Outskirts Press, INC.

What Does the Future Look Like?

These short stories by T.W. Messer imagine a dystopian future that is often gloomy, but not without hope. Each of these stories tell a tale of human struggle and desperation, but also of perseverance, and the will to survive. A man and his son fight to survive after a nuclear war affects the country. California has been divided into six states, with Central California drying up into a poverty-stricken dust bowl. The pastor of a progressive church can’t escape his past. Women have ruled the world for years, and the generation of men who submit to them think this is the way life has always been. An actor decides to be cryonically frozen, gambling on a procedure that has yet to be successful. A man goes off the grid north of the border, but when he returns, the country he left looks very different. Survivors try to rebuild society in a post-pandemic world, where a hastily developed vaccine has been required for all citizens. A stimulating compilation with intriguing characters, AFTERMATH is dark but thought provoking.