The World as We Know It Read online

  I bolted to my office and turned on the television. I flipped through channels—CSPAN, CNN, CNBC, FOX—it was everywhere.

  “CHINESE MARKETS STILL TANKING.”

  “ASIAN AND EUROPEAN STOCK MARKETS FOLLOWING CHINA.”

  “GLOBAL ECONOMY HEADED FOR ANOTHER RECESSION?”

  More like depression, I thought. I had seen it coming ten miles away. We relied so heavily on the Chinese that I wondered how we would ever recover after a crash like the one I feared had just begun. The mutual dependence of massive economies like the United States and China had become dangerously great. The upside of such a system was that all parties had an equal interest in cooperation and healthy competition. The downside was that when the first domino toppled, the others followed. I looked at the Swiss-made automatic watch on my wrist. US markets had not yet opened, but when they did, they were sure to mirror what was happening on the other side of the world.

  Of course, responsibility for the crash rested on all of our shoulders. China was just where it had begun, perhaps simply because their geographic location ensures that they are the first to greet each new day. Like a compression bomb or a bad romantic relationship, when pressure gets too great, it has to be released at some point, and the greater the pressure, the louder the bang. We’re left wondering where the damage will end. The distance from rock bottom is always measured based on some point in the past, because there’s no way to predict the consequences of crashing through what has been perceived as the lowest point in history.

  The phone was still ringing. I picked up the receiver and held it to my ear, speechless.

  “Joe?”

  “Maria, thank God,” I sighed, snapping from my bewildered trance.

  “Joe, what’s going on? I just turned on the television.”

  “Just relax, the market’s like a roller coaster,” I said reassuringly, more for my own benefit. “It’s just adjusting.”

  “But they’re saying…”

  “Don’t pay attention to the headlines. You know how the media is. Good news doesn’t sell. The more they scare people, the bigger their ratings. It will be fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. It’s always fine, right? Trust me. Now, I have to try to take some of these calls before Wall Street opens in half an hour. I’m going to spend all day reassuring a few hundred other people who are trusting me with the security of their retirement, so I really have to go. I’ll see you tonight, OK?”

  “OK. I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  As expected, US markets followed everyone else. The rest of the week went pretty much the same way. I suffered a five-day barrage of frantic screaming from terrified clients as the lines on the charts continued to plummet. By the weekend, it seemed to be leveling out, but that did little to ease the fears of the public. Everyone whose livelihood was dependent on a job or an IRA was nervous, and that was the vast majority of us. Our spirits stayed high around the house, but everywhere we went, the mood was somber.

  That Friday night, we went to dinner, as we usually did, to a local pub within walking distance of our house. When we stepped in the door, the place was unusually quiet. Clientele was light. Even our normally peppy waitress was clearly anxiety stricken. Paul called later and suggested that, after the exhausting week it had been, we needed to get out of town again. I protested, insisting that I had to work through the weekend to see what I could do to mitigate the damage.

  “There’s nothing you can do, Joe,” he said. “Just relax. Let it go.”

  As hard as that was to hear, he was right.

  The next morning, we loaded up Paul’s truck, and the four of us headed back out to his farm a few hours southwest of the city, where we had spent the previous weekend. We had visited three or four times over the last few months, and the more time I spent there, the more doubtful I became of the practicality of our “normal” life. He had a few hundred acres of fields and forest, and the colors on the trees were just beginning to change. When we got off the highway, a gravel road wound through the woods and led to a small two-room log cabin with a well in the front yard. The thick wooden walls showed their age. Behind the cabin ran a stream that cut through the woods and the adjacent farm fields, and hidden off to the side was an outhouse as old as the cabin itself.

  It was a sunny day and slightly warm for that time of year, but there was a pleasant, cool breeze. With the windows down, I actually slept awhile in the back seat with my head resting on Maria’s shoulder. That was probably the longest uninterrupted sleep I’d had since Monday. The ride down had been relatively devoid of conversation, but we all perked up pretty quickly once we arrived around noon. After unpacking, Paul and I headed to the water for some trout fishing, a hobby new to me but one that I was becoming increasingly fond of. Maria and Sarah stuck around the cabin, disinterested in what they deemed to be “guy stuff.”

