None of us said anything for a while. We just stood there waiting for something to happen. It was kind of strange watching the dust clouds roll across the parking lot and realizing that those used to be people. The asphalt was littered with dentures, watches, wedding rings, a glass eye, belt buckles, wallets, stainless steel pins that might have been used to hold broken bones together, and a whole lot of other items that weren’t readily identifiable through the glass. I thought about what kinds of things I would leave behind if the same fate befell me and realized that there wouldn’t be much; a few cents in change, a few fillings, and a pocket knife. In other words, there wouldn’t be anything to distinguish my heap of dust from the others. I thought of that song by Kansas, Dust in the Wind, and realized that those words held more truth than anyone could have ever realized. The generator we had set up coughed and sputtered as its fuel supply ran low. The lights that were running off of the generator flickered twice before stabilizing.
