In the Beginning – Dorothy Davies – 2200 words (Science Fiction)

After the end of the world, few people are left and few items remain from Before. The Television is one of them. It is worshipped as an oracle by the tribe, but one boy sees past this and longs to change the way they all think.

In the Beginning

‘In the beginning was the mushroom cloud, many trees tall into the sky and from the cloud came fine dust.  It burned the ground and tore the skin from the bones of those who ran.’

IT stood in the centre of the square in its own hut, the wooden casing marked with rain, the flimsy back which housed the electronics slowly dissolving, colourful wires falling out.

‘There were some people who ran to burrow in the ground like the rabbit in his hole, there to live until the dust should cease to fall.’

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