PPFT

Prompt: Storm

Never, in the history of mankind, was there a storm like the one on May 27, the fifth anniversary of the Plato Polar Fermentation Treluge (PPFT).

I won’t sugar-coat it. It was bloody. It was violent. There were floods, hailstorms, plagues. No one survived it.

Except for me and my dog, Plato. Almost everything was named Plato, before the storm. Plato Pharmaceutical, Plato Food Industries, Plato Fermented Beverages, Plato Health Care. When I named Plato, when he was a tiny puppy, I thought Plato was the greatest name, because Plato was the greatest, most benevolent, most generous, most brilliantly wise entity in existence. Everyone pretty much felt the same.

The plague was handy, because it took all the bodies away, so Plato and I did not have to avoid bodies, step over them or drive around them, or worry about catching diseases from them.

We took up residence in a beautiful house which was conveniently located near shops and restaurants. Not that we went to restaurants. They are definitely not much fun if no one is serving you. But many had very large freezers housing fine delicacies. The city where Plato and I lived still had power, gas, electricity. We didn’t know how long these services would last, so we stockpiled frozen food into huge, well-insulated walk-in freezers.

We wondered four things:
1. Was it possible to learn how to maintain the power plant, or could we live without electricity?
2. What place accessible by car would be the best place for us to live?
3. Were Plato and I the only ones who survived the storm?
4. What the heck was going on?

We had already accessed Facebook and other social media sites, sending out friend requests to everyone in the world, but so far had received no response. We had a short-wave radio that we kept active. We sent up beacons and flares, usually at nightfall, every twenty-four hours.

I’m not that clever, or skillful at much, so I had no real idea of how Plato and I should spend our days and nights. Usually we were serious for a few days, making lists, taking inventory, stockpiling useful information, journaling the end of the world, then played for a few days, binging and speeding. Before things started getting overgrown, we could do almost anything we wanted.

We didn’t think much about being alone in the world. It was too much to think about, really.

Sometimes we slept outside, on cots, with the canopy of the sky above us. We were looking for signs: actual signs of other survivors, like the flares we sent up, anything. But what we saw and understood was something more than I could describe in my journal.

Plato and I were alone on a planet that died, but were not alone.