Weathered was a something his face wore with distinction. George had known so much sadness that now it was reflected in the lines plowed into his skin by Father Time. Time had not been gentle, it had taken away his family in one fell swoop, it had reduced his bones to chalk and his skin to paper. The only thing it had not yet corrupted was his mind, which still was sharp, though the ocean of mind was turbulent with longing, darkness and death. Images of his wife playing the piano sauntered into memory, the children happy at her feet playing with their toys. Idyllic, incorruptible but gone in a blazing flash as the air caught fire and their silent screaming shadows were painted on the walls.
George tortured himself nightly thinking of his family dying above ground when he was stuck in a bunker with the warmongers on that fateful day 60 years ago. They looked so pleased that their retaliatory strike had caused the enemy so many more deaths. All was seen in terms of “acceptable loss” and “collateral damage” which were the bywords used when working through their blood soaked calculations. He hated their smug self satisfied grins as they marked off another enemy city disintegrated by an onslaught of nuclear fire and how they only shrugged when the same was done to one of theirs. As if this was just some ridiculous game of chess with no real repercussions for the masses above ground.
Each year after the war had ended He waited in the bunker for the radiation level to drop until after ten years and a dozen suicides later he knew deep in his heart that it was a futile hope to ever see the sun again. At least the warmongers had opted out and he was alone. Alone was preferable to being at the beck and call of the idiots who had murdered so many billions. Hope remained though that one day… one day he would he another voice again over the radio.
Years bled into decades as silence became his mistress. Books were read, bodies mulched to make fertilizer for the hydroponic pods. George could stand them being fertilizer as he knew they spoke primarily shit on a vast number of occasions therefore must be incredibly rich in potassium. There was a sort of social justice that they who destroyed so much of the Earth were going back to the soil almost in some rite to absolve their sins.