Ages Of Irony
The Last Man
On the boat.
“Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly.” Herman Melville — Moby Dick
The boat had stopped moving when he came to. He could smell burning flesh and gunpowder. It was so thick in the air that he could taste it.
The anti-air guns played a deadly cadence. They repeatedly boomed from the warship behemoth. The sky was a darkening haze of smoke and souls.
He pulled himself to his knees. The bloody saltwater turned his BDUs a tragic shade of tan. He could see the pink water droplets glimmering on the hair of his forearm.
He caught a glimpse of Jones just in time to see him slip under the water. His lifeless body was almost cut in half from the round of a 50 cal.
He heard the hum of another boat engine in the distance. There wasn’t time to feel anything.
He grabbed the Lewis gun at the front of the boat and began to let the bullets rain down. The rainbow of Pomeroy rounds and their zeppelin-killing colleagues worked like a lover with gravity. He fired until he saw the flames.
