The sun rose over the blasted landscape of the wasteland. Shattered remains of buildings and their kin rested amongst ashes in the gloom as the sun brought light to them. A wasteland sunrise can be called beautiful or insidious, depending who you asked. Beautiful for the colours it made by running through water particles and radioactive dust in the air, insidious for the same reasons. The beautifully insidious light shined upon the landscape, illuminating mutated creatures crawling about charred terrain, ruins of a by-gone day, and the endless mounds of sand and dust. Eventually the light discovered an intact house, or almost intact. One small side of the roof was broken and deformed from where old timbers had collapsed upon themselves, allowing an opening inside.
Sun filtered through this broken roof, scattering its pale light across the floor. It spread like a disease across the room slowly, illuminating ancient images of years gone by. Pictures that once showed landscapes of beautifully cut lawns and happy couples were half eaten by insects. Flowered wallpaper peeled at regular points, showing a rotting wooden back wall. The light illuminated dust particles in the air, and caused them to dance as if in delight of its presence. As the minutes ticked by, the sunlight radiated itself upon a pile of musty old blankets on a rusting bed frame. The blankets moved in reaction to the light and a bearded face squinted at the sudden illumination. He threw off the blankets revealing a lightly clothed body on a thin mattress. The man on the bed stretched and rose from the mattress, still blinking furiously at the blinding light.
Rising from the bed, he folded the old blankets and placed them on the wire frame. Pointless, the man thought, no one will care. The man folded them every day and pondered why he did so. Part of routine, he replied to himself. The man entered the aging bathroom adjacent to the bedroom, and stripped himself of clothing. Reaching into a cupboard behind a broken mirror, he plucked a bottle of water from the shelf and unscrewed the top. Using as little as he could, the man poured the contents over his body, rubbing a mouldy bar of soap at the same time. This process did little for his overall hygiene, but it gave him a sense of normality and order. That was what he liked, routine, something predictable to happen every day. It kept him sane, which was a commodity in this godforsaken land.
Putting fresher clothes on, the man ventured down a decaying staircase into his 'kitchen' where he ate his meals. Kitchen wasn't the right word to call it. It might have been once, but the single stove, counter, sink, and few cupboards hardly constituted a place to prepare meals. He opened a cabinet to reveal several cans of spam, plenty of old tinned beans, and other odds and ends encased in slightly rusted metal cans. Not much to provide sustenance but you took what you received in these parts. The man settled on some beans and cooked the can over the refurbished oven, trying to even heat all over it. When the can was warm enough, he brought it to the table and ate them. The beans tasted like shit, but the man didn't complain, he never did. He washed the shitty beans down with some water and removed himself from the table. He washed the empty tin in some slightly irradiated water and tossed it into a box with other such tins. Nearly full, the man thought, can take those into town soon and barter. They're always looking for metal of any kind.
Town was the normal thing to call the place. Town was a group of ten less buildings surrounded by fence constructed from the remains of cars. Town was twenty plus kilometres from where the man lived, and constituted the only trading outpost for hundreds of kilometres in any direction. It was routine for the man to travel into town once a week and sell what was scavenged and see what he could find. Usually, he could turn a very small profit from the few things he found, and use it to buy a beer, stock up on more canned goods or replenish his clean water supply. This, again, kept him sane. Contact with people and a something to look forward to every week kept the mind thinking, kept it from being crushed by the hopeless monotony of wasteland life. There had been a time when he had such company at the house, but that was a memory he tried not to remain upon.
His weekly trip to town wasn't for two more days. He would be spending the ones before searching the wasteland for anything of sustenance or value. Sometimes you find something useful, like metal or spare parts. Most of the time the man came home empty handed, but there were days when something interesting that could fetch a price was found. Each day the man ventured further and further from home, examining every ruin, every cave, and every little notch he saw. Scavenging was how the majority of people survived in this part of the wasteland. The man grunted when he remembered this bit of information, and returned his thoughts to routine. At this point in the day his routine dictated him to prepare for his outing, so he traveled to the basement.
The man climbed down a set of stairs into the basement, where he kept his few possessions and whatever he salvaged from the wastes. His possessions included a workbench and his collection of weapons, along with ruined parts from cars and guns. He grabbed a freshly fixed rifle from the bench and checked to see it was loaded. Protection was important in the wasteland, creatures and people wouldn't hesitate to kill if it meant money or food. A box of shells rested next to the gun, and the man pocketed them. He hardly fired more than a few rounds but should the unexpected happen, he liked to be prepared. As an extra safety, he grabbed a pistol with six shots in it. Never hurt to be prepared. The wasteland harboured many dangers.
On the main floor, the man prepared to exit his residence. He opened a closet and reached for a sac with which he carried what he salvaged. To brace himself against the radioactive winds, he sported a large dust coloured cloak. Putting it on, everything was concealed beneath the cloak, allowing an element of surprise. He reached for a hat that would have impressed western film stars and unbolted the several locks on his door. Outside, the wasteland stretched on before him, inviting him to enter its depths and fall victim to its dangers. The man obliged, tipping his hat against the dusty winds, closing the door as he wandered into a bleak landscape. A small sandstorm brewed in the lands, and he calmly strode into it, vanishing from sight. All part of his routine; routine kept him sane.