The World as We Know It (3 page)

Parting with the farm that afternoon was somewhat painful. As we headed back to the city, I tried to remain optimistic about the week ahead, but my tendencies toward realism dominated my expectations. The evening was slow and quiet as it faded inevitably into night, which seemed to last forever.

2

THE COLLAPSE

W
hen I stepped into work the next morning, Debbi told me that Arthur was already waiting for me in my office. He was sitting in the farther of the two burgundy leather chairs across from my desk, half-asleep and struggling to keep his head upright. He didn’t acknowledge my presence in the room until I sat down right in front of him.

“How’s it going, Art.”

“Oh, you know, just livin’ the dream.”

I love when a courteous greeting is met with a morbidly sarcastic response like “just livin’ the dream.” Perhaps I should have felt guilty finding comedy in such complacent hopelessness. I smiled slightly.

“What can I do for you? Got another fund you want to pitch?”

“Funny, Joe. You know, we’re all treading water here.”

“I know, I know. It doesn’t matter anyway. Everything is headed south now.”

“Even so, I came here to apologize. Sometimes I’m too willing to give into pressure from above and not willing enough to listen to my people on the front lines.”

War analogies. Who was the enemy?

“Well, it’s a new week. Let’s see if things turn around.”

They didn’t. That Monday was as bad as the previous, if not worse. Markets around the world continued the trend that had begun the week before, and there was no indication that it would let up any time soon. A decline of that magnitude was unprecedented. It was more rapid and more widespread than any in modern history had been. Economic peaks and troughs are expected, and in hindsight, they’re usually explainable, but this was baffling. It was as if the entire school of economics had ignored some unseen and all-important variable that had finally decided to show its hideous face. Nobody understood it. The world’s top economists gathered to try to reverse the trend, but even they didn’t know where to start. It was far more than a natural adjustment to overinflated stock prices. The lines on the charts crashed right through their futile attempts to slow the momentum.

It lasted for about a month before the protests began. Mobs formed outside of corporate offices around the world to point fingers and demand revolution. They began picketing mostly in relative peace, but unrest grew quickly, and within a week, riot police and tear gas were necessary to maintain order. I remember watching the news one night
as it broadcasted footage of law enforcement unloading rubber bullets into a crowd in Boston, and then it switched over to a journalist in Houston who seemed to be covering the same event under slightly different lighting. That reporter was the first person I heard put a name to what was happening. She called it “The Great Collapse,” a headline that would be permanently etched into history books.

The fact that it all progressed so quickly reflected the lack of faith that the citizens of the world held in the system. When I say “system,” I mean the entire machine and each of its components that made up the modern world, which determined how society operated in every country large or small, first world to third. The economic system, monetary exchange, corporate conglomerates, government in every form and at every level, social hierarchies—all of it. Wherever you lived, you were a part of it in one way or another. In the eyes of the working and middle classes, they had followed the rules, gone to work, provided for their families, and invested in their futures, but that hadn’t been enough. They were losing everything they had worked for their entire lives, day after day, watching it happen on the television, despite having taken every possible step to ensure the security of their lifestyles. They were finally coming to the realization that even after thousands of years of what had always been deemed “progress,” nothing man-made could be taken for granted. They were sick of the roller coaster, distrusting of the system, and the collapse was the final straw.

Although she pretended to be satisfied with my reassurances, Maria was no fool. She knew as well as anyone that things were changing, and she knew that my line of work put us in a particularly vulnerable position during that time. She would smile and nod and hold my hand, but her eyes always gave away her true feelings. They seemed constantly glazed with tears of fear that would break the barrier of her eyelashes and come rolling down her soft cheeks if she didn’t blink frequently enough to absorb them. That was the worst part for me—seeing her in such a state of distress, knowing that there was nothing I could do to stop it, and watching her try to hide her fear to make things easier on me.

After about two months, a lot of people just quit showing up for work. Those of us who still denied the inevitable, blindly carrying on like a depleting herd of confused sheep, should have been more careful about our use of the resources at our disposal. Stores and gas stations were shutting down, some for lack of business, some for lack of staff. I, at least, began walking to work to conserve gas. My office was less than two miles from our house, but the thought of getting there on my own feet had never before crossed my mind. When it snowed, I had to stuff my shiny leather shoes in a gym sack slung over the opposite shoulder from my messenger bag and walk to work in snow boots, which were not flattering to my suits. The winter days were growing shorter. I would leave before sunrise and return home after sunset. Fortunately, Maria worked out of our house, so I didn’t have to worry about her
walking the streets alone in the dark. Just a few months prior, she wouldn’t have thought twice about a midnight jog through our suburban neighborhood. Even the place where we lived no longer felt safe and predictable.

Rather than put their minds to conservation, as the wise would have, most people began to consume energy and food in excess, afraid that those things would soon be scarce. Electricity. Batteries. Gas. Had I known where things were headed, I would have stocked up on ammunition for my gun like some of the others. We spent the little money that was left even more frivolously than we had when it was abundant. I could see the value of every currency in the world dropping day after day, and I decided it would be irresponsible not to put it to use before it was worthless. That was my justification for self-indulgence. After all, I had earned it. One night, I went to an underground wine auction to which I had been invited by one of my clients, and unbeknownst to my wife, I placed the ten thousand–dollar winning bid on a Bordeaux claret. I brought it home and slipped it into an inconspicuous slot on our wine rack under the bar, intending to save it for some special occasion in the future. Perhaps our anniversary. A big promotion, maybe, if the world economy’s free fall miraculously ended in a soft landing. If nothing else, at least we could celebrate the end with class.

