How the World Ends by Joel Varty Page B

blasted and smashed into great fuming holes.
    I see the vision of it all in front of me and wonder if it can truly be real. How can this be allowed to happen in a world where we have institutions and establishments that are dedicated to looking after our wellbeing? Or are they, I ask myself, merely looking out for themselves, for their own, for their small circles of influence that their power can affect?
    The power. It staggers me and I stop at the top of low rise where the train tracks turn slightly to accommodate some older houses beside the lake that existed before the tracks did. The power to destroy and the power to create. The power to choose and the power to revoke choices made by others. The power to rend and the power to care for. The seeds that are sown within me take root and sprout into a resolve to change the world. The power of God seems to light my path and I no longer feel torn between duty and purpose – I am merely called to action.
    I am no longer tired, my legs no longer weary. I see the light of the sun dart ahead of me, into the shadows, chasing the gloom before it. I pick up my pace to reach the city and try to make a difference.
    Before I get within a half-mile of the river, I can see that the tracks before me are lost into a gaping hole that is rapidly filling in with river-water. I start to walk around it, but I quickly get bogged down by a sucking swamp that has formed around the blast-hole. I stagger back up to the tracks and try to think about how to get over that hole. The late spring warmth of the sun feels nice, but I know that the water in that hole will be damned cold.
    I spin around slowly, searching the landscape in all directions for something that can get me quickly across, or around this hole. The houses at the lake edge are only a few hundred yards back along the tracks and on the other side of a low hill. I can only see the rooftops, but there might be something, or someone, there. The weariness of the night completely gone, replaced with a biting hunger, I step off the tracks and walk through last year’s tall grass to the old-looking stone cottages paired up on the lakeside.
    They appear to be deserted. The lawn grass is long, dead and undisturbed; these must be summer dwellings, or else abandoned. The door on one house is locked, but the small shed behind it is not. In it, as I can see through the glass window on the old-fashioned garage door, rests an old, yet functional-looking Land Rover truck.
    As I open the door, I hear a roar overhead of planes flying low. I look up to see several fighter planes making passes over the city. I wonder if they are the ones who blast-holed the road, or whether the guards did that as the pulled out of the city – if indeed they are not still within the city itself. It amazes me how quickly I can detach myself from the incredulity of the situation to analyze the details that are necessary for survival. It’s just human nature, I suppose.
    The Rover is very, very old. I’m not sure how to start it – as the dashboard has been obviously modified. The seat is little more than a metal bench on top of which an old blanket has been placed – comfy. The dash is comprised of four black toggle switches and a red push button. I push the red button. Nothing. I flip all the toggle twitches back and forth. Nothing. The battery must be dead. Thinking back to my days on the farm when our old Massey Ferguson spent its days parked at the top of hill so that it could be easily jump-started, I smile inwardly, glancing at the downward sloping driveway that curves down to the railway crossing and the dirt lane that must run over to the main road.
    The truck is fairly easy to push out of the garage, but it takes me several turns to get it swung around and lined up with the driveway. I am about to start the long push down the driveway to get it started when I stop for a second. Gas. Cursing under my breath, I pop open the cap on the side of the vehicle and peer