Intentional Dissonance by pleasefindthis, Iain S. Thomas Page A

sentences.
…No one has claimed responsibility. An invading army of shadows has entered every country in the world. Mass bombings have left billions dead, more injured. World leaders in emergency meeting…
    Jon doesn’t understand what’s happened. His mother is beside him, holding his hand so tightly it hurts. She is crying and blood is dripping down her arm. Now Jon is crying because she is crying. He tries not to let Wilfred see.
    “Where’s Dad?” asks Jon.
    “Your father…I haven’t heard from your father.”
    “He’ll be home from work soon,” says Jon, his voice breaking slightly. Jon believes this to be true. It is not.
    Jon will never see his father again.
    There’s a knock at the front door. Surely no monster would knock. Jon goes to answer it. Michelle is standing there. Beautiful, sudden love of his life, Michelle. She hugs Jon. And for some reason, Jon believes that despite everything, this is perhaps the only perfect moment the world has ever known, just because she’s here and in his arms. Jon knows that whatever cars are still running in the world, all their indicators flicked, at exactly the same moment, perfectly in time, just this once. He knows that two snowflakes are falling somewhere that look exactly the same. He knows that somewhere, people are alive. He forgets about his father for a moment and she consumes his thoughts and it is an escape.
    Her body is warm and solid next to his and he holds her tightly and breathes her in.
    “Thank God, Jon, thank God you’re here. My parents, Jon, my parents were in it and Emily and her parents haven’t come back since it happened,” she says through a veil of tears. “I was at Emily’s house alone watching the TV when the news reports started and…”
    “It’s ok, it’s all going to be ok,” Jon says. He thinks this is the right thing to say. He holds her even tighter. She’s even more beautiful than he remembers. She cries into his shoulder. His mother cries in the next room. The newscaster is crying. Wilfred is crying. The world is crying. The entire world is in tears. It starts to rain.
    The howls of widows and orphans fill the ash-soaked streets. Mushroom clouds appear on the horizon.
    Everything is going to be ok.

Chapter 13
    Now
    Somewhere in the last city on Earth, a street child gives his last piece of bread to his hungry younger brother. He writes his name on a wall in chalk, just in case someone will see it and say it aloud one more time. He dies in his sleep that night. His name was Simon. Now you know and Simon will live forever in electrical charges in your brain. You may forget Simon, but never completely. Simon is pure energy in the minds of everyone who reads this, forever.
    Inside the United Government compound, a breathless guard is battling to open a cell door, struggling with the keys. The white industrial door isn’t budging but he can see inside through a small window.
    “He’s hung himself!” yells Deformed. Jon’s face is bloated and blue and bare of signs of life.
    His death mask is beautiful: an evident calm that may have escaped him most of his life. The guards finally manage to open the door. One of them picks up the dead weight of Jon’s body and grunts as he lifts it off the hook in the ceiling and ever-so-gently, like a baby, he lays the corpse on the ground.
    “The doctor’s going to fucking kill us,” says the smaller guard.
    “Shut up and help me get this noose off his neck,” says Deformed.
    “Why’s it so tight?” asks the quieter one.
    “Just fucking cut it. He’s probably ripped some of the cabling from the wall and used that,” says Deformed. They take out heavy-duty bolt cutters and work on the cables around Jon’s neck. They groan with the effort and it takes both of their combined strength to do it but eventually, with a satisfying snap, the noose falls away.
    And they are left looking into the eyes of an angry, brown-eyed, half-man, half-tree.
    “Who’s a coffee table now,