I’ve been digging through my files and hit the jackpot 🙂 A treasure trove of stories I started or drafted many years ago awaiting my review, edits, and maybe even submission. Such fun!

As I decide what is what, this was one for sharing. It was one of my first attempts at flash fiction. I don’t remember exactly when I wrote it, but I last printed it in August 2012 according to Word, so there is that…

By Cell Phone Light is a rare journey into romance and dystopia for me, subjects I don’t write about often. Please enjoy 🙂

❤ Martha

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By Cell Phone Light
A short story by Martha Kehr

Tonight, I have light. It isn’t much, just my fully charged cell phone, but, in a world of almost perfect darkness, the subtle glow of this small screen is a powerful weapon. It’s the difference between terror and calm. It’s a safety net in a life of constant free fall. It’s a friend despite the loneliness. In fact, it’s the only reason I can see the page I’m writing on, my random reflections about the way things are now, reality after the disease.

During the day, my private post-apocalypse lifestyle is actually quite nice. The world is mine from sunrise to sunset. I was never a social creature before, so wandering around the empty city alone is fun for me. I wear whatever I want to wear. I can run through the streets completely naked. I don’t, but I could. The few remaining diseased people lurking about can’t survive in the sunlight, so daytime is blessed. Lonely but blessed.

When the sun goes down everything changes. Night is dark, darker than anybody could have ever imagined before the fall of mankind. At first, the darkness came in a slow progression. As more and more people contracted the disease, more and more lights wouldn’t turn on each night. A couple houses here, an office building there. Then the pace picked up dramatically: the mall, streetlights, and then the capital building downtown. The night the lights didn’t turn on in the hospital, I knew the fight was over. Humanity had lost. The disease had won.

Being immune is a double edge sword. Along with keeping my life, I’ve had to watch billions of people lose theirs.

The moment I knew society was truly over was the day my cell phone lost service. I still carry it with me anyway. I’m never without it. The calendar and apps still work. I like knowing what day of the week it is.

Like me, it’s always searching. Searching for a network. Searching for a connection.

Then, two days ago, because of a cell phone, I finally found one. Just after sunset, right when I started to worry about finding a place to stay for the night, I saw the sudden flicker of a lighted screen flash through the seventh-floor window of a nearby hotel.

Fumbling through the dark, using my cell phone for light, since candles and flashlights are way too bright, I found my way to the seventh floor.

I met Adam there. Seriously, his name is Adam. My name isn’t Eve, but I might as well change that now. We discovered each other by the glow of our phones. Suddenly I can’t imagine life without him. Another survivor! And I’d want to be with him even if he wasn’t the last man on Earth.

We exchanged phone numbers right away although we know we’ll never be able to call or text each other. It’s silly, really. Even though they don’t work, it’s like life can’t go on without our phones. We’ll keep watching them, hoping that one day, like us, they’ll be able to stop searching. Everything will just go back to normal. Poof, like magic.

But, tonight, none of that matters. Tonight, I feel safe with a warm body lying beside me for the first time in three years. Tonight, I have hope for the future, and I found it by cell phone light.