Revolution 20 by Robert F. Young

Author:Robert F. Young [Young, Robert F.]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Sci-Fi Short
Published: 2010-03-07T18:13:48.609000+00:00

I walked partway across the dusty floor and sat down on the chair. I as-sured myself that even if her grue-some tale were true, I had nothing to fear, because I was alive. I found myself staring at the bed. It did not look as though anyone had ever slept on it. The mattress was as mildewed as the walls and gave forth a moldly smell. Did she really sleep on the horrid thing?

I was tempted to go through the drawers of the vanity, but the rigid set of values I have always lived by prevented me from doing so.

Probably when the council mem-bers came, one of them would feel for my heartbeat by pressing his fin-gers against my carotid artery. Thank God I was alive!

I caught myself up. I was a sober, sane, and sensible man — and sober, sane, and sensible men do not believe in resurrection. They especially do not believe in it on a worldwide scale. I had heard a tale told by a mad-woman.

I drew the chair over to the win-dow, which was open, and sat down again, placing my elbows on the sill. The window was on the east side of the building, but there was another street below. It, too, was filled with people. The building's shadows had brought on an early twilight, and the people were wandering up and down the street in the crepuscular light.

Why didn't any of them go home to dinner?

The thought of food did more than reawaken my appetite, it re-minded me of my thirst. The moment Elizabeth came back with the council members, I would demand both food and water. The buildings across the street were not nearly as tall as this one. Below me and across the way, I could see other people looking out the win-dows, or leaning through them and looking down into the street.

Didn't anyone have anything to do?

I raised my eyes. I found that I could see over the building tops to the rest of the plain, which the city had hidden from my view. I half expected to see a second necropolis, or an extension of the first, but I did not. Instead, I saw a sea of tents.

There were thousands and thou-sands of them. They spread out seem-ingly to the horizon itself, and to left and to right to the limit of my gaze. In the nearer distance I could make out people moving among them.

For a long while I sat there staring at the darkening plain.

When at length I brought my gaze — and myself, too, for that matter —back to my immediate surroundings, I saw that darkness filled the street below and that the people were car-rying torches. In the windows across the way, I saw the flickering of can-dlelight. I refused to believe that ev-en a city as deteriorated as this one no longer had electricity, and I felt my way through the darkness of the room to the door and felt the wall on either side of the jambs in search of a switch.

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