Just Another Day...

[MurPHy]

This is a rough draft of a story I did for my high school english class. I've got a few other non-fallouty poems and stories that I'll post if anyone is interested.



Just Another Day...
My name is Anderson. John Anderson. And I am the President of the United States of America. It is the year 2152. A nuclear holocaust has come, and gone. The world was nearly wiped clean of the human race. The Soviet Union launched their missiles during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and we returned fire. Mutually Assured Destruction had occurred. Washington D.C., Boston, New York; Moscow, Leningrad, St. Petersburg; all were destroyed. Few survived. I was born long after all of this, during the long period of reconstruction. My parents tell me that I was born in the year 2095, during a great winter snowstorm. When I was but a boy, I remember listening to stories of wild animals and large cities that my grandfather heard of from his grandfather. I could not fathom such things, as the only animals I had ever seen were Brahmin, geckoes, and radscorpions. Also, the largest “city� I had ever seen had been the destroyed remains of a once-great town that had been called “Philly�. I could only view it from a distance, however, as the background radiation was much too high to safely get within eight miles. Even at that distance, I became slightly nauseated and had to get far away from the place after a time of only ten minutes. Enough history; Back to current events. Some of the infrastructure of the old world survived the bombings; specifically, the landline telephone wires that ran under the great body of water that was called the “Atlantic�. From old maps, we found that it ran to a large island called “Britain�. There were no large seaworthy vessels available to actually go there, however, as all of the large ports had been hit in the Great Fire, and all pre-war seagoing ships were now rusting hulks. We managed to rebuild part of this telephone system, but have had no luck contacting anyone on the other side. Until now, that is. We had set up a special phone – it was painted red – that was attached directly to this trans-Atlantic phone line over three years ago. Since then it had been sitting and gathering dust. I was looking through some new tax forms for the state of New Kansas (only three bombs had landed in Kansas, all in the vicinity of the former capital. As such, it was largely untouched) when suddenly the formerly dormant trans-Atlantic phone started ringing. This startled me, and I dropped the stack of forms that had been in my hands. A million questions were racing around my head. Who could it be? Could someone have survived? What will they say? What will I say? Could it be a true Briton? It rang a second time. My hands started sweating as I reached for it. A third time it rang; my heart thumping in my chest now. I cringed with anticipation. I picked up the phone and said,
“Hello?�

“Who is this?� said the unknown man.

“This is the President of The United States of America. Who are you?� I said with authority.

“Oh.� He said. “Erm..�

He started breathing heavily into the phone, and this went on for a number of seconds, until I finally grew impatient and spouted out,
“Well, out with it man!�

He replied in a high-pitched tone, speaking very rapidly and nervously,
“This is Frank O’Malley, and I’m testing the phone lines as part of a special check by the phone company for unused lines.�

My anticipation quickly turned to anger, and I yelled,
“This line is most certainly in use, you imbecile!�

He quickly mumbled,
“Sorry sir�
and hung up.

I slammed down the phone, and tried to calm myself for the next twenty minutes. Having succeeded, I went back to the waiting paperwork.

[Insane-Lark]

Keep it up.