paintball tragedy/oil spill part 3

paintball tragedy/oil spill part 3

fiction
edward w pritchard


What a piece of luck. The cult of Vulcan [ Roman god of fire] has asked me to stay with them for a few days. They are a religious group and feel we are in apocalyptic times and they write down everything for posterity. They know of me through my earlier writing and I am one of the few people out walking who can think up new ways to describe the bizarre landscapes caused by the oil storms.

They have food and good water and one of the members, who used to be a surgeon, just like that fixed my left eye. He removed a few fragments and already I can see out of it again. He says it's interesting but I seem to be growing a membrane over my eyes like a frog and he told the leaders of their group that I am adapting to the new normal. I am feeling better and I seem to be one of the only survivors not complaining about the food or the new colors of everything.

The leader of the group here used to work with me in the mortgage business, named Paula then, and she is now a sort of priestess, although that's a misleading word. They are Luddites of a sort and believe that the oil storms are sent by God. I had carried a bible to give to my daughter and I gave it to her, Paula instead. She got so choked up, by my gift that she gave me a cold beer. Remarkable. They are developing techniques to keep things cold in the earth[ which is hot as fire anymore] and somehow she got a cold beer for me. That was fantastic.

The storms continue and I have took to wearing a pan on my head. I took off the handle and as I walk around Ohio I feel like the second Johnny Appleseed. It's not all fun and games however for the paintball storms are coming every two hours today and I am walking through a field of five feet high razor sharp purple grasses that are a new species, an adaptation to storms. Most other plants have died off. I have been eating the new purple grass. It tastes like the inside of an old rubber dodge ball and like the air, it smells of rubber and oil.

I am near my daughter's farm. It takes a strong effort but I can now travel three or more miles a day, and I think I am getting used to the bad air. My lungs have stopped hurting and other than my hands, which have no feeling, having adapted to all the hot surfaces by loosing their sense of touch, I am feeling very good. I seem to be one of the only people not loosing a lot of weight and I still have an appetite.

Life goes on I suppose.
End part 3