The World as We Know It Page 17

  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 ou
rselves. 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.

  “As they teach, they learn,” Joshua said.

  In school they studied practical subjects, many of which had never been addressed in schools of the past. There was history, math, science, and English, of course, but the application of those subjects to survival, farming, communications, mechanics, green building, and energy production was equally important. After all, application was the purpose of learning to begin with. Foreign language courses were expected of anyone who did not speak at least three fluently. Success in school was not determined by standardized tests. In fact, very little was standardized. Advancement was based on the teacher’s recommendation, which rendered the teacher invaluable. College-level education was no longer the only option beyond the new equivalent of high school. The preferred course for most careers was then apprenticeship—continued learning through application.

  When class had concluded, Joshua and I began the long walk back to his house. It was not so strange that we were greeted on the street by nearly everyone we passed. That, I had grown to expect in my travels. What was strange, however, was that all of those people knew him by name—not just within his own neighborhood, but on every road and every corner we traversed along the way. When I inquired as to his seeming celebrity status, he responded with a modest shrug.

  The next day, I thought it prudent to make a contribution to that place as I had in others. Before the sun had fully risen, I embarked on the mountainous hike downtown to Pier 39, where sea lions basked in the morning sun among the fishermen loading gear onto boats. There I joined another crew just boarding their catamaran.

  “We can use more hands today anyway,” they said, welcoming me aboard. “One of our guys just left town.”

  We set off westward, tacking past the city under the Golden Gate and into the blue. It was a beautiful, cool morning with a breeze coming in from the ocean, just like the night I had arrived there. The Pacific view of the city bared a stunning fusion of human creation and that of God: feats of engineering and architecture—bridges and buildings—spread in three dimensions across a mountainous backdrop. From the shore was drawn a waving blue carpet that sparkled, fit for royalty and with an adventurous spirit. The designed elements complemented the natural, as they should. Too much faith in human creation leaves little for all that was there long before. I stood with the breathtaking view from a vessel powered entirely by the wind, traveling as people had traveled for thousands of years.

  That feeling always brought me back to wonder about God. Sometimes, like the wind, his presence seemed passive, even nonexistent. Others, it emerged as if out of nowhere, moving us with overwhelming power to great new places and leaving a wake of joy and inspiration.

  Aboard the vessel, the crew’s lunatic revelry echoed that of the proverbial Pequod, with their timeless songs and vulgar jokes. They, too, had converged there from diverse strata and distant places. When I told the fishermen the name of the man who had taken me in, they were not surprised in the least. They as well all knew Joshua.

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “The teacher,” one of them said.

  “Yes, but why does everyone know him?”

  “When it all came down, we didn’t know where to go. It was mass panic. Most people here didn’t know how to hunt or farm. There was no electricity, no communication, no running water. We were terrified. I don’t have to tell you what it was like. I’m sure you experienced the same things.

  “Then Joshua came along. I’m not sure how it started, but people began to follow him, and as word of the teacher spread, everyone began looking to him for answers. During times of great struggle, people will look anywhere for a leader and follow the first person who steps up. It doesn’t always end well. Too often that person will take advantage of the very people who entrust their lives to him, but every once in a while, the
re’s someone like Joshua. Things grew calm again, eventually. As we adapted and learned to provide for ourselves, Joshua gradually slipped back into anonymity. Not entirely, of course. We all still know his face, but he’s just one of us.”

  “What did he do before the collapse?” I asked.

  “Joshua was homeless. He slept in parks and scavenged for food.” He smiled and said, “Wisdom is sometimes hidden in unexpected places.”

  I couldn’t help but look at Joshua differently that night when I brought the day’s catch back to his home. We ate together, and he was strangely quiet throughout the meal. Uncharacteristically so, from what little I knew of him. He kept glancing at a sealed envelope sitting on a desk nearby in the room. I didn’t want to probe, though. If he was planning to request that I make a delivery, it was his own business, and I would let him ask at whatever time he saw fit. Already I had accepted the responsibility in places past, and in my satchel two other letters awaited delivery. What was a third? Still, I didn’t quite understand the apprehension about asking such a favor. He was, after all, providing me with a home and an education during my stay. It was only right that I repay him somehow.

  Then I began to wonder why, when their network had already been so developed, he would charge me with the responsibility of a single delivery. Would it not be simpler to send his mail with one of the Bay’s own carriers, regardless of its destination? Certainly, if it were a local delivery, they would be more familiar with the route and established postal centers. If it was distant, my route was indirect to almost any location, and I only had one stop left on the coast before I would head home.

  I grew increasingly curious through the meal, anxious, even, picking away at the delicious halibut that I had arduously taken from the ocean earlier in the day. Occasionally, Joshua would look across the room to the envelope and then look at me as if to speak. But without a word, he would turn back to his plate and continue eating.