A cloaked Mercedes G-Class made its weight known, leaving tire tracks in the sand. A foot was the only thing you could see: Avarice’s, out the window, reason the AC is blasting, admiring his gold fronts in the visor mirror, pulling his bottom lip down with his pinky.
“What do you mean by heart and a hand?”
Avarice sucked his canine and adjusted himself, “The shit would make you mad: heartless, ya’ll know my temper, I almost lit they shit up. Asking me for a favor in exchange for some damn bread.”
“You couldn’t do that?” New member of the gang curiously laughed.
“True.” Mentally acknowledging the new recruit was new to the city.
The rest of the ride was Avarice explaining how the people in charge of the UV Farms weren’t actually human. According to mythology, they’d be classed as vampires, big ears, patent leather, tinted goggles, and screams late in the night from people who were a little too desperate for some food. Their identity can be obscure, some say they’re mad old, some point to the old world politicians. Guess it makes sense they’d become bloodsuckers when shit hit the fan- run underground, feed on the poor. Cowards.
Palm trees, neon lights flicker on broken signs, lines snake out of soup kitchens. Welcome to Aftermath City! What’s left of it. Once a booming oasis of technology advancement, STEM rampant, cures administered, people housed, bellies full. That all came crashing down quickly, we barely got a taste of it. Some think there’s a conspiracy somewhere in there. Weightless talks of a promised land, just to get us all on-board the ship with a hull of bombs. Herded like sheep. Now, three-fourths of us are homeless, scraping, and trudging through the sands. Life was never this hard. Aftermath City is now it’s mirror image. No more cures, whatever is in the syringes now, kill you. Fights break out in the shelters, the honeys out here be waist-less for real now; Sandstorms block out the sun, crops failed, crops fail. The gentrified hoods charge a heart and a hand if you come to their UV farms, looking for just a slice of damn bread. Something’s got to give.
Scrolling down memory lane. Time to tidy this place up, change the name maybe… write more. I got a bunch of writing prompts and old poetry I never published- a new character that likes shoes just as much as I. Might commission an illustrator or two just to give him some life.
