Ashes to Ashes

An assignment I did for Creative Writing that I liked and felt like sharing. I'll let your decide the setting, considering the point was subtle descriptions of the area and time period.

Dust cakes the sky like dragons breath. The smell of gun powder and charred flesh gives the city an unbearable blanket of death. Four days. Four days since this whole mess began. Since the "Great Fuhrer" decided to declare the entire world public enemy number one, I've not felt the sweet kiss of a summer breeze on my tongue and nostrils. Only radiation and lead fill my lungs. 

Down the street is the old cinema where I saw the Lone Ranger defeat the Dastardly Gang and save the beautiful young bird from being flattened by a train. If this was one of those picture shows, old Howdy Doody would sling a lasso around those Nazis and the constable would lock them up and throw away the key. But that's kid talk, a fever pitch dream. There's no one that can bring down those fascist dogs. They control Germany, France, Sweden, and Poland and soon they'll steamroll right over us. Big Ben will topple; the Royal family will fall to its knees and lick those goose-stepping boots. 

Craters have left permanent scars on the earth as if a message from God himself. Dirt and ashes mix into a dark chocolate shell of despair that the city will not escape for years to come. It feels like the heavens are trying to smother us out of existence, dropping stones from the sky, spreading fire all around. People run, scream and fight the inevitable, but they all disappear in clouds of dust. Now these streets are hollow, no souls enter the town square. Not like there's much to see anyway, maybe a half destroyed barber shop or bakery here and there, but no life in their windows. I heard those Yankees were entering the brawl, they put up a bloody good show against the Germans last time, but now, things are different. New technology, new enemies, new warfare.

There go the warning sirens again, almost like clock work. Yet I don't run. I'm not afraid of death. Anything is better than living in this hell Hitler has created. I can picture the men in their once neatly pressed London drape suits and the women with dresses and nylon stockings ruined by the smog rushing to their shelters, kids in tow. Proper buggers are what they are. No will to fight, to spit in the face of anarchy and tell it what for. Simply happy enough to lie in a dark corner, whine and die.  I laugh at their cowardice. It seems cruel, but walk in my broken soles. Nothing matters anymore, I see the cruel joke that is life and war is the punch line. The misplaced buttons from torn Sunday bests are like fossil records of those vaporized by the blasts, hidden among the rubble and waste. Small pieces of today, left for the future generations. Hopefully, those folks will learn from our mistakes. 

Beyond the cinema, the vacant hole where the pub once stood continues to smolder and smoke the same way it did the first day of the bombing. The pub was always a major social point of mine. Drinking with my mates, singing tunes, and flirting on fit birds who seemed to jump straight from our drunk fantasies, what a great way to waste a life. We reveled in all the songs faithful to our home, such as "Great Towering Castle" or even "God Save the Queen". But those days are long past, whispers lost in the high pitch scream of the bomb alarms. How I want to sing those songs again. How I want to join arms with my fellow man and feel the camaraderie burst through my heart. Sadly, I fear the hot lead of bullets will beat it to it. 

      Here they come. I hear the whirling blades, like tigers pouncing through the air. I stand up; ready to embrace their hot fury. There is only one song that I have sung these last four days, only one that fits the mood just right, and I will sing it now. I'll die unafraid, slapping the Fuhrer face as he marches all over my home. "Ashes to ashes, we all...fall...down."

Author's Note

Guess the setting as well as review please.

Reviews

[xNote_to_selfx]

Very nicely written. You really capture the character's thoughts, and the detail really makes it feel as if I am there, with the main character, watching as the world seemingly falls apart. Fantastic work! :)

[Tapher]

spectacular, its amazing, nice work, 100 for me.