Choose 3: scapegoat, vigilance, motor, boat, reveal - Writing Assignment Meetup - Thurs, Feb 22
People were affected by the bombings in two distinctly different ways. Many were in the midst of the chaos; window glass exploding up and down the high-rises and from the houses alike and raining down like glittering knives, vehicles pushed violently back and into and onto one another, those unlucky enough to be in close proximity either died nearly immediately as the realization and the radiation hit them or, worse, were far enough, yet close enough, to nearly be barbecued alive. Oddly enough, many of the highly populated and bombed areas saw burn victims with intricate or splashy patterns upon their skin; the effect of thermal radiation being reflected more by white or lightly colored cloth than the darker colors, which absorbed more of the heat, thereby creating more severe burns to the skin. There were a few surviving photographs which showed women with gingham or flower patterned burns and men with Hawaiian shirt or buffalo checked burns on one side of their bodies, the one that was turned toward the blast when it happened. Their faces were always turned away in the snapshots but were all the same. They were covered in liquid-filled blisters, peeling layers of epidermis, and a general over-baked deep red hue. The pain must have been unbearable.
The other folks, those that lived farther away from the target cities, in smaller towns and even farther out into the countryside, would all recall that day in stages. They became aware of a seismic disturbance, looked up from what they were doing at the time and glanced around and finally to their horizons. The moment they spied that mushroom cloud rise, bloom and spread, their bodies reacted in similar ways. Adrenaline pumped from the adrenal glands, heart and breathing rates increased as did blood pressure, the emotions of fear, dread and disbelief flowed amongst the jagged edges of confusion and inability to process the event as a reality. Depending on their distance from the blast, it became windy. The kind of arid wind that was too hot and that one could taste on the tongue. Crops no longer flourished, birds no longer sang.
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After the surface environment was laid
to waste, the remaining folks had to figure out how to rebuild a
sense of community. They had to recreate a societal structure that
they were all familiar enough with but that could sustain life
without the constant danger of radiation bombardment, although they
were not sure exactly how bad it was out there, along with the
challenges of living in a confined space without the desire to
eventually tear each other apart and how to recreate the things they
needed to not only keep them alive but to allow them to flourish
going forward.
The basics, shelter, food, water and
air. These were things that needed to be tackled first. Or were they?
Since the community had descended underground, into the now empty
ICBM silo, they needed light as well. Luckily there were some among
them, those that did not cause a commotion by demanding to be in
charge. Rather those that naturally had the smarts, the logic, the
charisma and the social skills to be seen as natural leaders. They
were adept at putting forth challenges in a simplified way, even the
very difficult ones, so that everyone could understand what was
needed. This helped immensely in identifying the groups that would
need to be created as they moved forward to rebuild.
They needed farmers and engineers,
mechanics and medical personnel, those that could think and those
that could do. After the initial panic subsided and the reality of
the situation set in, people began to settle into more of a daily
routine.
There was a lot of planning, a lot of
brain-storming. As luck would have it, there was one farmer who was
quite knowledgeable in hydroponic agriculture. That was a phenomenal
start. The rations that were brought down were running low and
everyone was craving fresh food. There were engineers that
specialized in water treatment, and air quality. There were technical
and analytical whizkids. It seemed that those in this group consisted
of a lot of people who were fresh and innovative in their fields.
This would serve them well going forward.
It was essential to tackle the problem
of space. They could not all live within the same square footage. It
was just not possible nor would the peace be kept for long were they
all living like little fish in a tin.
So they started blueprinting their
existing space and making plans for digging into the sides of the
silo at different levels. These would not only provide living
quarters for different factions but also keep them closer to where
along the depth of the silo they would work. The machinery that would
keep the air purified and invigorating would be near the bottom as
would the motorworks that would provide the power essential to keep
everything, water, air, power, flowing through the entirety of the
structure like a heart pumping blood through a living organism. That
is what this project would have to become. A living organism.
Technology would be closer to the surface. Food production, somewhere
between.
There were two surface levels that,
back when the nuclear scare became real enough, had been added and
then sealed. These would be the only levels that could receive
natural sunlight. They would essentially serve as common areas. The
plan was to make them where meals were eaten and where hope,
creativity and innovation through community interaction would
flourish.
