Down to the river - Dystopian micro fiction by Russell Cavanagh
"Mum, I want to play with Sarah and Jack."
"Help me with this first, then you'll have all afternoon with Jack and Sarah."
"Oh, mum!"
"Come on, you know we need clean clothes and clean bedsheets."
"But why do I have to come do this?"
"I need your help. I don't like doing it either. Once upon a time we had machines that washed our clothes - dried them too."
"So people didn't always go down to the river, didn't always hang them to dry between street poles?"
"Those poles used to have lights on top of them, so folks could see when it was dark outside."
"Now we use candles."
"Yes, indoors we use candles."
"And did people not always live in vehicles? You told me that once ..."
"Vehicles used to move around and take people places they wanted to go. Sometimes people lived in them, even back then, but they don't move now and so people use them for shelter, or for keeping stuff in."
"Tell me more, mum. Tell me what it was like, way back when you were young."
"It wasn't really that long ago, Jemma, but it might as well have been. It all happened so suddenly."
Copyright © Russell Cavanagh