On A Bright Sunny Day

On a bright sunny day, Toma saw something glistening in the desert sun in the distance, as he went for one of his long walks from the intermitantly solar powered air conditioned Habitats a mile away. The Solar worked, but was increasingly in disrepair.

It had cooled down that day to 105 F... A lot more comfortable than the 118 F days of plus 110 F in the previous week. Toma can't remember the last time it ever got below 100 F, even in the middle of the night.

He was luckier than most because he had a day off... from a job.... and Toma just wanted to do something different. His fire fighter job in the desolate and former Las Vegas, allowed him some offtime between 48 hour shifts. He wiped some loose sagebrush twigs off his light orange uniform that he gets cleaned for free as he continued his walk.

Toma was a proud and moderately tall man of 6 ft and medium build, brown eyes, average brown full eyebrows, with average muscles, but in good shape for being 33 years old. His dark lightly trimmed hair poked out of a light orange fireman's clothe cap, as a bead of sweat rolled past his left ear and quickly evaporated in the desert sun. But the inside cap rim was moist from perspiration.

Now, Toma didn't get paid, much... if all all... mind you, he was a volunteer. But he took it as his responsibility to help when needed, and the trust between his fellow fire fighters was just like a real job. Once in a while they would run games or events to scare up funds...

But mostly Toma made his living by trading things for Pesos, which were very weak but useable.

Any American Paper money, since the collapse of the American Banking System some 50 years ago, was a curiousity, and not used for buying things, unless traded as a collection. The same could be said for regular American coins... Except for those stamped from precious metals.

As a side benefit, First Responders were allowed to pick through the ruins of places devastated by high winds, hurricanes, or tornadoes, which occured almost weekly, to find things to trade. Toma can't remember the last time he fought an actual fire. Mostly forest fires though... And most of the Sierra Mountain Forests burned down decades ago. The delapidated city was mostly too dry to burn... much.

As Toma surveyed his surroundings on his walk, he thought about Las Vegas, which wasn't what it used to be in 2095 ... The Big Clubs had fallen into ruin, and there was no Electricity or Services in the Las Vegas Ruins, along the dusty Main Drag. Just structures, with broken windows, and walls that had caved in. It was a Haven for Homeless, but a few places managed to find generators and serve drinks, and run a few games in a few dusty places... Mostly card games. But there was no clear ownership. Mostly the owners were long dead by now.

In fact, Toma started thinking... The population were he lives really isn't a lot. He could go most of the Day and only run into one or two people, besides his friends.

There was no gasoline, he thought... unless you were lucky enough to find an abandoned car or truck, that you could coach to running for a few days. And he thought, it's a long way back to town if it died. He had noticed years ago, the Electric Cars are almost all in disrepair and left to ruin.

"California was the first to convert"... he was thinking on his walk... "to all Electric, and after a few decades of the turnover, there's hardly any gas cars to drive because of missing parts."

"And, Labs to make replacement cells dissapeared decades ago. Most of the Technicians that know how are dead. The Fire Dept, however, gets full priority if any diesel is found."

Toma works on the fire department's converted fire trucks to e85, and they have to run their own still, using garbage from leftovers. Converting to e85 was a lot of hard work, on the 3 trucks running, since diesel doesn't use spark plugs. They had to bore exacting holes for them into the engine block.

Even the Fire Dept has dwindling resources. Half their 6 trucks no longer move due to lack of parts.

The glistening object locked into his sight as he continued walking. It was a mere 10 minutes before it came into view, and about 50 feet from the dusty highway, outside of town heading west.

As he got closer, he could see it was some kind of jewelry. Wiping it off upon picking it up... He saw the silver colored chain and a silver heart shaped locket. Curiously, he wiped off the dust and broke it open with his fingernails.

"Beware the Eydes of March" was printed by hand on a small strip of paper, and a one word name on the back said, "Nancy."

Toma pulled on his firemen cap and scratched his head... Then he looked back at the road. "Musta been thrown from the road," he thought.

And he kept thinking of the words, and how tarnished it was...and so dusty.

"It's been here a long time. Maybe 50 years or more," he mused. "The winds must of uncovered it."

"This will bring me ten pesos at the Pawn Shop near the Fire Station," he thought...

"Looks like she had a fight with her lover before the Plague hit... Maybe it had something to do with their relationship" he muttered to himself. "Time to walk back to the 'ol Fire Station," he thought.

Just then... Toma saw some e85 powered motorbikes kicking up dust about a mile away.

