Excerpt: Flying Kites to the Moon

It had been like a ballet. A beautifully choreographed dance. Cue the explosion. The blast of military jets over head, launching their rockets, missiles and machine gun fire towards the background. People being thrown across the stage by unseen stunt men behind the curtains. Phil running, grabbing children under his arms. Ducking for cover behind rubbish bins and staircases, saving lives and being a hero. There was grand music, swelling to a climax as he plunged into the Holland Tunnel.
Now he was in New Jersey. Manhattan had grown eerily silent. He had slept in an alley in what had once been Newark, and now closely resembled a post apocalyptic civilization from a video game one of his roommates had played for a while. He wasn’t sure if he had been that heroic. Probably not. But he did remember saving some people. And maybe grabbing a kid. And there were explosions.
Now he was alone, lost, and confused. He barely recognized the person he had been just days before. He felt like he had never met that person before. He didn’t know if he would see him again. But then again, he wasn’t quite sure who he was right now either. He wasn’t the hero, but he wasn’t the old Phil, afraid to play tennis, either. Right now he was just curled up in a ball in an alley in mostly destroyed New Jersey Phil. Also he was wondering what to do.