After the Fire

After The Fire is a many storied glimpse of an America to come: Leading up to, during and after an all-out nuclear war that destroys its cities and most of its people. This story is seen through the eyes of characters from across America. As world events portend the coming inevitable, they see that war; an America ending nuclear war is upon them. To their dismay, the people around them chose perishing in a nuclear holocaust over living without the America they have always known. Each persona comes to realize that if they don't leave home - everyone they have ever known - they will certainly die. Out of the depths of their despair, each in their own way, decide they want to live and refuse to lose hope. Left with no choice, our characters reach out and are drawn to mates from other ethnicities who also value life more than those of their cultures. Rejected by their own, each reach past the expectations and securities of their own milieu and learn to give sustenance to and be comforted by the 'other'; just as they will have to learn to live without the comforts and ethos they have always known. While After The Fire's construct of eliminated outside influences allowing total intimacy via the total destruction of civilization is unlikely, the author looks at 'happily ever after'; perhaps the most universal longed for outcome common to man.While the ten couples' marriages and love slowly develop, anticipation of nuclear war builds. As world events move the inevitable closer, the couples' preparations allow their love to go on AFTER THE FIRE. All must make a journey to find refuge as disaster looms. They are Twenty-First Century war refugees fleeing for their lives becoming Eighteenth Century pioneers reaching for a life of nature's abundance deep in the unsullied American countryside.The milieu is minimalist, nature providing sustenance only by absolute dedication to the smallest details of work. In After The Fire, couples marry and are intensely passionate, their love the zenith of their lives. Being single in the world means death; marriage and wife means life AFTER THE FIRE. Transcendent adoration of the Wife is openly explored and celebratedMajestic cumulus storm clouds rising 60,000 feet into azure blue sky, able to be seen for hundreds of miles bring rain, food. But their shape and towering beauty foreshadow the impending specter of many mushroom clouds that will bring death, the end of civilization, the end of culture; creating the intrinsic necessity for true love. Some survivors gather books, scant hard evidence of knowledge secreted in caverns, dug into sheltering earth against the new Dark Ages when digitized wisdom will be lost; when networks break and hard drives melt.Overarching narrative: Regardless of one's station or circumstance, God miraculously brings love to those who long.