The next morning as I walked past the bar, I noticed what looked like a pool of blood creeping around from behind it. My first thought was one of death. It was not my wife, I knew. I had just left her in the bedroom. Perhaps
it was the cat, though I couldn’t imagine so much blood coming from such a small creature. What could she have done to create such a mess? Had she exploded? I poked my head around the corner of the bar, where I found my bottle of Bordeaux still resting in the same spot on the rack but open and empty. The cork lay ten feet away. I pulled out the bottle and turned it up, pouring the remaining few drops into my mouth while standing barefoot in the ten thousand–dollar mess on the floor. I was later told that the wine had undergone an unintentional refermentation process that had caused a buildup of carbon dioxide, and pressure had compounded inside the bottle until, at one clandestinely climactic moment in the night, it had ejected the cork.

My business declined like everyone else’s. Soon, the total value of the portfolios in my care was next to nothing. The angry phone calls from distraught clients ceased, and my office became a quiet, lonely place. I hadn’t heard a word from Arthur since his apologetic visit, and I had to let Debbi go. She was paid out of the profits from my office alone, and there wasn’t enough money coming in for me to keep her on. When she left, I told her I would call her when things came back, but realistically, we both knew that wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t even generating enough revenue to pay my own salary. I had to start pulling from savings every week just to buy groceries and pay bills, though I don’t even know why I bothered at that point. Money had become virtually worthless. Our neighborhood grocery had shut down, but they had left the
doors unlocked so that looters wouldn’t have to smash the glass to get in. The police force was too concerned with its own desperation to interfere.

Despite my insistence that we continue to honor our financial responsibilities, services began to go out. First it was the satellite television, which was only playing news and reruns at that point because there was no money anywhere for new production. As much as we enjoyed those old sitcoms, they lost their appeal. We really only watched about five out of the two hundred or so channels we got anyway.

Cellular phones went next. I was talking with Maria one day when her voice abruptly went silent, and the signal strength icon on my smartphone was at zero. It seemed archaic to have to resort to the old wired phone plugged into the wall. As awkward as it felt, though, I also felt a certain sense of liberation, a freedom from that omnipresent need to be available. Less than two days later, the Internet was out and landlines were dead. The radio said that it was happening everywhere. A lot of places had already lost power. That was when I left work for the last time. It was time to refocus my attention on what we would need for survival once the electricity went out and gas lines went down. December in the Midwest can be brutally cold.

I began walking home to check on Maria, but my reluctant saunter soon became a run as I noticed angry crowds beginning to form in the streets. I knew then that that was it. There was no coming back. Maria was startled when I
burst through the door and broke down crying when she saw me.

“What’s happening, Joe? I’m so scared,” she sobbed onto my shoulder as I held her tightly.

“Everything is going to be OK. I promise.”

So many thoughts were rushing through my head. We needed food. We needed water. Soon we were going to need heat. We needed to secure the house. Where were our friends and family? Were they OK? What was going to happen next?

First things first.

“Maria, I need to go get food before there’s nothing left.”

“Where?”

“The grocery store.”

“It’s closed.”

“I don’t think that matters now.”

I continued talking as I headed into the bedroom for the Mossberg.

“Joe! What are you doing with that?”

“You’re taking it.”

Maria was shaking as I loaded up the shotgun and forced it into her hands, giving her the briefest firearm tutorial in history just in case anyone tried to get in.
Safety off. Point-shoot-rack-repeat. Eight shells in the magazine, one in the chamber
. She stayed at the house with the doors bolted, the blinds drawn, and the lights out. Any place that had food was potentially dangerous, and I couldn’t put her at risk. Human laws are ignored in such times of desperation. All
that matters is staying alive. I grabbed the Ka-Bar from our bedside, rushed out the door, jumped in my car, and headed quickly to the grocery store with a duffel bag.

In my haste, I had left my coat, but there was no time to go back. There would be others scrambling for food too, and I didn’t want a fight. The frigid air bit the bare skin on my arms. My breath froze before it even left my mouth, and my dry fingers could hardly grip the slick leather-wrapped steering wheel. It had been raining for days, and the ground was coated in a thick layer of black ice. The engine roared as I slid through the grid of streets, and the antilock brakes grabbed repeatedly but did little to slow me down. The car bounced off curbs and street signs as I sped toward downtown, completely destroying its once flawless metallic beauty.

I drifted around the last corner, smashing directly into the side of an armored personnel carrier. The National Guard had arrived, and not a moment too soon. It was anarchy. I got out of the car and stood watching in horror with so much adrenaline rushing through me that I couldn’t even feel the cold anymore. The historic center of our little suburban town was engulfed in flames. Brick facades were collapsing onto the sidewalks and streets, and a furious mob was engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat with the armed forces, who were doing everything in their power to control the chaos without resorting to gunpowder and lead.

“What are you doing out here?” I heard a voice yell. I spun to find myself looking down the barrel of a
military-issue assault rifle in the shaking hands of a terrified kid who looked like he was fresh out of high school. A patch on the breast of his uniform read “Peterson” next to the American flag on his right shoulder. Surely pointing his weapon at fellow Americans was not what Peterson had anticipated when he had signed those enlistment papers.

“You can put the gun down, Peterson. I’m just getting food for my family.”

We both glanced over at the half-destroyed grocery store and then back at each other.

“The liquor aisle is empty,” he said, still pointing the M16 in my face. I wanted to ask if that was where he had just come from while his friends were all down the street brawling with a crazed mob, but I decided that that would not be in my best interest. How ironic that the most powerful government in the world would arm the kid with deadly weapons but wouldn’t trust him with a beer.

“Food, not liquor,” I said. “For my family.”

He kept on his glare for a moment until a voice yelled from down the street, “Peterson, get your ass over here!” With that, he left me alone and headed toward the riot. I grabbed the duffel bag and bolted into what was left of the grocery store.