Post-Apocalyptia Jessica Barksdale

In post-apocalyptic novels there is the time before the apocalypse, and then the time after. As the plot cracks toward nevermore, no one sees the severance, the actual moment when it’s too late: the disease takes hold, the poison is let loose into the water systems, the monsters invade the sewers or the skies. By then, we’ve hurtled over the climax, people doomed to the end they predicted millennia ago.

That’s the part of the story I like the best. Both things are still possible. The old life of going to the corner restaurant and ordering a steaming plate of pasta in tomato sauce, a loaf of fresh bread, fragrant, yeasty nestled in the table basket, the windows open, letting in city sounds —bike bell, church bell, choir.

Behind the scenes, out of sight, the end comes crushing forward. We have no idea. I’m sitting with my best friend in an ancient building on a rickety wooden chair. The waiter is flirting with me. The sun slants golden across the table cloth. The whole room smells like basil.

Under the floorboards, zombies. In the tap, a bad elixir, the new life no one wants. The living don’t care. Not yet.

Post-Apocalyptia

Jessica Barksdale

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