  I popped open a beer from the cooler we had brought with us, slipped it into the koozie hanging around my neck, and headed into the stream. As soon as I felt the cold water run across the toes of my waders, I forgot all about the turbulence of the previous week. I cast my fly into the water, basking silently in the beautiful serenity of the wilderness around me.

  “I could live out here,” Paul said after a short while.

  “That thought crosses my mind every time we visit.”

  The birds chirping in the trees, the water rushing through the rocks, and the gentle breeze in the leaves all seemed to be teasing us. It was as if they were inquiring as to why we didn’t join them permanently as we so desired.

  “Well, when the world goes to hell, this is where I’ll be,” he continued. “You’re welcome to join me.”

  I laughed.

  “You and Maria both. You know my great grandfather lived in that cabin? He built it himself.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah. If he could do it, what’s stopping me?”

  “Your wife, for one,” I said.

  “Right, well, there isn’t a mall around here, but she’ll get used to it.”

  “She will? You’re already planning?”

  “You saw what happened this week. I don’t quite share your faith in the modern economy. I don’t understand how everything got so complicated. Look around you. Food, water, shelter. Family. Absolute freedom and self-sufficiency. This is what it’s all about. Every level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can be better satisfied out here. What else do we need?”

  “A reason,” I answered. He looked at me, confused. “You know that’ll never happen, don’t you?” I continued. “We’re too accustomed to our luxuries. Central heat and air conditioning is nice. Indoor plumbing. Electricity. You’ll never leave the city without a very compelling reason.”

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  We both took a sip of our beers and let the conversation float away down the stream.

  It was nearing dusk when we returned to the cabin with our catch. We built a fire in the old iron wood-burning stove, fileted the fish, and cooked up dinner while Maria and Sarah set out candles to keep us in light as the sun fell behind the Ozark hills. While Paul and I were fishing, they had been in the garden gathering herbs and vegetables that we sliced up and sautéed to complete the meal. A pitcher of clear well-drawn water graced the table, coupled with a fresh-born amber ale that Paul had been brewing for the previous weeks, all ingredients grown on site. No pesticides, no genetic modification, and no preservatives anywhere. Such high-quality naturally grown produce could scarcely be found in stores.

  After dinner, we reclined awhile, bantering into the night by candlelight. The events of the previous week never made their way back into our conversation. Honestly, I don’t think they even crossed our minds.

  We all slept well that night. I awoke first on Sunday morning to the dawn breaking through the windows, and Maria and I were still tangled warmly together. Even in her sleep, she had a beautiful, carefree smile on her face. She was so swe
et—so pure. That moment was the first time I remember truly understanding what an extraordinary gift she was to me; a gift for which I would never bear the capacity to give the thanks deserved. When she opened her eyes to meet my gaze, her smile only grew. She felt safe in my arms.

  “Good morning,” she sighed with a sleepy, labored blink.

  “You were smiling in your sleep.”

  “Was I? Maybe I was having a nice dream.”

  “About me?”

  “Probably.”

  The two of us headed out to the stream to bathe, where we were met by Paul and Sarah once they had risen. The cold water was exhilarating. Then we got the stove going again for a hearty bacon-and-eggs breakfast. At that time, Paul and Sarah’s “farm” was more of a loose interpretation of the word. Because nobody made their permanent residence there, livestock was out of the question, so meal selection was relatively limited. If we wanted variety, some items had to be brought with us. As much as I enjoyed the detachment from modernity, I was glad to have brought the bacon. Had it been a choice between murdering a pig and going hungry, I would have chosen the latter. The prospect of slaughtering anything didn’t appeal to me. Perhaps years of that lotion-treated toilet paper had made their mark. At the same time, though, my dependence on that connection left me with a veiled sense of isolation and helplessness.

  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

  When 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.