Keenan
Keenan opened a foggy eye and winced at a rather serious bump on his head.
He was in a food court.
A motley group of apocalyptic survivors stared inquisitively back at him, about 15 or so - all looking very frightened.
To their right there was a Johnny Rockets. On their left - a dumpling joint. He felt his tummy rumble - he hadn’t eaten since morning tea. The silence was deafening, save for the hum of the Bain Marie from a nearby Curry Palace. Keenan cleared his throat.
“Ah…so I’m Keenan.”
Keenan’s introduction only served to increase the intensity of the staring. A twitchy-looking black man nervously put his hand up.
“Ah yes - in the back?” Said Keenan, unsure of whether to follow classroom protocol.
“Hi Keenan - Gary Sanders, Head of P.E. At Dagenham High School. Are you a scientist?”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Oh - well, yes actually. That’s a marvellous guess. How did you know that?
Gary pointed at Keenan’s white lab coat.
“Your coat. Looks…science…ey.”
“Oh yes. Good spot!”
Keenan looked down at his coat and self-consciously rubbed at some dried bloodstains, from when he had to regretfully brain a violent former employee.
“Ah yes...for my sins…I’m a Doctor of Molecular Engineering actually. Keeps me out of trouble!” Keenan laughed hesitantly.
The motley group murmured among themselves for a bit. Keenan heard muffled sounds to the effect of “but he’s a scientist - he should know what’s going on,” replied to with “I don’t trust him. His eyes are too close together” and “I think we should feed him to the carpark trolls.”
Gary seemed to be on Keenan’s side.
“You don’t have any idea what’s going on do you?” He said with sympathetic eyes, as if to convince Keenan to prove his worth.
Keenan weighed his words carefully. For while he did, of course know a great deal about what was ‘going on’ he probably quite rightly suspected that information to that effect might work against him in this situation.
“Oh no…It’s all a bit mad isn’t it?” Keenan laughed very awkwardly.
There was a pregnant silence where the group just stared with eyes like needles bearing into his neck. He needed to come up with something good to close on. It seemed like his integrity of his skull depended on it at this stage.
“But I do think I have an idea of how to fix it, funnily enough.” That was good, he thought. Who wouldn’t get onboard with that?
The group murmured among themselves again, softly building to a fever pitch.
Suddenly a crash was heard from the door to the right of the room. It was Tully, dropping down her longsword to make a point.
“I think we should listen to what he has to say.”