A Prologue
The bitter reality was that she had never been her own person. She could have stared from her frozen tomb and contemplated the absence of personal choice for all her years, had she not been, instead, preoccupied with two century's worth of hibernation. Not even after the shaking and the wretching, crawling across a timeless vault floor, reborn into a foreign and yet familiar world, did it suddenly transition. Rebirth had granted no fairytale remedy; it had only saved, for the woman, fear and isolation and deep, empty loss. Born again to suffer, and gifted no new empowering sense of direction or cause. Nothing beyond a desperate drive to reclaim the last vestige of her faded reality and former life. A ghost from a world blown away to nuclear dust.
Reflection.
A childhood blessed with the soft comfort and accommodation her father's law firm provided for the family, it had been hers. It had paved her gradual pathway to a legal counseling degree. They had said, "Your father is an exemplary man. Do what you can for him." She'd passed the bar, she'd made him proud. It had been an accomplishment. She'd been told, "Even more so for a woman." She'd framed her accomplishment, and up on the wall it had been hung. This is me, this is what I have achieved . It had been paper for pedigree, and not a moment after the wire went taut across the single nail, securely mounting the frame for proud display, did she not have her next duty already elected. Paper for pedigree, and pedigree for procreation.
Reflection.
He'd been a war hero; another poster child. A purple heart, medal of valor, and honorable discharge. The full package, all neatly wrapped with the tidy little bow of military-issued chem rehabilitation to secure the stars and stripes wrappings of national service. That had been Nate. He'd been charming, witty, and impulsively spirited. They'd met through mutual acquaintances at a fundraiser, and the impulsive charmer had set his mind on her almost instantly. She'd been receptive to his charismatic advances. They had said, "That soldier is an exemplary man. Do what you can for him." When he had asked for her company, she had given it. When he had wanted more, she gave that too, and did what she could for him in the back of his glittering new Chryslus. When she had discovered the result of their coupling in the Highwayman's backseat, they announced an engagement. She'd been told, "It is your duty as a woman," and she was content with her position. She had pedigree and a hero for a husband. Nine months later and she gazed down into the baby-blue crib at the squirming bundle and thought: This is me, this is what I have achieved .
Then the world was burned away in nuclear fire.
The old world died. Nora was reborn into a new one.
"If a flame is to grow there must be a glow."