Washington's new Militia

I remember when the bombs fell.

It was early Thursday morning May 4th, 2025.  I remember waking up thinking I had missed my alarm and was late for work. I reached over to my phone and checked the time it was only seven o'clock in the morning and work started in 30 minutes. I had maybe 10 minutes to get out the door. I reluctantly scrambled to my feet, I looked back at my wife who was sleeping peacefully facing the wall opposite of me with her arm stretched over our daughters bassinet. She must have been crying at some point in the night and my wife had rocked her back to sleep as well as herself. It was a peaceful moment, had I known the events that would happen later I would have never left.

At around 7:15 AM  the news was playing at the gas station as I bought my usual pick me up a pack of smokes and an energy drink which was never healthy but in my job it was what kept me going.  I had a very stressful job as a D/C electrician and I spent more time in my own head planning out schematics and logic to make machines work and though not as physical as previous jobs would have it, it was mentally exhausting; and so I would take my energy drink to keep the thoughts coming and my smokes to wind me down during breaks. The news reporter on the Television popped up a breaking news alert as I was finishing my purchase. I looked at my watch and had to get going, I passed it off as the typical news propaganda, paid for my breakfast of champions and took off to work.

As I made way down the road I looked up into the sky and noticed a few streaks of white clouds that usually came from a plane. They were in straight paths, my mind escapes me these days on the number maybe 15 or more, in my head I just remember asking myself if there was an airshow in town.

I was just 3 minutes late and already thinking of some lame excuse as I made my way to the door. It's a small warehouse painted  white and brown, nothing spectacular but it was my office. I was expecting to hear the regular sounds of drills, forklifts, adult banter between colleagues the usual nonsense with my boss standing at the door arms crossed waiting for whatever lame excuse I was going to give him. I heard nothing, not a single machine running, nobody at their desks, wire strewn all over the work benches from the day prior, it was silent. I figured maybe I got lucky and nobody would have noticed my tardiness and quickly clocked in and began working.

My soldering tool had barley reached its temperature to begin work when I heard a gasp followed by "oh my god." I looked up and crept around the corner to see everyone was huddled around the break area watching the television that was mounted on the wall. I made my way over to the crowded break area trying to blend into the crowd as the President was giving a speech. " what's going on?" "Did I miss something?" I asked curiously. "We are being attacked, and the President is on the news, it's on all the channels, and social media is blowing up with reports of bombs hitting major cities." John had said following up with," haven't you been paying attention?" I remember I could see the anguish on his face as he clutched a heart shaped necklace around his neck that his daughter gave him for father's day a few years prior. " My wife is in D.C. , she is on a business trip and I haven't been able to reach her, or my daughter." John spoke with a shaking voice. Another coworker was heard in the front " you...you don't think the bombs will..." he was cut off when the stationed changed to an emergency broadcasting message flashing on the screen followed by everyone's phones chiming almost In unison to a presidential amber alert to seek shelter immediately. The sound was mortifying as we all glanced at each other and then to our screens.

Much of what happened was a blur after that. Everything turned into a flash of light and heat,  then nothing, it all went black.

I remember the explosions echoing in the distance still surging when I came to.  I also remember the panic as I dug my way from the broken walls and crumbled roof.

My hands burned and blistered, my face pitted, bloodied and scarred from the shrapnel of everything that could fly. I was met with a cold shimmer of blackened sunlight as I scrambled to my feet. Standing on top of the collapsed building, the hue had turned orange and Grey from the fires around me and in the distance. Rising atop my new empire built on carnage and misery, somehow I was the only surviving person to live from the warehouse. Was it luck? Maybe it was destiny? To answer those questions I had to shake off the bitter sweet melody that rang in my ears. Somehow I had been spared that day for reasons only a man of faith could conceive as a prophetic moment. I myself however was hurt, bitter and too angry to care. My city was torn apart, my family taken from me sometime during the bombing in their sleep as I later came to find in my struggle to get home. Never again would I hear my Sons voice asking me if I would play dinosaurs with him with his usual roar and messy reddish brown hair followed by the most adorable smile. My precious baby girls coos and cries were a constant echo in my mind her beautiful  big blue eyes glaring at me in protest for her bottle and the ever so often toothless smile she would give when I spoke to her. My perfect wife, whom was my rock in this world that kept me in check when my anger would get the best of me. My whole family could change my day with just a smile and I know that ill never see them on this earth again and this left that anger unchecked as it built inside of me. 

My city, my country, ravaged by  unseen forces and all that was left was the gristle of what was once people, the occasional hand outstretched from the debris in a everlasting pose reaching for freedom for help that would never come. Instead their carion left to be plucked away by the vultures and other predators who sought for an easy meal.

I was spared that day while everyone around me more worthy of life than myself was put to rest; some without ever knowing what happened and maybe that was a good thing. They dropped where they stood, some in parking lots at the local grocery stores, buried under the debris of what was once a thriving business. others likely in their beds.

It was later that same Thursday I had no idea the time anymore nothing worked.  I  sat at the rubble of my home that I finally reached while daylight was fading. A toy dinosaur clutched in my hand that was once my sons, one of the few surviving pieces of cherished memories. A Tyrannosaurus Rex, it was like my son called on me to play with him one more time. "King of the dinosaurs." I muttered under my breath, my hands dripping blood though I was unsure whose it belonged to.

I found 2 survivors carelessly looting whatever they could find from my home. It doesn't take long for people when society falls apart to become savages, I was no exception. I killed them in a fit of rage as they desecrated my home where my family was meant to rest eternally. The first man died quick when I bashed in the back of his skull with a peice of rebar that came from my retaining wall. The second man faired far worse. I beat him with my bare hands as he tried to scurry away and tripped begging and pleading. I felt the life leave his body as the onslaught of my flailing fists pumbled his face until there was nothing left but the sound that resembled the smashing of fruit and a puddle of brain matter and skull fragments where a face used to be. I didn't take pride in it but at that time nothing else mattered except revenge for disrespecting my family.

As time passed on the first few weeks more chaos emerged and the farther I traveled the more destruction I found.  During this time I had also acquired a small gathering, people whom had lost everything too. I seemed to be making my way somewhere with a purpose and that signaled to most a form of leadership and like lost puppy dogs they followed. I didn't ask for leadership, I never wanted power, I had no use for it, and maybe that's what people saw and wanted. A leader who could bring them to a better life and not be corrupted by the power of leadership. These rag tag few are not the army I wanted, but they might be just what I needed, the same purpose but a new approach to fight off the enemy soldiers. My people call me the new George Washington, and this is our revolution for a new America.

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