It’s Time for a Review of Alix’s Apocalypse
Alix’s Apocalypse came about as a short story during the first quarter of 2021, when I was working to keep sharp between NaNoWriMo outings. I wrote with one-word prompts in alphabetical order.
Given the prompt word (see below), this is the fourth story I wrote that year.
Background
The initial one-word prompt was the word daisies. And so the first thing I thought of (because I can be ultra-morbid at times) was of corpses pushing them up.
I named the title character after a women I had know years ago but, unfortunately, I had at the time recently learned that she had passed away from breast cancer.
Plot
When the world ends, there are survivors. But how can they get together and learn to trust one another again? For Alix, the feeling of trust and community begins to return when she starts to receive gifts at her campsite.
A little extra firewood, stones placed in the shape of a heart, a bouquet (of daisies, of course), cooked venison, what does it all add up to?
Characters
The characters are Alix, Esteban, and Shari Chung. Mentioned but never seen is Alix’s mother in law, who had Alzheimer’s. However, I did not write this story for The Longest Night Watch.
Memorable Quotes from Alix’s Apocalypse
They’re everywhere, covering countless fields of grass and bones and spent shell casings. In thousands if not millions—probably billions, who am I kidding?—of unmarked final resting places, the dead are pushing them up.
It all happened in the early spring. The land was full of promise and rainstorms and their ships. Those hideous conveyances, the color of the underbelly of a dead fish.
Their rays are some sort of combination of poison and radiation. But at least they weren’t airborne. So, when an area was hit, it was devastated and became a barren wasteland. We called it being over. But in between the parts that are over, there are parts that are not. And this is where the daisies bloom by the millions.
And even the places that were over aren’t quite so over these days. I’ve seen deer walk into the over places and emerge unscathed. Of course, twenty years from now, they might all get cancer. Which would be tragic. But I don’t know if deer ever live that long, anyway.
Rating
The story has a K rating. I write about the end of the world, but you don’t really see it on screen.
Takeaways for Alix’s Apocalypse
If we are ever attacked and essentially all become feral, then I hope someone remembers to give a gift and start to trust again.
Alix’s Apocalypse — because maybe there can be a semi-happy ending after all that.
And, there’s a related story! Out of the Work Camp Frying Pan refers to the same type of weapon, and it names the villain aliens—the Ziranqui.
#amwriting