Bradbury's Date

    The puddles splashed phosphorous at his heels with each

optimistic step. With his strange-thorned flowers held firmly in

hand, he merrily jaunted over gaps and wreckage as if they were

a twisted steel hopscotch course.

    The sky flamed and spun with charming late-winter ashfall,

pelleting little holes in the low-loitering cloud spread. The

vagrants these days blended right in with the wealthier remains

scattered about the sidewalks and shrapneled streets, craning

their kinked necks to offer a smile and blind-eye wink to the

man of unbroken stride. Something about the iridescent liquids

collected in the potholes seemed more vibrant today - a shifting

of all the more positive colors in the spectrum, an occasional

bubble boiling its way excitedly to the top to greet the young

man - bursting with joy afterward, and pock-marking the pavement

with tiny hissing holes.

    The soothing orange pulse of the clouds cast the ragged

skyline into relief - a city's bad haircut. White, torn sheets

billowed out from the blasted windows of floors still livable,

waving hello to the romantic fellow down below. He smiled at

everything and everyone, as long as a proper amount of eyes met

his.

    As he strolled along further, a badgeless police officer

and his partner hustled along a raving foam-jawed man of

patchwork skin and checkered hair. They stopped to gaze,

smirking, upon the emotion they recognized as love most

enduring.

    Sodium lights flickered as their wires soaked up the last

dollops of power in the city to provide weak but hopeful light,

sensors joyfully oblivious to the fact that it was still day.

They lit the path to a door, far ahead still, held quite nicely

in place by a few bits of cord and wood. The molting ravens

cawed arrival to all in an earshot, as they swooped and danced

around what someday would be the world's happiest carrion.

    With a shake of his clothing, the lightly-scorched free

hand came poised before the sturdiest-looking part of the door

and knocked upon it, unsettling little flakes of black-burnt

wood and smudging his knuckles with ash.

    The door opened with unsteady swing, hinges gladly bearing

the strain for this one - and there she was: brighter than the

impact, warmer than the new winters, as beautiful as the sight

of her name on a list of survivors. Her smile dismissed the

burns in her garments and on her skin. His returning gaze was

one of a long-standing love, fermented in the measly span of one

little armageddon.

    "Hey, babe - I'm back."

    The kiss, a little chapped, and the embrace, scratchy with

the grit of the city's air, made up for even the most

unimpressive greeting. He remembered the flowers - those thorns

were nasty, but these colors were new. They relayed from man, to

woman, to table, as the couple made dinner plans.