Fictional Ramblings

The Day of Doom (genre - science fiction)

The day of doom

I woke up when the first rings of the alarm seeped through my eardrums and knocked  the last bits of unconsciousness away from me.

The first thing I did was to refill my oxygen cylinder from the big oxygen tank that sat across my bed, like it was more of a habit than a life saving routine. I looked outside the window after getting inside my space suit. The sun seemed paler than ever, and emitted lesser light than the streetlights below. 

If my father was watching this with me, I knew exactly what he would have said –'the sun is giving away.'

 Yet, I couldn't picture what it would be like when the sun finally fails. Nor could I picture those gone days when the sun was bright. Nowadays, bright would be the last word anyone would ever use to describe our sun.

My gaze grazed across the paintings that beautified the steel walls of my room. One - of the blue planet Earth I had only read about in History. Another was a photo of dad and mom when they were children, chilling out on a beach. 

Beaches weren't beaches anymore, or so my father used to say. They were just artificially created seas with artificial waves, and an artificial sun that emitted artificial light. (Artificial was like the most frequently used word to describe the current condition of Earth).

Couldn't blame the beach people though. What else could they do if the 'real' sun didn't seem to produce light and the 'real' water didn't produce waves?

I cast a look at my two-month old son who lied on the bed inside his tiny space suit, besides his mother. He cringed now and then, and I knew he was not sleeping peacefully.

No babies slept peacefully anymore, their delicate skin hurt even inside the protective pollution-resistant suits. My wife was not inside her suit, probably got out of it at the dead of night to enjoy the two hours survivable without the heavy thing.

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to walk freely with no oxygen suits, on the street during the day, chilling out with friends, having sun baths. All of it seemed like things that had never happened at all. 

Of course, my father had memories. But he got too sentimental when talking about it that I didn't want to question him at all. He thought it was his generation's selfish attitude that left us with heavy suits and heavy tanks to carry around. He even blamed himself for what I had to go through, which was a ridiculous idea, to be honest. I was more of a believer in fate, and our fate I believed, lied within this.

I sat down with my digital book, slowly opening it when the Google doodle popped out of nowhere - 30 years since the nuclear apocalypse, it said. It had been thirty years since the Earth almost gave up and died, killing 95% of its population. 

The superman of my dad survived, of course with the superwoman of my mom. I think they hid somewhere underground with some other refugees and found some pollution resistant stuff etc. etc.

My father had burns reminding him of those first days when there were no space suits to protect them from the radiated air. But then they formed a new government, got things back in order, supplied the NASA space suits as protection from radiation and life went on. Two years later, so I was born.

My reverie of thoughts got suddenly broken when I heard the commotion downstairs. I peered down from the 28th floor of the 300 floor building. 

I couldn't figure out much of anything, but I knew this - people were rioting. Probably for the same cause for what they were rioting two days ago. Availability of Oxygen masks.