Sheriff Kalypso Sun Wing ~ Last Words, Maybe...

Pic from ~ http://psdrockstar.com ~

Carefully, Kalypso unfolded the old, 20th century notebook paper. The pages were stained by time, by her tears and by blood because her fingertips had cracked in the winter cold. Heaving in a breath, she read her opening words.

These are my last words, maybe...

Compelled to read what she’d written during the height of the Conflicts, Kalypso sank down into her favorite sunset-watching chair. Automatically, she opened her arm for Rhiannon. She was always the first one of Kalypso’s dogs to jump up for a cuddle.
“Guess what, gang,” she addressed the seven other doggie faces alertly gazing at her. “I’m now the Sheriff of fair New Atlantis. How that happened, I’m not exactly certain. Except someone has to do the job, right? And I am damn good with weapons.”

Bringing the pages to eye level, Kalypso sighed down to her soul and felt a sharp twist of pain. She’d realized decades ago, the agonies of her life would never leave. They would remain with her for as long as she lived, now much longer than she’d ever anticipated. She’d figured her life was over when the Death Monopoly, as it was called, had announced itself to the world. Like the most ruthless and bloodthirsty mafia they had surfaced and declared rule over the entire planet.

I will not survive for much longer. There are so many ways to die. Diseases ravish populations all over the world. However, I may have the last horrible laugh. I’m sixty plus and my immune system is shot. The designer ebola flus attack the youngest and those who remain the healthiest.
Yep, for a war against the people this is one of the Death Monopoly’s smartest tactics.
I’ve already survived horrors and trials I could never have imagined going through. So many I won’t list them here. It would take too much of my strength.
I have no idea if my sisters, my brother and their children are still alive. Or if these scrawled words will ever reach any of them.
Daniel will yell at me for using one of our few ballpoint pens. I hardly care, except if it is eventually needed for our survival.
I am alone. Inside our cave headquarters. I need to write. I need something to take my mind off whether or not those I love and depend on, are coming back. If they are all coming back alive. I never know. None of us ever knows.
Unless we do because of a premonition, a precognitive dream.
It’s warm enough if I keep several layers of clothing on, despite the brutal winter we’re having. I pray everyday the winter storms continue for our sake. Some say an Ice Age has arrived. Though, the reports over the short wave radio suggest it is a mini Ice Age. For all I care it can snow until hell freezes over. The Fed troops have been slowed or stopped from hunting us.
I believe we have survived because of divine grace only. How can it be any other way? I’ve seen many miracles occur over the course of a lifetime. But they can’t be counted on as I’ve discovered. What it means that we are still alive, that I am still alive, I don’t know. I’m too tired to know and my faith has long since deserted me.
A couple of years ago while foraging we found this system of caves. We are near the monstrous limestone caves once used for commercial storage in the midwest of what was the United States of America. They are now used by the Brown Shirts to dole out meager supplies to those who are trapped in the cities and the camps.
The search for food is endless, every morsel more precious than ammunition now. Daniel made me stay here on the pretext of listening for radio contact. I’m slightly feverish. No worries about it being The Contagion. I would be dead by now.
I’ve prayed for the angel of death, often enough. I’ve laid down to die because I could no longer move from sheer exhaustion. There’s not much of anything anymore that keeps me going. It’s only because I care about the group I’m with... and they can’t cook all that well. Sometimes, I’m able to heal them with touch. But, only sometimes. I dare not say their real names in case this reaches enemy hands.
I think what keeps me going, too, is my rage. I don’t feel it all that often. Just surviving uses up all my energy. Emotions have become a luxury. I just know it’s there, an inner rage so fierce at what the Death Monopoly is doing to all of us human beings on Earth, that I will do anything I can to stay alive. Just in defiance. I’m stubborn that way.
I’ll have to quit now. The ink is running out.

Kalypso lowered the ratty pages, tears flooding her eyes. Making no attempt to suppress them, she reached for the tiny, beaten-up tin box. Re-folding the pages, she stuffed them inside and squeezed the lid down tight.
“A few more tears added, huh?” She gave her doggies a wan smile, then let Rhiannon kiss a few of them away.
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HAPPY END OF SUMMER

~ MAY ALL YOUR READING DREAMS COME TRUE ~

Savanna Kougar

~ Run on the Wild Side of Romance ~
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~~~ Kalypso & Zryphus invite you to read their love story ~ a match made in intergalactic heaven ~~~

MURDER BY HAIR SPRAY IN GARDENIA, NEW ATLANTIS ~ 2051 suspense futuristic, erotic romance ~ American Title IV finalist ~ One hundred years later Sheriff Kalypso despises relationships. Zryphus has found his one woman. The Battle of the Sexes begins. Rising from Siren-BookStrand ~ the future begins here... ~ IN PRINT ~ http://bookstrand.com/authors/savannakougar ~ ISBN: 1606011472
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