Joanie's Blog Post

Prompt: Philadelphia one hundred years from now. 

The dreadful bombing had spared Philadelphia for five entire years. Everyone that inhabited the American city knew it was only a matter of time until it was chosen by the enemies for obliteration. There should have been a change in the air that came with the knowledge that they were probably next. But there wasn’t. Nothing could change the fact that an entire city, populated with 2.6 million people, had lost five full years of their lives to this horrendous war. There had been no contact with anything outside of Philadelphia for five years. No cars had roamed the once bustling city streets. No loud, obnoxious phone calls outside, no footsteps on the sidewalks, no honking from annoyed drivers, no children laughing or crying. Absolutely nothing from ordinary life. The only sounds that could be heard were the effects of war. 

And then the bombing started. Overnight, the quiet town of once beautiful Philadelphia was turned into a grotesque horror show. Entire blocks of the city were obliterated and reduced to nothing but ash and rubble. Detached limbs and bones of all shapes and sizes littered the filthy streets. Grimy dust coated everything in sight. Shells of once-magnificent skyscrapers that had nearly touched the heavens collapsed and destroyed everything around them. The usually deliciously crisp blue sky that was commonplace in the summer season of Philadelphia (if it even was summer, nobody had survived or kept enough contact with the rest of America to tell anymore) had transformed into a deep, haunting scarlet red that constantly reminded each survivor of what they had loved and lost. There wasn’t a soul to be found in this scarred and broken city. 

A foul aroma permeated the air, sinking its fierce claws into the few people that remained from the bombing. They reeked of sweat, tears, urine, and dried blood, some of which had formerly belonged to friends and family. They wore the bare minimum of filthy clothes with large holes that revealed deep wounds and gashes in their skinny, starving bodies. Their eyes conveyed terrible sorrow, damage, and defeat. Even the most stoic of people couldn’t contain their emotions of anguish, heartache, and resentment towards the world and the war that destroyed everything they had. 

From this wreckage, two people emerge from Independence Hall. They have extremely ripped and disheveled clothes and knotty hair. The man and woman look incredibly dazed, like they just woke up from a nightmare. They survey the ruins of their hometown and it finally seems to hit them. This giant hole of nothing is their reality. The man sinks to his knees, clear blue eyes drowning his face with tears. The woman puts a hand on his shoulder, trying to reassure him. While the man cries, she stares at the dilapidated remains for a long time and sighs. 

“We sure have a lot of work to do,” she finally says.

“What?” The man says quietly, clearly startled. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we need to do something about this mess,” she says and gestures towards the obliterated city.

“Like what?” the man asks.

“Clean,” she says simply, and they both look back at the wreckage.