The Wall of America by Thomas M Disch

Author:Thomas M Disch [Disch, Thomas M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Collections & Anthologies, Short Stories (Single Author)
ISBN: 9781892391827
Google: 3ckgAQAAIAAJ
Amazon: 1892391821
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2008-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

A Family of the Post-Apocalypse

it was cheaper living in the danger zone, which was why they’d settled there after everything went haywire. Dad and Mom and the three Big Babies. All this was after the Rapture and the Second Coming (which they never got to see), and the only people left on Earth were the people who hadn’t been saved. Things weren’t the same as when they’d got their starter house back in Wisconsin, but as Dad would say, When have things ever been the same? Anti-Christ was supposed to be in charge these days, though it wasn’t that much different from when the Presidents were being elected. He appeared, as they had, on tv from time to time, to announce the latest disaster and to reassure the survivors that they shouldn’t worry.

The major difference, from Mom’s point of view, was not having any easy listening on the radio. Just heavy metal, which was bad for the kids, especially when they were teething, which was most of the time.

Scorpions could be a problem. Likewise power outages and brownouts. Fortunately Dad had figured out a way to hook up the deepfreeze to the car batteries he’d scavenged after the big pile-up on Route 66. The lawn, for a wonder, was still in good shape, except in one area around the septic tank, which had become a little forest of mushrooms almost overnight.

Since there was no more industry or commerce or employment or such as that, there was plenty of quality time for the family to do those things they’d been neglecting before Armageddon. The trouble with this was that the Big Babies, who’d earlier shown some sort of aptitude for games that didn’t involve numeric skills, seemed to have regressed (even as they’d grown so much larger) to a more or less infantile state. Hence their name now. It wasn’t just their three, it was all the children left after the Rapture. Their oldest, Buddy, three at the time, was still capable of a game or two of tic-tac-toe, but the twins were dumb as fish. Strong, and cute as the dickens in a strange way, but dumb as fish. Dad had fixed up a kind of harness from the old Buick’s safety belts and taught the twins to pull the lawn mower with it, which they seemed to like to do and which was why the lawn looked as good as it did. But intellectually they were not apple-of-the-eye material.

Time had stopped, so clocks didn’t work anymore, and the survivors had split up into factions as to what was the exact date and day of the week. But people still tried to get on to church on Sunday on a hit-or-miss basis. In some ways church attendance seemed more important now than it had in pre-Apocalyptic times, even though there wasn’t any urgency about whether you’d end up saved or otherwise. Otherwise seemed to be everybody’s situation, but even so there could be a kind of comfort in singing the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.