Double Down

Dave peered from his bunker across the smoldering horizon. He refused to cry.

That charred skeleton of masonry and rebar had once been home. People he knew had died in those streets, now nothing more than corpses and ruin.

After the initial wave of destruction came the pestilence and blight. The rotting skin and miracle pleas suggested a biblical retribution was at hand. The metaphor was on everyone's lips, but Dave clamored against it. He blamed the whining snowflakes who refused to accept they had lost.

Dave remained certain. This outcome was still better than if she had been elected.

Charlie Stiff

Charlie woke up unable to move. He wasn't limp like a sack of potatoes that could be thrown over a shoulder. He was stiff as a metal rod.

His wife considered it a fitting retribution or all his years of unyielding stubbornness. His doctors thought they had discovered a new, more virulent strain of tetanus. Charlie didn't care about the cause. Through clenched teeth, he tried to make it clear he just wanted a cure.

But there was no cure. Charlie Stiff spent the rest of his life frozen in place, his dreams of winning the limbo world championships destroyed.