"I better hide this locket under the inside sole of my shoe," he thought.

Within a minute a pair of e85 motorbikes were within speaking distance. "Find anything interesting out here?," the scragglier of the two male bikers asked, as the taller one dismounted his bike. He waited for a response from Toma.

The companion and him both wore short jeans that looked a size too small with dirty stained jean shortsleeve shirts.

E85 bikes were a conglomeration of older gas bikes over the years. Both bikes looked to be partly scratched up green and white fiberglass panels and bumpers, screwed to an aluminum frame. Their engines were two cycle, that whine when reved.

The scragglier one had a dark brown full homeless looking bushy sailer beard, while his top hair stuck out all over, neither guy looked like their hair had been trimmed or washed in weeks.

The scragglier one looked to be well over 6 feet tall, maybe 6 feet 4 inches. The other one was just a couple inches under 6 feet tall, Toma observed, because his knees did not bend as far sitting on his bike. Toma wondered if he could take the lighter built companion with greyish unkept hair.

The scragglier one appeared to get impatient as he stared and crossed his big build muscular arms.

"Maybe we should check him over, Boss, just in case!"... The sidekick suggested, still on his bike, the motor running.

A struggle starts... as the big scragglier one grabs Toma on the neck from behind, getting ready to give a choke hold. Toma rotates and swiftly kicks the scragglier one where it hurts between the legs, when Toma breaks free.

"Oh GEEZ, ya didn't have to do that!!!", he screams... grabbing his groin while in great pain. "Ok... We'll leave you alone... Doesn't look like he's worth it..." as he limps back on his motorbike and they rev up, then both give Toma a grimacing look.. and zoom back into town. They almost appear to dissapear into a fog bank as the dust from their spinning tires kicks up, occluding their exit.

As Toma returns to near his work on a dusty dirt only street... He walks into the nearby old and dusty pawn shop, barely standing and in disrepair. The windows are caked in dried mud. There's a slim elderly grey haired lady with kind blue eyes smiling at him from behind the counter. A partly pried open skylight illuminates her space.She looks to be in her 70's and is wearing a pale blue ruffled blouse and dark trousers.

"I've got something for you to look at..." he says. Toma reaches down and pulls off his shoe, then slowly gets out the silver locket. The old lady's eyes light up brighter than a morning sun... with a smile that fills her whole face.

"I had a locket like that once! About 50 years ago!," she perks up. They pry it open together slowly. She almost fainted.

"Oh my! That's MY old locket! ... How did you ever FIND it?" she exclaims.

Toma looks shocked, as he adds,"Wow! What an amazing coincidence I should find you!"... They are both grinning so brighly... as 'NANCY' interrogates him.

"I found it about 50 feet off Route 15 about a mile west of the Ruins!" Toma continued, all excited. "How did you lose it?" Toma inquires.

"Well..." she continues, tears in her eyes... "I wrote that note, "Beware The Eydes of March"... because my boyfriend wouldn't get his Covid Variant Number 25 shot. We had one or two to get every year for about two decades, when I was a kid. Sadly, I lost him less than a week later to it. It had only been announced a week or so earlier coming out of Florida, killing six year olds. I got mine, the next day as usual."

She added,"I'm glad the Pandemic finally ended in 2044, though, soon after that last Variant, using new DNA codes for all of us. Too bad the Covid left 3/4ths of the adults sterile. WHY didn't he listen to me? I pleaded... Just take the shot!"

Then... after a brief pause and sniff, she continued, "He adamantly refused because he said he was probably immune to it, and shots were for sissies." Then the tears came rolling down her cheeks.

She continued, "He was a handsome guy, kind too. Tall, dark... We broke up over it after I gave him the note with my locket. I was determined he save himself. Millions, including children, were dying every year since 2020. Now, there's hardly anyone left."

She cries a lot more... wiping her eyes with a small washclothe she usually dusts with. "He must of thrown it out there."

"Thank You for bringing this back to me. It really means a LOT.... Here's a 100 Peso reward for bringing it to me." She dries her eyes, and squeezes his hands in a gesture of gratitude, pressing the 100 Peso coin into his left hand.

"I'm so glad I brought this here. This really means a lot to me too!" Toma adds, as he heads for the door.

"Now, time to report in," comes into Toma's thoughts. Toma is greeted by his friends and co workers as he walks in.

"You won't BELIEVE what I discovered today in the desert!"

By Tom Chatterton

June 22-27, 2021

Done ona Samsung A20