Hope

Melissa stood like a pillar of salt outside Sodom, but she was standing on the mountain overlooking a once green valley. The destruction wiped clean most of the town where she’d grown up. Mel’s unit was on patrol at 0300. They heard bombs and missiles screaming through the air, saw the lights streak across the black night and realized the small country town did not have a chance. And this was the aftermath.

“Commander, please, I need to go and see my grandmother’s place. Maybe by some miracle she’s survived,” Mel pleaded.

"Go on," he said. “Take Sully and Anderson with you. You take Maple Street and see what’s salvageable. While you’re there, you’re welcome to check on your homestead, but Mel, don’t expect much. Cherryville has taken a direct hit. It’s toast. Just be glad it wasn’t nukes.”

“I’m not blind sir. I know. I just have to see.”

Mel, Sully and Anderson walked to Maple Street. They slowly walked the street, smoke from house fires blinding them to the flames that burned hot enough to melt glass. The sounds of the fire surrounded them, popping and crashing as windows burst and roofs fell. So far, they’d found a tire that might be repaired, and a few cans of food that hadn’t burst open, and some iron tools that hadn’t melted.

File cabinets stood tall, the paint gone and the paper within disintegrated. A huge cherry desk in one home burned, raging in a weird rectangular shape, as though it writhed in pain at each flame’s hungry lick. A ceiling fell sideways, and a chandelier hung limp from it, melting down the wall.

Mel stepped onto the large lawn of her grandmother’s house.

She shuffled through the wreckage, seeking one piece of anything. Anything that would bring her grandmother back to her in a tangible way, something she could take with her from this place of horror and sadness. Photos still appeared to be photos, but black and white. They disintegrated at her touch, the smiles cracking away on the wind. A silly lamp had somehow survived, a pink kitten lamp her mother had given her as a child. She picked it up, stroking the kitten as though for comfort. It made no sense, the house gone, but the kitten lamp survived?

A group of neighbors showed up and together they pulled the destruction apart, looking for food and things that could be used for shelter or for weapons. There was so little left: a piece of wood from a window sill, but more ash than wood. The hulk of the old kitchen stove, the wood-burner that sat in the corner of the kitchen was intact, but the black burner lids were gone, blown, no doubt, into the next county.

She found the cellar steps, gingerly stepping down into the basement. Her brother’s baseball bat appeared to be leaning against the back wall, she could just see the grip. The glove he hung on the bat now a charred black, no more comfy leather. As she lifted chunk by chunk the remnants of happy times, she found her old trike, a bike or two and a wagon. She remembered pulling her dolls in that wagon when it was shiny and red. She wondered if they had survived.

She lifted a piece of roof with shingles, and under that found her grandmother. Her bones lying on her side, on the bones of her old brass bed. ` She’d slept soundly through the devastation as her memories burned down around her.

Mel broke. She wept and wept, wailing out her pain. Her last living relative was gone. She crumbled, falling down into the wreckage. Sully found her there, and lifted her up. He carried Mel to a tent, and laid her down to rest. Then he went back to the house, looking for something that might cheer her up.

Sully and two others lifted the biggest chunk of roof, and under that found a dresser with a key. The key melted in the lock and most of the wood burned made it easy to open the drawers. There was very little left. In one back corner of the dresser was a square metal box, glowing from the flames around it. Sully picked it out with a set of fireplace tongs he found lying nearby.

“Anderson, put this up on the wall there. Let it cool, and make sure no one moves it.” Sully said, as he motioned to the edge of the basement wall.

“Yes, sir, Sarge.” Anderson said.

They continued through the wreckage and then moved on to the next house.

As Mel slept, she dreamed of the things her grandmother wanted her to have. Grandma had walked her through the house one day, and marked every photo and painting with a grandchild’s name, Mel’s and those of her cousins and brother. She also told Mel about a secret box that held a precious gift handed down from days before the war.

“It will give you hope, Mel, in your darkest hours. It belongs to you, as you are the one who will need what it carries. Be strong, Mel. You are our last warrior.”

Mel heard her grandmother's voice and opened her eyes. She could see her grandmother, clear as day sitting on the cot next to her. She said, “It has been found, the seeds of hope for you and your new family. The town needs your strength, Melissa. Go and take your place in the future of the new world.”

Mel sat up, feeling as though she’d slept for hours. She caught up to Sully and Anderson just as they were making their way back down the street.

“Did you find anything of use?” she asked.

“A few things, more canned food, a water source which doesn’t appear to be contaminated. I took samples,” Sully said. “And a strange metal box in a dresser at your grandmother’s house. It was too hot to touch, so I left it cooling there on the basement wall.”

Mel walked toward the basement, seeing the metal puzzle box glowing in the night, almost as if it were glass lit from within. She reached down and picked it up, still very warm to the touch. Wrapping it in a scarf, she put it in her pocket.

They joined the rest of the unit in the town square and shared what they’d all found. Several clean water sources were found. The gardens of the town were all burned, the land seared with the ash of dead plants, flowers and trees. A least it would make good compost if they could find plants that had already gone to seed.

As all the tools and supplies were laid out to be divided among the camp, Mel remembered the box her grandmother had saved for her. She approached her CO.

“Sir, I have a special request. I know everything we have has to be divided among all of us for us to survive. I don’t know what this box holds, but I ask that I be able to open it in private, with just you to observe. If it holds something that will help the community, I willingly share it. But if it is just a trinket Grandma left for me alone, may I keep it, sir?”

“Step into my quarters, Mel. Let’s see what you’ve got,” the Commander said.

Mel worked the puzzle box, a fine smooth metal box arranged in a large square. As the puzzle pieces moved, she felt the connection to her family, their history as farmers in the area, and the contributions they’d made to the town in the past. At last, the box opened.

Inside on a bed of purple velvet lay a large rounded heart locket. It was not flat, for pictures, and one could wear it around the neck if they liked particularly chunky jewelry. Mel screwed her face up in a question, looking at her CO.

“I didn’t expect this,” she said.

“Open the locket, let’s see what it holds, Mel.”

The locket opened with a bit of a squeak on a hinge set into the edge of the heart. Inside, neatly aligned in their own little grid were vials of seeds, labeled neatly in black pen. Mel pulled one out.

“Tomatoes, beefsteak.” She breathed. Another one said carrots, another broccoli. As Mel moved around the heart, she realized her grandmother was right. This was hope.