6d • General discussion
I Stood in Line
I Stood in Line
By Kathleen Tonn
It was a devastatingly long line. I didn’t think I could stand five minutes more. The blazing sun already laid down the dead. A singular quiet rested upon those of who were still on our feet. But we each knew, our bodies could be the next to be laid aside, so the line would continue to move an inch at a time. My friend’s body was removed from the line where he collapsed. He had not the strength to whisper good-bye.
There were three lines, each separated by ten feet. The first line was served the least rotten food. Those in that line were the former billionaires and millionaires. The second line was for all the politicians and government workers. There food was already rotten with card carrying maggots. The third line, the line I am in, is for the rest of the starving. Our food didn’t even have maggots for protein. Our food was a bottle of water with a scoop of whey protein.
Famine ravaged the land. The nuclear winter destroyed all the animals and plant life. What food we are getting is from storage. Storage that was created twenty years earlier. Canned goods that were ruptured with the blasts. Survival. What is survival? Most in line wish there bodies were already pushed to the side. Emaciated, none of us even look human.
Those in the third line wore out their rage with those in the first- and second-line months ago. Just desserts! Now, their pride and arrogance has brought them as low as those of us in the third line. There is no pontificating, no mocking, no lying and no bullshit. In fact, more dead were removed from the first two lines than from the third line. They are dying four to our one. Perhaps there is both divine justice and karma.
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I Stood in Line
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