The Flare

Intro

"One day, like this,
We'll never be the same.
Never, forever.
Like ghosts in the snow.
Like ghosts in the sun."

        For as long as I can remember, it's been frigidly cold. Winter and Summer were things Billie and Brendon spoke of wistfully and often but as far my brother and I were concerned they were, at worst, meaningless words and, at best, relics of a time long dead. I was born in the dark and I lived in the dark and the sun was a mythological creature that had long since turned his back on those of us which he once gave life.

         Billie used to tell us stories, as kids, of the world left behind. He said that a long time ago there were places you could go to eat something called a cheeseburger, any time of the day, and that they were made with real meat instead of genetically engineered tofu grown in some dank lab. He spoke of machines that were installed in almost every home that could just create heat without fire just by pressing a button. He also told us of great glittering cities blinking with lights that twinkled and glowed at all hours and music on discs that you could listen to whenever you felt like it.

       He promised that one day all of these things would be a part of everyday life once again. And once upon a time, I believed him. As I grew up, though, I began to see Billie for what he really was. An old man. I loved him dearly and he taught Mikey and I everything we know but he was an old man, trapped in the past. A past that I had no connection to and never would.

        If I ever needed a reminder of that fact, I need not look further than my reflection. The spider web of ugly, glaring scars that marred my right cheek was enough to know that things would never be as they were then. Mikey was no luckier. He was born with a thick cataract in one of his hazel eyes, leaving his vision irreparably damaged.

       Brendon was quick to tell us that we were the lucky ones. Some people our age were born with extra fingers or toes. Some we're missing eyes or never grew adult teeth. Some had tumors and boils that throbbed and gushed pus. And many… Far too many, never even made it to our age because of their Flaremarks.

       Billie was quick to dismiss it as savage nonsense but those of us who grew up in this destitute world refered to the event that changed everything as the Flare. It's said that in the times gone by, this land’s government and governments across the world fought, first with laws and regulations, then with soldiers and guns. Eventually not even that could sate their bloodlust and when things escalated they dropped weapons that poisoned not only the land, but also the air and the sky.

       I can't remember a time when, even at its brightest, the sun was more than a dark grey blob in an otherwise blackened sky. I've never tasted truly clean water that didn't leave the sour aftertaste of carbon in my mouth. I've never been able to go outside wearing less than five layers of clothing.

       You'd think having been born into this world the way it is that you would get used to the cold but when the highest the temperature rises is -10 degrees Fahrenheit, there's seldom a moment when the cold doesn't find a way to seep into your bones. Sometimes I envy Billie and Brendon for their memories of sweltering Summer nights under stars that I'll never see but then I’d see the wringing loss in their eyes and I would think perhaps it's better having never known.

       Billie liked stay on the optimistic side of things. He swore every five years or so that the sun was shining brighter than it was just five years before but having grown in blackness, I couldn't see the light. I often wondered if my father shared Billie's optimistic point of view.

       We were orphans, Mikey and I. My mother fell pregnant with me a few years after the Flare when she, my father, Billie, Brendon, and Billie's wife were holed up in an underground shelter awaiting the end of what Billie referred to as “nuclear fallout.” I was born screaming into this world in 2042 in a filthy bunker, under the dim light of emergency candles.