Bad Day in Utopia

Avy walked to the window and pulled back the curtains. "Another dark day" she whispered to herself while looking out the window at the murky sky. She looked out at the hibiscus bushes that once held deep green leaves and large canary yellow flowers that were now brown and bare and the thin, bare branches looked like they would snap in two if you touched them. The palm trees in the yard had turned dark brown and most of the palm leaves and stems had fallen to the cold, wet ground. Avy figured the skies had been dark now for just over two months. A little light found its way through the dark clouds like the light from a rainy morning sneaking around the edges of a pulled down window shade, but not even a hint of blue sky had shown itself since the Gloom started. The skies became dreary the same day the power went out and all electrical devices stopped functioning. Cars wouldn't work. Neither did the TVs, and radios, and microwaves. Everything that depended in some way on electricity was now dead - dead and useless. Food was scarce but still available in the form of rations. The police had managed to maintain something resembling order, even if it was often imposed with deadly force. Her perfect world had been turned upside down and now she was living in a world that reminded her of one of those apocalyptic movies that you watched when you were a kid late at night.
Avy moved from the window and sat on the edge of her bed and looked into her reflection in the mirror above her white wicker chest of drawers. She looked at the image with the same repulsion used to gaze upon a dead and rotting animal on the highway. She had always prided herself on her appearance, but now her long blonde, and once straight, hair was tangled. Her tan that she had obtained from countless hours on the beach had long since faded. Dark bags rested under her green eyes, and all the blemishes of her face were visible since she had run out of make-up and other items she used to perfect her complexion. I look homeless. She dressed in a worn pair of blue jeans and an off-white wool sweater. The jeans were stiff from washing them in collected rainwater and drip drying them in the shower. The sweater was a Christmas present she had received several years before while living in New Jersey. She had kept it for the few cool days that south Florida experienced each year. Now she needed it every day and this was leaving the signs of excessive wear on the garment.
It was Tuesday; the day she was issued her rations each week that usually consisted of a few cans of beans. The police had taken control of the grocery stores in the city and turned them into rationing stations and they slowly dealt the items on the shelves. During the first few weeks she was given fruit, bread, and thawed once-frozen dinners. Now the rations had shrunk and contained only a few cans of beans and whatever else could be saved. Avy put on her running shoes, her only comfortable shoes, and gathered a duffle bag for the four mile walk to the superstore grocery turned rationing station. As she double checked to make sure she had everything for the trip she thought of last Tuesday and how it reminded her how the Gloom, as everyone had taken to calling the phenomenon, turned everyone into rude, selfish, and violent people. Or maybe, she thought, they had always been that way and the bad times made the rudeness harder to ignore. During the previous week, as she was approaching the front of the line to receive her rations of canned goods a few rare loafs of moldy bread were dispersed. The crowd immediately began shouting. An old woman, frail and thin, that received the last loaf of bread was assaulted by a group of much younger women. They knocked her to the ground, kicked her, and then wrestled each other for the beaten woman's food.

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