South Dakota

It was never my intention to live in a ghost town.

After ten years of a life that was utterly devoid of happiness, joy and any resemblance of a marriage, my husband went on a business trip to Washington, DC. When he left, our marriage was solid. That’s the truth. What we lacked in love, we overpowered with generosity. What stole our joy, we inundated with laughter. What we shed in tears, we made up for in loyalty.

It’s entirely possible that had our lives continued as they were, we would have found what our marriage was lacking. Instead, a nuclear weapon found the United States.

The sky was an eerie blue the morning that my husband headed to the airport. The sky had just enough pigment to change from black to blue. The hum of life began. Within two hours, it was a bluebird day. By noon, he was in Washington, DC.

The thought of staying in the house was enough to make me pack a bag, get some snacks and hit the road. Always preferring to go west, I was on highway 90 before I knew it. Sailing along, it dawned on me: Where was I going? I hadn’t thought about it. I just started driving. Sioux Falls: 40 miles. Sounds fine to me.

There’s not a lot in Sioux Falls. It’s a nice town. The people are friendly. The cafe was delicious. From Chicago, I had drove all day. I didn’t want to drive anymore. I got a room at a hotel and quickly fell asleep.

The next morning, I left early. I made it to Rapid City about the time I started to get hungry. I decided that after lunch, I needed to turn around and go home. I couldn’t keep going west forever.

The door to the diner chimed as I walked in. No one noticed. Every employee, even the cooks, were all gathered a small television. “We are awaiting word from the President.” That’s all I heard. The employees noticed me.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“We’ve been hit.”

“Hit by what?”

“Nuclear bombs have hit New York City, Washington DC and Los Angeles.”

The world seemed to stand still. Washington, DC. My husband was dead.

For reasons that still don’t make sense to me, I did not reveal that my husband was in Washington, DC.

What am I going to do? But then it hit me. I don’t have to do anything.

All that I had to do was survive. Instinctively, I knew I didn't want to survive in Chicago.

A conversation came back to me. The previous night, at dinner, I had heard two older men talking about old mining towns in South Dakota. They talked about how many of these old towns still survived in one condition or another.

I opened my phone and started googling. There were many. One was not too far away. The diner was silent. The few patrons and all the employees were glued to their phones and the small television. I ordered a sandwich and surveyed the pictures on the walls and looked out the windows. Rapid City wasn’t much more than Sioux Falls.

After paying, I got in my car and drove south. The road was no longer interstate, it was gravel. The sun was going to be setting soon, and I needed shelter. Slowly, slowly, I drove down the road. It felt like hours. I was scanning the road for something very specific. Then, I saw it. There it was. Barely noticeable, the grass barely disturbed, was a barely used road. The road went back into thick woods but the road never became unsafe. On and on. I kept driving for what seemed like an hour and it might have been because I was too timid to go very fast.

Finally, I was there. The forest was behind me and a large meadow appeared.

In the meadow stood one church, one store and one home.

I slowly began to examine the buildings, what was lost and what remained. Everything that had once existed around these three buildings was gone.

The current events were setting in. What had seemed impossible was now the reality. In 80 years, would someone be rummaging through what was left of my belongings?

The buildings were very old. The most structurally sound appeared to be the church but the house was also well built. The difference was that the house was a log cabin. I decided that the log cabin would be the best place to make my home.

I was lucky that my father had given me an ultimate survival kit many years ago. I deemed the kit useless and threw it in my trunk. Well, the joke’s on me because that survival kit had everything. It had a radio, batteries, a flashlight, first aid kit, a backpack, several knives, a water purifier, a tent, candles, matches, a poncho, a notebook, a compass, matches, gloves, a blanket, rope and too many other things to mention.

The sun was beginning to go down. I opened the cabin, praying that there wouldn’t be any surprises like bugs or a dead body. Thankfully, there weren’t any unwanted creatures. The cabin was adequate. There was a bed, a chair, a table and a broom. I began setting up candles and organizing myself. This log cabin would be more than adequate.

It was surprising how quickly it became dark. Not just dark but pitch black, can’t see your hand in front of your face, dark. I was very thankful that I had managed to get the candles up and going. A bit more inspection of the cabin revealed that there was a fireplace. I was so tired that I could barely move. At some point, I fell asleep in the chair.

The sound of children laughing and the morning sunlight woke me up. I had spent the entire night in the chair. It was ok. I got some sleep. It could have been worse. What concerned me was the children. When I had arrived late yesterday afternoon, I didn’t remember seeing any signs of humans or civilization. I peeked my head out the front door and there they were: two small children, probably around 6 years old. Behind them, it appeared to be their mother and father.

John Donne wrote, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” To believe that any individual can not only exist, but succeed, on their own is foolish. Life post-nuclear war could only exist if humans set aside their selfish desires and came together to bear witness to the worst human tragedy to ever befall humanity.