30 Minute Story #3 - Eugene

What's up human peoples! It's been a long week, as the first week after an extended vacation usually is, but that doesn't mean I'm going to abandon the writing schedule, curl up in a ball, and play video games instead (I'll just do that right after writing this). So here we go! This time the prompt is weeeeirddddd, where to even begin?


https://thestoryshack.com/tools/writing-prompt-generator/
Genre: Crime
Character: A struggling musician
Material: A light bulb
Sentence: "I will end you for this."
Bonus: Civilization has come to an end.

Eugene

There wasn't much left. After the plague, any notion of large human organizations previously known as countries, cities, provinces, it all disbanded when everyone tried running from the disease, away from populated centers, and before long civilization turned into unwieldy, irreversible chaos. Some argued the point of no return was the fall of the largest world governments, some say it was the brief period dictators tried keeping some sort of control. Whatever piece was pulled last, the game of civilization Jenga came to an end; winner - nobody. What we have left are a few little townships spread throughout, no central government in sight. Who knows how many there are? When the connection with the satellites got knocked out, so was the communication with the rest of the world. Most of these settlements were born out of pure necessity. The world is full of scum ready to rape, pillage, steal. Who is there to stop them? In such a world any kind of order was welcome, and that's what these little beacons of hope tried their best to do, including this place - my current home.

Welcome to Geneva. Some settlements tried adopting a new style of living, but this one tried it's best to recreate the good ol' life, and quite right too, the stories of the past president Cole told his people sounded too good not to try and live up to. Those who could still read the old texts usually ended up in charge of peaceful settlements, and this was no different. The president picked the word "Geneva" out of an old history book and decided to use the tome to guide his policies as the president. Geneva was a competent little place, and all things considered, ran smooth as butter. Sure, that meant we had some filling the dirty jobs, you know, the usual salvagers, scouts, anything requiring people to leave the walls of safety, but inside the walls things were unlike anything I've seen. While other townships usually stopped at a couple of measly trader stalls and a barrel of a slightly alcoholic concoction, we got our own grocery store, a school, a hospital, a publication, and even a couple of mean pubs.

Tommy's was the most popular drinking hole around, and I don't just mean in Geneva, but the whole damn quadrant. While a few other settlements had some mean booze, that's not what made Tom's little establishment famous. In fact, it wasn't really anything he personally did himself. Of course, he wasn't a slacker either, it was a cozy old hole with a ton of love put in. Tom worked very hard to make sure the roof had no leaks, and the guests got to enjoy actual tables and chairs salvaged from the old world. I hear the salvagers who got him the goods got a lifetime of free booze in return. What gave Tommy's that extra spark was a beautiful stroke of pure luck, and that luck came in the form of Eugene.

Eugene was about to off himself when Tommy found him barely alive on the outskirts of Geneva. Not everyone can survive the harsh living conditions out there, especially when your talents don't lend themselves well to survival. Eugene got taken from his family by a traveling pack of raiders back when he was just thirteen years old. Unfortunately he was a clumsy boy, didn't particularly excel as far as strength, or his brains, refused to steal from the townships the raiders were raiding, and made a bad worker at the raider camp. He was almost left behind in the wilderness right there and then, when one of the raiders discovered his only real talent - Eugene's voice. Later it turned out that his real passion was acoustic guitar, so the raiders made him into a sort of an entertainer. While that sounds like a great life, don't get me wrong, it was awful. The deal was stuck where Eugene would perform for the drunken raiders every night, and in turn the raiders kept him alive, just enough to keep on performing. All he ever got were some scraps of food, a couple of rags to sleep on, and a few kicks to the ribs each morning as the wake up call to get going.

TIME UP

The rest of the idea: Eugene woke up one day and the raiders were nowhere to be seen. He wondered the wilderness for days before collapsing in exhaustion. He tried to kill himself with a piece of glass, so he didn't have to die slowly. Tommy found him, brought him back to the town, heard Eugene out, and decided to give him a job at his little pub. TO BE CONTINUED?

Thanks for reading! I cheated and took a little longer to write this story! I was just having way too much fun with the world. I might continue this in one of the upcoming blogs, which is why I didn't really reveal the entire idea under "The rest of the idea" section. So what's the crime? Where does the light bulb come into play?? Who is going to end whom for what??? Who is the narrator anyway???? Find out next time in Eugene part 2! (maybe) 😉

See ya'll next time!