Back in the Saddle

☣ 16th May, 1952 ☣
No radio contact, no telephone signal; from one coast to the next, the world was dead. Covered in the ash that once was civilization, a graveyard of framework and flashing vending machines long since looted. Life? You'd be lucky. The odd lizard scampered about the scorched ground, maybe a mass of hay rolling down a rock formation, but otherwise the land was still. If clocks still existed it would've read late afternoon and the heat was almost sickening. For those clinging onto life with memories burned into the bubbling skin of their arms, t o r t u r e .

But a cloud of dust broke the peace of the wasteland,
cracked mud as far as the eye could see.
The spotlight sun beat down upon Sunny's back and warmed the leather biker jacket, but she had to keep going. If she didn't? Death. There was no alternative but to press on. If there was, the girl would've given up a long time ago.
Sweat beaded on her brow now, and she was thankful for the hair-pins she'd salvaged from the warehouse on Route 12. No one would use it, not anymore. She had half a mind to believe she was the only survivor on the road now, anyway.
For who could survive the blast range of the largest bomb created?
Everybody knew it was only a matter of time,
But that never mattered.
And God, she was so hot.
It was her, and her alone, now. Sunny walked a lonely road, accompanied by the crunch of glass or tin cans beneath her feet. The thick soles separating her feet from the littered ground? A God send.
Humanity may be a thing of the past now, but radiation had turned some of the creatures that once roamed the plains into something worthy of nightmares. All documented within a ratty notebook taken from an upturned school desk, weaknesses cataloged, she was prepared for any ambush;

Gecko.
DANGER DANGER DANGER
Proceed with caution: They're fast, and can outrun you
easily. Best bet? Shoot. Shoot, motherfucker.

There was a time before this, but Sunny was close to forgetting now. Had it been weeks, months, years since that Goddamn bomb was dropped? No one could recall, for all clocks and watches froze a long time ago. When the warning were issued many civilians were bundled into underground holds, or fled to neighboring States; many were conned into hoping, but some knew better and created their own shelters from platters and sheets of corrugated iron. Those, Sunny included, had the upper hand.

It was the government that got them in this mess in the first place.

But now she was exhausted. She may be better off and undoubtedly still standing, but she could only go so far before lethargy took her over once more. Starvation and thirst were her only friends. Energy could join sanitation as a thing to document in the history books, if new paper was ever made again. Sunny lowered herself down within the shade of one of the countless wrecked houses, glancing out over what was once a neighborhood, one hand reaching behind to rustle throughout the debris littered over the parched ground beneath her.
Loot? None worthy of report. Maybe a few scraps of metal that he pocketed for profit, book pages dancing across fallen foundations that could burn for fuel, but nothing that she needed.

Wasn't that always the case?

Another night of going hungry. Another night of going cold. Another night without sleep. Slipping the leather arms over dirtied pads of hands she curled up beneath it, the distant sun setting and providing the only beauty she had seen in some time. Freckled nose crinkling at the smell of ash as it flowed through the wind the realization hit her
that tonight would be so awfully long.