to perfection, but it’s gone! They ruined it! The fingers of my right hand twitched as they felt the urge to curl into themselves until the nails were digging into my palms.

The smoke on the horizon was fading, but my ears were still ringing. The blast rocked the bunker, but it also rocked the foundation of hope I had planned for so long to build. It was still a seedling, still growing and maturing. No one had felt safe. No one had felt hope. Not in a long time.

I had plans!

I had trusted them!

…I was wrong.

Eyes still glazed, my hearing suddenly popped back into sound and my head burst from the onslaught of noise. The were screams and shouts and the rushing of water as the people below me hurried frantically to put out the fires. I wanted to speak out to them. Try to rekindle the feelings of hope that had just started to light. My mouth opened, but my voice did not make it past my throat. My lips moved in comforting words mechanically, but they could not form what was needed most. The only sound to make it past my teeth was a sob and then a hysterical laugh.

My arms slowly moved as my hands came to clutch in front of my stomach. My face molded into a psychotic smile as the laugh lingered a little longer. Knees weakening, I slowly lowered myself to a squat, eyes still on the horizon. It was clearing up quickly and the frantic sounds below have lowered into a murmur.

They were dead. They were gone.

But it’s all their fault!

I felt a light touch on my shoulder, but I slapped it away before it could do its job of comfort. There was no point. It was over now. The hope I so desperately clung to was fading fast like the smoke on the horizon. I didn’t want it to leave, it was the only thing I could hold onto. It was the only thing I had to offer.

But it’s too late.

It’s too late!

The life I had offered was now past the horizon.

I’ll be here.

I’ll be right here.

Waiting for you.

It hasn’t been too long. At least I don’t think it has. It’s gotten dark and cold without you here to flip the switch. The day you left, you left in quite a hurry. You didn’t look at me as you put your clothes in your bag or the food in a bin. The door kept swinging open and closed as you would leave with a bag in your hands and come back with none.

Maybe you had planned to come back.

You left a lot of things here. Things that still smell like you. I know you don’t like it when I lay on your bed, but it’s gotten lonely and cold without you. Your smell lingers in the fabric and I just want to fill my nose with it now that you’re not here.

It’s fading, so I move to the couch sometimes.

I hope you don’t mind.

My bowl ran empty, so I waited for you to fill it again. I waited for awhile, but my stomach was loud and my legs were weak. The bag of food you left for me… I tore it open. I made quite a mess, so I had to clean it up for you. It took me awhile, but now it’s all gone. The mess is gone.

Now will you come back?

I know you hate it when I go to the bathroom in the house. I tried to hold it for as long as possible. I walked around a lot to try and stop it, but it hurt too much to hold it any longer. I went by the back door. I only go there now. It will make it easier for you to clean when you come back. There’s a lot there now. It’s spreading to the couch.

Your scent is fading.

Maybe you won’t come back if I keep the house like this.

I hear weird noises at night and I’m scared. I’m laying back on your bed again. I found a spot where your scent still is. The food is gone and I can’t hold it in anymore. I know I don’t have long, but I will wait for you until the end. I will wait for you to come back to me. I love you so much, and I know you love me too, even though you’re gone.

I will wait for you.

I’ll be here.

Crayola Crayons Review

Crayons can be surprisingly useful during the apocalypse. Read my product review on Amazon to learn more about how you can use them!

…

In the nursery, the jungle burned. Blue lions roared, purple giraffes bounded off. The panthers ran in circles, changing color, and ten million animals, running before the fire, vanished off towards a distant streaming river…

Ten more voices died. In the last instant under the fire avalanche, there was a voice madly repeating the day, over and over again…

“Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…”

As the voice frantically repeated itself, and the kitchen continued to psychotically make breakfast of ten dozen eggs, six loaves of toast, and twenty dozen bacon strips, the noise reached a crescendo…

Then there was the crash.

Fire consumed the harried house as it fell into itself floor by floor, attic to kitchen, kitchen to cellar, and cellar to sub-cellar. The crash rumbled and jarred the foundation of the house as it crumpled like paper. The fire roared on as it spread through the yard, hissing on the freshly showered grass. The dead land was consumed and the neighborhood went up into the night until the dawn broke through the haze created by the night.

In a once immaculate street stood stone and concrete pathways, caved in cellars, and odd charred beams. There was a hissing of the last mechanical whirs before the silence suddenly laid over the ruins. The silence was odd and hadn’t been known for many years. The land gave a quiet whisper as the last of the human’s touch on the world had been carried away on the wind.

The breeze blew slightly through the charred, dead grass, and the earth moaned from the weight of the cracked concrete slabs. The earth rejoiced in its victory as it began to grow again.

And in years time, it may see the faces of its old friends once again.

“…I have a Bobby his nayme is bruther and I theen I an dun riding and I have a bocks to put this into thats Bobby sd full of quiyet air to last a milyun yrz so gudboy gudboy every—brother, Im goin to stob gudboy bobby i love you it wuz not yor fait i love you
forgivyu
loveyu

sinned (for the wurld)”

The writing ends there, the paper ripped as if forced out of the typewriter. You peer inside the machine and see paper remaining, but once you unjam it, the paper you retrieve is blank. So much for getting the rest of the story. You’d have liked to uncover more about what happened to all those who were affected those years ago.

The surrounding area on the small desk is empty but for dust and unidentifiable debris. Interestingly, the chair is positioned as if someone pushed straight back, perfectly, from the desk and just stood up and walked away.

The account of the man’s loss in mental capacity was accounted perfectly on that paper. Your father and brother went through the same motions. Not for the first time, you feel guilty that Mom and you were somehow immune to whatever was infecting everyone around the world. You could still think clearly, but what can you do with that anymore?

The rest of the room seems to have been left tidy and untouched. You try to place the man, whose descent into “sillyness” you just read, in this room. Limp, sheer curtains; large, pale blue area rug; a twin-sized bed with nearly wrinkle-less covers. You can’t do it. The papers (manuscript?) told more about the brother, Bobby than anything else. After rummaging through the small room, you find nothing useful to take away. Except, of course, the writings. You shove those into your backpack, take a sip from your canteen, and close the door gently on your way out.

My dad is my biggest inspiration. He is such a kind, giving, and intelligent man.  He has built his life around his faith and strength in his family.  He built a successful, commercial construction company from the ground up, enduring and recovering from two massive heart attacks and numerous other struggles.

He could have given in, given up and settled for the situation he was given, but he continued to give to others, love endlessly and care for those around him.  He has sacrificed so much to provide for our family and goes out of his way every day to give his company and employees.