Alas, Babylon

by Pat Frank

He never craved it. He just drank for pleasure and the most pleasurable of all drinks was the first one on a crisp winter morning.

moderate Southern quasi-liberal, semi-segregationist double-talk

calling down hell-fire and damnation on the sinners in the big cities.

Nations are like people. When they grow old and rich and fat they get conservative. They exhaust their energy trying to keep things the way they are—and that’s against nature.

When a man dies, and his children die with him, then he is dead entirely, leaving nothing to show.”

“Censorship and thought control can exist only in secrecy and darkness.”

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning. Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

He knew he should not have spared time for tears, and would not, ever again.

“Small nations, when treated as equals, become the firmest of allies.”

the day died in calm and in beauty.

Once warfare, except among the untutored savages, had been fought during the daylight hours. This had changed during the twentieth century until now rockets and aircraft recognized neither darkness nor bad weather, and were handicapped neither by oceans nor mountains nor distance. Now, the critical factor in warfare was time, measured in minutes or seconds.

With the use of the hydrogen bomb, the Christian era was dead, and with it must die the tradition of the Good Samaritan.

Some nations and some people melt in the heat of crisis and come apart like fat in the pan. Others meet the challenge and harden. I think you’re going to harden.”

A grave designed to accommodate one person must be dug by one person alone.

She was like a fine sword, slender and flexible, but steel; a woman of courage.

It was strange, she thought, pedaling steadily, that it should require a holocaust to make her own life worth living.

There were two drinking fountains in Marines Park, one marked “White Only,” the other “Colored Only.” Since neither worked, the signs were meaningless.

War itself was obsolete.

When you love someone, that should be what you think of most, the first thing when you wake in the morning and the last thing before you sleep at night.

In an emergency such as this, Helen functioned. This was what she was made for.

German shepherd

Could've been a good hunting dog or guard dog. What a waste. Shouldve set traps instead of giving a 13 year old a shotgun

“It was a wolf,” Randy said. “It wasn’t a dog any longer. In times like these dogs can turn into wolves.

appalled him.

You really should have thought of that before you started raw dogging in post-apocalyptica

name.

Why the hell would she care about that

arms folded over her empty breasts as if holding a baby except that where the baby had been there was nothing.

What’s this author’s obsession with making his female characters obsessed with bearing children? Especially in a world of death & nuclear fire?

Three women were in the living room. They were all crying,

Really? All three female characters & the female child are crying?

The more he learned about women the more there was to learn except that he had learned this: they needed a man around.

A man, writing terribly shallow and frail female characters, decides that women need a man around because they are so terribly frail and shallow. Go figure, Pat Frank.

Randy said, “Paul, there’s one thing more. Who won the war?” Paul put his fists on his hips and his eyes narrowed. “You’re kidding! You mean you really don’t know?” “No. I don’t know. Nobody knows. Nobody’s told us.” “We won it. We really clobbered ’em!” Hart’s eyes lowered and his arms drooped. He said, “Not that it matters.” The engine started and Randy turned away to face the thousand-year night.