The World as We Know It (21 page)

Mary brought a full dinner into my room and sat to join me while I dined as though it were my last meal. “You won’t be eating like this for a while,” she said.

“I know,” I replied. “I’ll miss it, but we’ll be fine.”

She smiled. “I know what you’re thinking about.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Don’t ever give up, Joe. You’ll be with her soon.”

“She almost doesn’t seem real anymore—nothing from my old life does. But I miss her deeply. More than I miss anything else. I feel empty.”

“Sometimes faith is more important than memories.”

12

LEAVING A WAKE

T
he nightmares returned. It happened almost immediately when we got on the road headed down the Pacific coast in a convoy of wagons and horses. The saving grace was that at least I had some company for that leg of the journey, so when I awoke from those midnight haunts I wasn’t entirely alone.

I dreamed that I was mowing a field of chest-high wild grass around my old house in the suburbs, but there was nothing else in sight. The city was gone. The house was dilapidated and collapsing. Maria was sitting on the grayed front porch with a glass of iced lemonade, covered in filth but wearing a myriad of gaudy jewelry—layers of gold necklaces, pearls, rows of earrings, diamonds, and glimmering stones of every color. Her face showed no expression. She just sat there, sipping her lemonade, watching me mow the infinite field.

That was the latest recurring dream, among others that became increasingly dark as we traveled. Since we had begun moving again, I missed home immensely. Beyond the cliffs beside us, the deep blue Pacific Ocean spread endlessly into the distance. I’ve been told that the human eye cannot detect such minute measurements from a single point so near sea level, but I felt as though I could see the subtle curve of the earth when I looked to the west. It gave me hope that perhaps home was not as far away as it felt. The tide snaked in behind white shields, approaching in rhythm with relentless perseverance like rows of soldiers into battle. Waves crashed off of the ancient sea stacks, each chiseling its signature into the rock of history and sending a chilling spray into the air that disappeared into the fog.

I felt so frail, constantly awakened at night and haunted during the day, and I was sure my weakness was obvious to my companions. What must they have thought of me?
Who is this homesick coward we allowed to ride along with us? We, too, spend our lives on the road, a job fit only for a person of great mental and physical strength. What business did he have setting off on this journey so ill prepared in every way?

If those had been their thoughts, I would not have blamed them. After all, it was the truth. But none of that ridicule ever reached my ears. Instead, they provided all that Nomad and I required to satisfy us until we reached the Bay. Transportation. Food. Rest. Company. I tried to focus on maintaining my physical health. If I allowed that to deteriorate again the way I had in the mountains,
I would likely not live to tell the tale. I had been fortunate that time, the villagers having been present at just the right moment. It was a blessing that I would surely not be granted again.

The road was surprisingly populated most of the way; it was usually not busy, but we passed through many towns that dotted the coast with perpetuity from north to south. Some were old. Some were new. Between them, we followed roads through forests of towering redwoods hundreds of years old, some of them with trunks so wide that they had been bored through to complete the path. Even our wagon and convoy of men on horses fit through the tunnels cut in the trees. Thin clouds hung low in the woods and glowed with the color of the sky in the afternoon. The canopy was a beautiful green ceiling with spots of blue here and there and immense red pillars firmly holding it all together.

Ezra was one of the travelers with whom I shared that time. He had a love of his own back home, Jesse, of whom he spoke as I spoke of Maria. Our love was what kept us all going, I realized. It wasn’t just me. We were all hopeless without it, lost and devoid of a destination and purpose. Even the hardest of men have a weakness, whether they show it or not. Love is both our weakness and our strength. It is what separates humans from beasts.

“Are you counting the days, Joe?” Ezra asked.

“I try not to, but yes,” I said. “I know the days past, but I can only guess at what’s ahead.”

“Don’t concentrate too hard on the future. It will drive you crazy. Not knowing.”

“I try.”

“One day at a time. That’s the only way.”