And so, for the first year or so, there
was construction among the destruction. Planning went well and the
physical execution was orderly and cooperative.
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Marjorie is in charge of keeping the motorworks running smoothly. The system is old and many of the working parts are obsolete, but it is imperative as it provides the lower levels with fresh air pumped in at the proper levels as well as the nightly distribution of nitrous oxide through the ventilation system to calm and control the populus.
Marjorie unearthed the old operations and service manuals that explain how the motors function, the parts...how they function and interact with each other.
However, the manuals are in the old language. Only those who have a link to the old language through the storytellers and passing along of family history written down through the ages has the capacity to understand that language, more obsolete even than the motorworks. The diagrams are coherent but, in order to really comprehend, one needed to have a grasp of the written language as well as basic mechanical knowledge of the motorworks that keep the services on the surface as well as the necessity of the life supporting system of the chambers below ground.
Marjorie had always been a clever girl. When she was but a child, she enjoyed passing time in the company of books. She had been able, at a tender age, of deciphering many of the marks and symbols on pages of books long forgotten and discarded. By noticing patterns in the "words" and comparing the "words" with illustrations that seemed to be connected to them somehow, she was able to teach herself a more than rudimentary understanding of the information in the volumes she secreted away.
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Prompt word - Bright
Marjorie ascended from the silo on creaky, rusting stairs. Her footfalls echoed downward and back up again. It was a creepy sound that she had grown accustomed to. There were so few people left that she could tell who was approaching simply by the sound their shoes made on the steps. She needed to get to her quarters to change out of her dirty work clothes and wash the film of grease from her face and scrub her nails clean before she felt ready to join the rest in the common area.
Reaching the level that contained the living quarters for the manual laborers, she made her way to her room and turned the key in the old lock. The key always felt brittle, the lock like it was going to jam and break. Inside she peeled off her shirt and jeans and worked at the double knots on her workboots. Years ago, one of the engineers had fallen to his death because a shoelace had worked itself loose and he'd stepped on it while descending the stairway. Once over the railing there was no way to catch himself and he plummeted down into the blackness of the silo. Marjorie couldn't remember how long the body was down there before it was recovered. She knew it had been a while. Ever since then, and she was barely out of her teens when this occurred, she double tied her bootlaces.
She was almost out of the rough, lye soap that she had to use on her skin. It was the only thing that cut through the grease and sweat that she was coated in by the end of her day. And the goddamn grime under her nails. She wasn't too concerned with how she looked, in general, but she hated having that reminder that she was a manual laborer. So she scrubbed and scrubbed. Sometimes her fingertips were red and sore at dinner gathering. She made herself a note to request another bar from the commissary. The price had probably gone up but she needed it so she would forego something else if she had to in order to afford it. Marjorie had few belongings but it didn't really bother her. She came from one of the poorer families and had worked her way up to a higher position currently than her father or mother ever had.
She missed her family. Sometimes very deeply. Her father had died on the job. the button had come off his cuff and the loose material had gotten caught in the gears of the mechanism in the lower level. It took only a moment but he was badly mangled He didn't even make it to the level the medical facility was on before his eyes went blank and he went still and limp. He'd always said they should have a medic closer to the manual laborers since their injuries were usually more severe than those in engineering or even higher in the human services levels. He'd proven his theory, however there had been no effort to place a medic lower in the silo. It seemed the laborers didn't garner much importance to those in power, even though they were the ones than kept the entire place humming with power, water, and fresh air. The lowest levels benefited the highest and yet they did not seem to care.
Marjorie checked her watch, her father's watch, and saw it was time to go. If you were late to the dinner gathering, you could be left with barely more than scraps. Again, that usually was experienced only by the lower level dwellers since it took so much longer to ascend. She locked up her room and joined the swiftly moving stream of people, moving up and up the stairs. It was this type of foot traffic that caused the most unpleasant noises. So many people making so many pounding, metallic sounds on those steps. She sometimes wore her earplugs from work to drown out the excessive noise.
