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tamingthemuseTitle: Books
Fandom: original
Prompt #435 – Sordid
Warnings: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 588
The place was dark and filthy, and Tammie wondered for a moment if she would catch some nasty virus if she touched anything with her bare hands. Not that she was easily repelled by dirt – no one could really afford to be, those days – but she had read somewhere that filth was what had brought the plague, a long time ago, before running water and electricity. It was one of the main concern of the healers, back in the camp, to have enough hygiene to avoid epidemies of the sort. They would be really mad if she brought something dangerous from the ruins, and she didn't want to live with the knowledge she had endangered the others by her reckless behavior. It was enough for her to keep her hands to herself. Not enough to stop her exploration, though.
She was young when the earth pretty much gave up on humankind, and natural disasters became so strong and frequent that they nearly destroyed all her species. The remains of the human population gathered in makeshift camps, like the one she was living in, and were still trying to figure out what to do, now that most of technology had been destroyed, without enough people to make their previous lifestyle work.
Tammie didn't remember much of the life before ; or, more acurately, she took so much of it for granted she never pay attention enough to the miracle of being warm in winter, of having food unspoiled in the fridge, of having all the little luxuries of life that had long stopped looking like one should be grateful to have them. Back in those days, she vaguely knew that not everybody had had that kind of luck, but she hadn't known anyone that didn't have access to food or the Internet. Her friend Greta didn't have a television, sure, but it was only because her parents refused to have one, saying that it rotted children's mind. She had spent a week checking her nose and ears for rotted brain matter after she had heard that.
She had been young enough, when things went from bad to worse, to be able to adapt rather easily. Her life was still so depend from what her parents told her to do that she only had to follow their new set of rules. So now, water came from the river instead of the faucet, and that was ok by her.
But she missed the books.
Back in the day, she was an avid and precocious reader, and once a week, her father took her to the library, where she could borrow a new pile of books to read at home. There were all those colorful books in the children's section that she could read now, and the promise of more pages in the teenage and grown-up sections for when she would be older. She couldn't wait to reach that "older" time. And it had all be taken from her before she could open all those volumes.
Books hadn't been the greatest preoccupation of humanity after its fall. And suddenly, she went from the temple of reading available six days a week to a dozen books in the entire camp. Hence her trip here, in the ruins of the city, in the buildings that housed the library. The setting was a lot creepier than she remembered, without its lamps and neatness. But maybe the books would be ok. Maybe she would finally be able to move on to the next section.
Fandom: original
Prompt #435 – Sordid
Warnings: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 588
The place was dark and filthy, and Tammie wondered for a moment if she would catch some nasty virus if she touched anything with her bare hands. Not that she was easily repelled by dirt – no one could really afford to be, those days – but she had read somewhere that filth was what had brought the plague, a long time ago, before running water and electricity. It was one of the main concern of the healers, back in the camp, to have enough hygiene to avoid epidemies of the sort. They would be really mad if she brought something dangerous from the ruins, and she didn't want to live with the knowledge she had endangered the others by her reckless behavior. It was enough for her to keep her hands to herself. Not enough to stop her exploration, though.
She was young when the earth pretty much gave up on humankind, and natural disasters became so strong and frequent that they nearly destroyed all her species. The remains of the human population gathered in makeshift camps, like the one she was living in, and were still trying to figure out what to do, now that most of technology had been destroyed, without enough people to make their previous lifestyle work.
Tammie didn't remember much of the life before ; or, more acurately, she took so much of it for granted she never pay attention enough to the miracle of being warm in winter, of having food unspoiled in the fridge, of having all the little luxuries of life that had long stopped looking like one should be grateful to have them. Back in those days, she vaguely knew that not everybody had had that kind of luck, but she hadn't known anyone that didn't have access to food or the Internet. Her friend Greta didn't have a television, sure, but it was only because her parents refused to have one, saying that it rotted children's mind. She had spent a week checking her nose and ears for rotted brain matter after she had heard that.
She had been young enough, when things went from bad to worse, to be able to adapt rather easily. Her life was still so depend from what her parents told her to do that she only had to follow their new set of rules. So now, water came from the river instead of the faucet, and that was ok by her.
But she missed the books.
Back in the day, she was an avid and precocious reader, and once a week, her father took her to the library, where she could borrow a new pile of books to read at home. There were all those colorful books in the children's section that she could read now, and the promise of more pages in the teenage and grown-up sections for when she would be older. She couldn't wait to reach that "older" time. And it had all be taken from her before she could open all those volumes.
Books hadn't been the greatest preoccupation of humanity after its fall. And suddenly, she went from the temple of reading available six days a week to a dozen books in the entire camp. Hence her trip here, in the ruins of the city, in the buildings that housed the library. The setting was a lot creepier than she remembered, without its lamps and neatness. But maybe the books would be ok. Maybe she would finally be able to move on to the next section.
