Etienne hauled himself laboriously up the side of the crater where he remembered the Arc de Triomphe having been at some point in the past. Blown to bits by a small bomb, he recalled. He smiled. Well, so much for that triumph, eh?
As he passed the curling, faded faces of old stars, which he had gathered and pinned up to make this particular section of rubble-strewn sidewalk more interesting, he said "Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour". He stopped by one, a pretty, dark-haired woman, and remembered her being American, so to her he said "'Alo, madame."
Onward he went. Tap, tap went the PVC staff that he used as a walking stick. Of in the distance he heard a noise, a faint bark. Gunshots, he thought. More violence.
Oh well. Nothing he could do about that. Gunshots were common enough, anyway, and maybe that would mean a few less marauders to hide from.
He stepped into an alley between two leaning brick tenements, and nimbly skipped aside as a red block fell from above, smashing on the cracked pavement.
Further, further, he went into the alley, until he came to an opening in the close-looming sides of the alley, the burned-out shell of a building with no back wall. The concrete floor of the structure was cracked to pieces, and yellow-green grass, waist-high, sprouted throughout. In the center, a small, wrinkle-barked tree stooped, tangled braches raking just above Etienne's head. Tiny orange-pink peaches, wrinkled and shriveled, hung from the branches, weighed them down.
The old man picked one and bit into it, tasting the sweet peachy flavor and the odd crackle or tingle in it. Etienne supposed that the crackle-tingle meant that there was radiation in it. Like so many times before, oh well. Nothing he could do about that.
Etienne climbed from his fruit source back into the ruinous alleyway and trod off in the direction of his home.
