Courting Destiny

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3WW: dread; grasp; pacify: fiction

By


Remember the pink and the pinup? Miss it? I do but want it more sophisticated and can’t afford a custom design right now.
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Lianna had to run from the beach and then the field as fast as she could. She wasn’t a very fast runner but adrenaline kicked in and—she tripped.

She looked at the sky with more dread than she could ever remember feeling. To her distant right she could see a large funnel cloud. She couldn’t help but stare as she had never seen one before. To her left were more familiar lightening bolts she had been running from all her life.

Yet the sun was blinding. None of this made sense. She pulled herself up and fast walked to the beaches edge. The field, though a protected bird sanctuary, was filled with cars. Many were turned over; some were on their sides. The people, ohmygod, what had happened when she had been in the water?

She wanted to grasp the people and breath life back into them but she was scared. Should she go back into the ocean? Was that the only safe place?

One person. One live person. That’s all she needed to see. One person; alive, walking and talking would pacify her, but there was nobody.

She opened car doors and grabbed cells. This was no time to be a lady. The fourteenth or fifteenth cell worked. When she tried making calls to those few numbers she knew by heart: her mother, boy friend, best friend and sister, the calls went straight to voice mail.

Now she tried radios. Nothing. Lianna became crazed.

Somehow she made it into town and saw people frozen on the streets and in stores. Would they come back to life she wondered as the lightening kept just missing her and the funnel cloud hit something far away.

Was she the last survivor? She didn’t want to live in a world alone. No she sure didn’t.

Comments

  2. deepa says

    Sounds eerie … reminds me of the Will Smith film “The Last Survivor” (right ??) and a Stephen King novel (forgot the name)

    Love the contrast between the delicate looking pink and the harsh situation…

  5. ThomG says

    This has a cool creepiness to it, the panic is there, you feel it, but there’s the underlying story that isn’t told, just sitting there. The mind fills in the blacks. Nice.

  6. pia says

    @ThomG
    Thanks Thom I always appreciate your comments. Sometimes, and I don’t mean this facetiously, I learn more about my story from you

    I was just picturing a world gone crazy–like ours actually–makes it too easy to write creepily

  7. Doug says

    Miss Pia, I fear you’re getting concise.

    Did she try her Facebook page? When the rest of the world comes to ruin, our ghosts will still friend.

  8. pia says

    @Doug
    Why yes Mr. Pascover I fear I’m getting concise also. Except in some long winded, fueled with Chardonnay emails.

    And what dare I ask would you know about Facebook? It would be a perfect medium for you and the whole world–or all your friend’s friends could discover the dry yet spicy wit we all cherish. Twitter would be even better. 140 characters and really the whole world…..

    FB would be good if wifi is working. Actually finding ghosts on FB would be perfect.

    But she’s still looking for one living human being, preferably a straight male with whom she can face despair, the death of everybody she loves, and reseed the earth so to speak
    Have you ever noticed how in most novels or movies about the death of most people in the world the heroes never spend even a page crying over the deaths of their loved ones? I always wonder about that. And decided to be loquacious just for you. (I’m waiting for somebody to come fix something and am absolutely horrible at waiting)

  10. Gemma@Greyscale says

    Breathing people seem only to be valued when there are none around. Isolation can be a peaceful but tense situation – no choice to voice simply being! You have created a desperate tension in your narrative!

  11. Grandma says

    Well done. I could feel the panic. But did you ever have one of those days when you longed for peace and quiet? May not want to live there, but it could make a great mini vacation. LOL

    Thanks for stopping by my place.

  13. Donna Thacker says

    Okay, that scared me! Could have been me you are writing about as I am terrified of lightening and tornadoes. You just put my worst nightmare to words!

  14. Amity says

    A beautiful but frightening work of fiction Pia! I was like trying to catch air till the last word of your story!

    But I have a weird thinking that Lianna is just a soul already, flying from one direction to the other, and not the only survivor as she thinks of herself.

    Nice take and a breathtaking rendition Pia! Glad I found your place and yes, you were first to comment in my take on this week’s 3WW…:)

    Thank you so much!

  16. Jay Thurston says

    Well written Pia! Makes one wonder if they’d be better off a victim rather than a survivor. Painted a vivid devastating scene with this one…

  20. Ann (bunnygirl) says

    I’ve always been conflicted over which would be preferable: a slow apocalypse or a fast one.

    I doubt Lianna is the last survivor, though. Whether she can find the others is another matter.

    WRT your comment to Doug on the 19th, I had some doubts when I wrote Steal Tomorrow, since how likely was it that all my characters were so resilient? Then it occurred to me that, duh, who else is going to survive, except the resilient ones? The ones without some kind of coping ability, no matter how dysfunctional, die along with the others. Writing about dead people would make for a very dull book. 😉

  21. cooper says

    I love suspense, this was nice pia.

    “Fear of conciseness”, that is one for you bio.

  22. Matt Merritt says

    You captured her panic and loneliness. In a short piece, I love how you focus on one good scene – the aftermath – instead of spending too much time explaining the back story.

  23. Bone says

    Nice setup with the “what had happened while she was in the water” line. And I, too, like that you jump right into the middle of it.

    I kept thinking/hoping she was dreaming.

    I’m beginning to think you may be just twisted enough to write excellent sci-fi and horror 🙂

  24. stu pidasso says

    Spooky. this is the second read from last weeks Three Word Wednesday and the second spooky story. Maybe you “regulars” are all on the same wave length? Dunno. enjoyed it though. Maybe a group short stroy would be in the works? lol

    Good luck!