The Atomic Weight of Humanity

Ray climbed up the old rusty ladder that led him out of his underground protective tomb. He knew nothing of what awaited at the top of this ladder that led to a new land that he only knew from old children's rhymes. They described it as a beautiful land where the willows weep, the brooks babble, and the flowers bloom. Ray took the forgotten ladder bar by bar, skipping some as they had turned to dust from being left unattended. The door at the top screamed as he opened it, it screamed with the pain of being forgotten and covered by dust, it screamed as if it wanted vengeance against the person who left it to die.  Ray stepped off the ladder out of the hole that encaged him for those 20 years of his underground life. 

The sun burned his eyes, filling them with a blinding hot white light like he was looking at a light bulb. He shielded his eyes and let them adjust. What he saw wasn't as it was described in those tales of a long ago past. It was a land of dust and burned trees, it was a world of suffering, it was a world of ruin. In the distance was a city where, from what he could tell, there were ruined buildings all crumbling from the unforgiving of time. He looked in the other direction. All that was there were skeletons of the past, charred trees that long waited for rain, bushes that turned to nothing but a pile of twigs. He headed off towards the city, ready to start anew. Better than being trapped in that dinghy underground sarcophagus, where the only light was a few LED bulbs and a fake sun that never set, he thought. As he walked his feet stirred up the dust behind him, disturbing its millennia of slumber.  He reached the city where there were shadows of a life a millennia ago stained on the sides of buildings and sidewalks. Cars sat awaiting their drivers, stores beckoned non-existent customers to come inside, side walks begged for pedestrians, roads yearned for the street sweepers to come and clean them. Ray walked further and further, his feet aching and begging for a sit down but he continued on intrigued by a past that was deemed unfit by the gods and wiped out by their creations. 

Ray came upon a schoolhouse where the shadows of kids still played and laughed with their friends. He sat upon a swing and pondered as the wind blew, moving the equipment that was tarnished with dust and soot, that cried in pain as the wind moved its corroded joints. Ray felt as if he was lied to by the fairy tales, and children's books. The willows didn't weep, they wailed in pain, the brooks did not babble, they sat in silence, the land wasn't beautiful, it was charred and sad. It was as if the world  cried out in pain from the wars that were fought on its crust, the wounds of humanity still shown on its skin and would never heal, its core rotten, a floating dust ball in space with its pride and joy, its life, taken from it with a press of a button. Ray was on the verge of crying, this new world was beautiful but broken and destroyed, it hurt his heart. He sniffed and stood up off of the melted plastic that was a swing. He continued walking. 

He saw a convenience store with its sign out front of it, the paint peeling asking over and over, sobbing, for another coat. The store's front glass windows were broken like his heart. Inside was dark and gloomy no light entered the building, except from those frames of what used to be a sheet of glass. There were shelves full of souvenirs that were tarnished from years of neglect and un-want, there were toys that felt useless without kids to hold them and play with them, there was food that became green and smelly and turned to dust without mouths to chew on them. He went to the front desk where a person waited for him. The person did not greet him, it sat with a bare smile showing its teeth in full, it didn't have any clothes to conceal its ribs, its eyes were black holes that showed no emotion but sadness, it had no nose so it couldn't smell the rotting wood from burst pipes that dripped relentlessly and never ending. In its hands it held a charred photo frame that  showed a man smiling, a son on his shoulders, and a wife with a newborn daughter in her arms. A radio sat next to the person covered in dust, awaiting a radio wave for it to play. Ray felt water burning at the back of his eyes, he took what he could for provisions. He found a ladder in the back of the shop, this one was charred and wooden. Ray went back outside and placed it against the side of the building with a thud. The building groaned in protest, but Ray climbed to the top and stepped out onto the top of the building. He sat and watched the sunset with its orange, yellow and red glow, giving this ruined city an iridescent glow. He sat and marveled at the beauty of this sunset and how with a single thought a city was wielded into nothingness. A world scorched and life less, and how civilization deemed unfit by its fellows, was destroyed by the atomic weight of Humanity.