Afterland Read Free Page B

dread the day the sled rides through Hopetown. Even more, I dread the day I’ll be the one riding it.
    The first snow used to be a beautiful experience, that much I remember from before the Eruption. My mother called the snowflakes dancing fairies and we would watch together as the entire neighborhood transformed into a snowy dreamland.
    The snow that falls now isn’t a dance of fairies. It is a march of executioners. The first snow is the unspoken question that everybody is afraid to ask: who’s next? I hate living like that - in a state of constant uncertainty. I don’t want to go to bed each night not knowing for sure that I’ll wake up in the morning. It fills me with a subconscious fear that invades every other part of my being. How can anybody live like that?
    A long time ago, someone said, Live every day as if it was your last . He meant to live each day to the fullest, but when each day could actually be your last… The only way you live is in fear. I want to live each day to the fullest, I really do. I want each day of my life to have a meaning. But in this bleak hellhole of a town, which is just a tiny corner in a bleak hellhole of a world, living life to the fullest is pretending that you’re not here.
    The worst thing about the Tragedy, I think, is that to this day, nobody knows exactly why it happened. We need an explanation, a justification, rather, for all the futures that were obliterated in the Blast.
    But we still know nothing.
    Even the group that did it has remained nameless. It was beyond the power scale of any known terrorist group, but many people theorize that it was an unknown group of terrorists that lay low and formed under the nose of international governments, waiting for the right moment to devastate the world.
    That isn’t the only version, of course. The identity of the Blasters is speculated constantly. Some say it was a government experiment gone wrong. Some say it was a government experiment gone right. Some blame foreign governments. Every possible group on the planet has been stuck with the blame, but since any research organization that could have told us for sure got wiped out, there remains no definitive answer. Each year the trail gets colder, and we’ll probably never know.
    But I want to know. Knowing whose name to curse would take the blame off of me, somehow, for not doing anything to change it. I know I’m not doing anything because I can’t , but still: is there really nothing I can do? It is my life after all, isn’t it? Still my decision what to do with it.
    Isn’t it?
    Perhaps not. We live under a set of rules, both natural and imposed, that make it impossible for us to leave and difficult to change. I used to spit at the door of the Hopetown senate every time I passed it, but I soon realized that it did nothing for me and only amused the senators. Besides, the fools sitting inside the white walls of the senate were just taking orders from the Continental Governing Body, the tyrannical group of warlords who took over after the old government collapsed. Many have blamed them for the Eruption. Very few have been able to stand up to them, as all uprising that was found was crushed. And besides, nobody really wanted to rebel after the executions. I shiver at the thought.
    Some people still hope. Somewhere out there is the Rebellion, the most powerful anti-CGB group. It is the only organization has gotten anywhere near making a difference. It has been able to foil several of their small control plots and is universally revered by the townspeople of every small town within several hundred kilometers of the coast.
    But those mythical beings are far away from here, and so is the CGB, and all the sad lot of us have left to do is shovel snow and serve drinks and force ourselves to stay awake until our eyes fall out.
    How long can I stay awake ? I wonder. The most I’ve slept in the last several months is six hours one night. Eventually, my body will take what it needs. But