I had planned on entering this story in the first writing competition of the year. I say planned on, as it turned out I hadn’t read the fine print closely enough and after signing up to their submission site, they emailed me a specific angle on the theme (the apocalypse) which didn’t match this story.
The story itself, to me, is three part buddy cop story, one part a horrifying look at the damage sociopaths in power can do. In my head ‘Flying High’ has Hall and Oates ‘You Make My Dreams Come True‘ playing throughout it. The two guys are perpetually in this world of ‘Yeah! Life is great! Woo!’ And anyone that doesn’t conform to that is an enigma; somebody that’s interrupting the song and being rude.
Nuclear war is probably the thing I’m most scared off in the world. It terrifies me on an existential level. This largely stems from watching Threads – a 1984 BBC mockumentary that outlines what might happen in the lead up to, during and after a nuclear war. It’s actually recently been made available to watch online on the Internet Archive for free. Strongly recommend you check it out.
Anyway, as I mentioned in the updates, the story could probably do with a third and fourth draft. But I’m deliberately putting it up a bit raw. It seems to fit the story and I’m happy enough that it isn’t a disaster to show it to the world. Some day I might go back and build on it, but for now – I hope you enjoy!