A World Unplugged
A World Unplugged
(A multiple-part short story series by E. D. Lewis)
Part One
I woke up early, just like I do most days. Not ready to start the days adventure of mazes and obstacles that most adults deal with. Lucky for me I lived alone, no children, no husband. Only my cat, Arnold, and my giant oscar whom I just call, Fish.
My life is pretty simple, work, sleep, play a few video games, troll Facebook and Instagram, and repeat every day. With my life schedule, nothing ever, and I mean ever changes. Do I want a man? Sometimes. Do I want to hit the clubs and party scenes? Sometimes. But “sometimes” is not enough for me to change anything.
After staring at the ceiling for about 10 minutes, contemplating on not leaving my warm bed, I finally got the hell up and rushed to start the coffee.
Like I said earlier, my life is pretty simple and basic. I have a set routine for everything. I started my shower, jumped in, washed, jumped out. Laid out my clothes, pored my coffee, added two spoons of sugar, no cream.
I got dressed and turned on my computer, but it wouldn’t connect to the internet. I checked the Wi-Fi box to make sure it was working, it seemed to be, but I still couldn’t connect to the internet. I picked up my cell and went to Facebook, but it wouldn’t log in. Weird, I thought.
I have a TV, but hardly ever watch it. I turned it on to see if I could find any answers to why I couldn’t get onto the internet. It was an easy find, It was actually breaking news. I sat stunned and confused as I listened to the news telling me that the internet signal worldwide, has been permanently scrambled.
“Scrambled!” I thought. “What the hell does that mean?” I had to talk to someone. I tried to call the only computer nerd I know, only to get a recording telling me that my call could not be completed due to network issues. This is bad. Who the hell has a home phone nowadays? I sure as hell didn’t.
I quickly dressed and headed to my car, I had to find a phone. The entire time, my mind couldn’t comprehend the full effects of not having the internet. Boy, was I end for a big surprise.
When I opened my front door, I immediately saw the impact of what was going on. The entire apartment complex was outside, everyone trying to get answers. You couldn’t really hear any one person because everyone was trying to talk louder than the next person.
I pushed my way through the crowd, attempting to get to my car. The car was there, but there was no way in hell I was gonna be able to move it. Between the gatherings and the blocking of irregular parked cars in the lot, nobody was driving anywhere for a while.
I sat out on foot. I had a friend who lived not far from me. As worked my way through the crowd, there was a loud bang, followed by several more. Someone had fired gunshots. The entire crowd reacted like a hard of wild beast… everyone started running.
I was being bumped into and pushed around like a rag doll. Damn, I’m only 110 pounds soaking wet. I did my best to stay on my feet and move with the crowd but Suddenly, my foot caught on a curb and I went down.
It’s almost impossible to describe the horror I felt, being trampled on by a crowd of scared people. I balled up into a fetal position to protect myself as best as I could, but I still felt the shoes and boots of people as they unknowingly stepped on me.