It took at least four weeks to reach the Bay, which gave me time to recover my strength. I had become restless and eager to move on. The first sight of the old San Francisco skyline radiating with the sunset was so exhilarating that I nearly leaped from the wagon and ran to it on my own feet. We approached as the sun went down, and something odd struck me. There were lights in the building windows, even in upper levels of high rises. The lights were white, and they burned with consistency not characteristic of fire. They were electric. And they were everywhere. In the place from where I had just come, only the essential buildings were graced with electric power, but at the Bay, it seemed the light was ubiquitous. I had not seen such a brightly lit urban scene since before the collapse.

“My God,” I said. “The whole city has power!”

“Not quite, but we’re getting there,” said Ezra. “We still have to be conservative with it, but the electricity came back on a few months ago in some places. This is the brightest I’ve seen it. They’ve made progress since we’ve been gone.”

We came to a barn outside the city where the crew dismounted and began to unload the cargo they had brought back on the wagon. “This is our stop,” Ezra said. “Are you staying the night or heading into the city?”

“I think I’ll keep moving,” I said, thanking them all for their company and the ride.

“Godspeed on the road ahead, Joe,” said Ezra. “And keep the faith.”

I mounted my horse, and as we trotted back onto the road, I saw a man emerge from the barn and throw his arms around Ezra, who was equally joyful at the long-awaited reunion.

The city’s white aura drew Nomad and me across the quiet Golden Gate Bridge, trafficked only by pedestrians, and onto the hilly urban roads that had been San Francisco. We roamed awhile, catching glimpses of the Bay between buildings and hiking the winding brick of Lombard Street. As the hour had grown late, though, the electric atmosphere had faded, and we were nearly alone on the streets. The stars twinkled in the cloudless sky above. Beautiful Victorian architecture towered on either side of us, splashed in pastel colors that I could still see in the moonlight.

We stopped to sleep in a park, wishing not to disturb anyone at home at that time of night. Waking my new neighbors would certainly not breed a desirable reputation, and I had become accustomed to sleeping under the stars. After all, the weather was beautiful there. The temperature had hardly dropped from the day, and the cool breeze blowing through the palm trees carried in the fresh perfume of the ocean.

No sooner than I had lain down on my bed of grass, a man approached on a midnight stroll through the park, and I rose again to greet him.

“Nice night,” he said.

“Indeed it is.”

“I practically used to live out here. Not a bad place to sleep, I say. I’m Joshua.”

“Glad to meet you,” I said before introducing myself. His eyes widened at the sound of my name, though I didn’t take much notice of his expression at the time.

“Seems I’m not the only one who enjoys the quiet emptiness of the streets at night,” he said. “I find this is the perfect time for a walk.”

“Well, I don’t really have a choice.”

“You new around here, Joe? You look like you’ve been on the road awhile,” he said as if he knew it for fact.

“I have.”

“Well, perhaps you’ve spent enough time sleeping outdoors. I’ve got an extra bed at my place, if you’d prefer.”

Of course, I couldn’t turn down such an invitation. The innocence and faith with which people invited strangers into their homes were revolutionary to the overwhelmingly suspicious and cynical worldview we’d all harbored in the past. The prevailing assumption was that everyone was to be trusted—even filthy, long-haired, bearded drifters dressed in rags.

On our walk to his home, I learned that Joshua was a schoolteacher. I had pondered how a new system of education might evolve, but until then, I had not seen any sort of organized school in any place I had passed through. Building, farming, and access to fresh water were things we required for survival. The establishment of
an educational system was different. It wasn’t a necessary adaptation to our newfound circumstances as everything prior had been, nor was it a desperate attempt at recovery of a lifestyle we once knew. Rather, it was a confirmation that we had moved past the world as we had once known it, accepting that it would never again be the same, and the time had come to retire the old ways to the history books.

I joined Joshua at his school the next day. I had assumed, since power and water had been largely restored, that class would be held at one of the old school buildings, so I was intrigued when Joshua led me instead to the beach on the Pacific side of the city. Students of all ages began arriving almost immediately after our arrival, textbooks in hand and enthusiasm on their faces.

“This is where you hold class?” I asked.

“For now,” Joshua replied. “I find hands-on application more effective than hours of mindless lecturing. Students retain very little of that unless it’s accompanied by interactive demonstration. They don’t remember much if they aren’t interested.”

