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The Story:
He kicked a rusty aluminum can in front of him as he walked. Its label had faded long ago. Now, it was just a useless relic of humanity’s glory days.
The watch on his wrist beeped. He didn’t hear it, but he felt the tiny speaker’s subtle vibration. It was giving him a five minute warning—not that it mattered. In five minutes its countdown would end, and it would no longer be able to shield him from the radiation. In five minutes he would begin dying.
The watch was a technological breakthrough after the wars ended. Everyone living in safe pockets of the atmosphere was issued one to protect them from contamination, to keep them alive. Once the radiation filled the planet, production became more difficult, and the watch became rare.
His damaged hearing disqualified him from the initial Moon Colonization Program, so he had known all along that the watch was really counting down to his death. Seven years and three watches had passed by far too quickly, and the colonists had failed to make a portion of the lunar surface livable for the diseased and disabled—or maybe they had never tried.
He wasn’t completely deaf. A person could still shout to him, but no one had the desire to. The world lay so still in the aftermath that silence is all there was to hear, anyway. Earth was in a paralyzed sleep, healing its wounds, barely breathing.
As he was walking, he felt a vibration that pulsed. He knew it well.
Pulling a gun from his coat, he whipped around, pointing it at a woman running towards him. Generally, people wanted his watch, but if that was her intent, she would soon be disappointed.
She froze a few feet away from him and started to speak. She didn’t look threatening, only worried. Still aiming at her, he used his left hand and pointed to his ears.
Looking as though she had remembered a forgotten fact more than understood a new one, she pointed to the rising moon and slowly pulled a watch from her pocket, holding it out to him.
He snatched it, put it on, and removed the old one, which had 27 seconds left.
She smiled, pointed at him, and pointed back to the moon.