He began with a brief overview of some renewable energy sources—solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, tidal and wave, biomass and anaerobic digestion—before asking his students to take out the miniature tidal stream generators they had constructed in the previous class. As they all stepped into the crashing waves, Joshua explained the mechanics behind the newly functional tidal farm that was helping to power the city. Construction had been
nearly complete at the time of the collapse, but only within the previous few months had it finally begun fulfilling its purpose. Joshua motioned for me to follow, and I joined the class in the water.

Beneath the clear, sunlit surface, I watched their tiny turbines spin like a submerged wind farm. The ocean had an astounding capacity to provide for us, from food to energy, as did so much of the natural earth we had neglected. Only creativity and foresight were necessary to put brilliant ideas to action, and in that respect, we had only restricted ourselves. Money, it turned out, had failed the human race as a motivator for progress and expression of success. Our capacity for production was limited by the potential for monetary profit, so we maintained the use of archaic and environmentally devastating energy sources like fossil fuels long after better options had become available. The technology had been there, but implementation was costly to initiate, even if operating expenses were far lower in the long term than with our current methods. Wind, water, and sunlight provided enough free energy to satisfy us all. It was just a matter of harnessing them properly.

We had embarked on a new era of energy production, one in which the motivation was not money but rather the good of all people and the integrity of the planet on which we lived. It seemed we could one day thrive with all the luxuries we’d had before, but without any expense to our valuable natural resources.

Remarkably, watching the turbines shimmer as the tide rushed through them was as exhilarating to the
young students as it was to me. Perhaps, had I been taught in such a way, I might have been inspired in my youth to devote my life to such a noble cause. Instead, like so many, I had not chosen a professional path until well into my college career. The decision was made then more from a lack of available time and options than true inspiration.

When the tidal stream generator demonstration had concluded, Joshua decided to deviate from the lesson he had planned.

“We have a guest with us today,” he began, “who has traveled quite a long way to be here. This is Joe.”

I smiled and waved as the class greeted me.

“Why don’t you tell us what you’re doing, Joe?”

I was surprised and unprepared. After a moment of hesitation, I addressed the class, quite unsure of where to begin my story.

“All right, does anyone know a mailperson?”

“I do,” a child spoke proudly. “My dad is a letter carrier.”

My eyes widened as I looked at the child.

“Really?” I replied.

“Yes. He’s on his way to Salt Lake City.”

“My brother is headed to Phoenix,” said a second student.

“My mom is in Los Angeles. Going to Mexico next.”

I was speechless.

“We’ve got a fully functional mail service now within a few hundred–mile radius,” Joshua said with a smile. “It’s expanding every day. This is the new communications industry, Joe. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“Unbelievable,” I muttered.

“You didn’t think you were the only one, did you, Joe?”

“I knew there were others.”

“But?”

“But how many are there?”

“Hundreds locally. A few dozen who leave the city.”

I sat and spoke with the class awhile, sharing stories of my adventures as they shared those of their own families and friends on similar journeys. They knew much of what I had been through, having heard it all so many times before. Those of us committed to the new communication network were revered for our sacrifice, and so many of the stories I heard mirrored my own. We were proud of what we had all accomplished together and of what could soon follow because of our perseverance. The network could one day evolve from carried letters to include telephone and electronic communication again, but these first steps were vital to facilitate the possibilities of the future. In front of me was the next generation, and they were full of inspiration.

Teaching was regarded as a vital component of the growing system and had become a highly valued and prestigious career path of its own. Joshua, like his colleagues, was no longer restricted by the bureaucracy of the system but was then free to explore the full range of resources at his disposal, challenging both the creativity and raw intellect of students, rather than their ability to memorize facts and figures. Classes were larger but had taken a step back toward the ideology of the one-room schoolhouse where
students of multiple age groups learned together. Not only did that allow them to integrate and expand social horizons, but it also allowed older and more experienced students to assist in teaching the younger ones, consequently reinforcing what they themselves had learned. The nature of the system inspired creativity.