The World as We Know It Read online

  There were around twenty of us to begin with. Over the last few weeks, we had all been so consumed by adapting and coping with the collapse that none of us had had much communication with our extended family or other friends. We never had the opportunity to tell them where we were going. Some of them had been to Paul and Sarah’s farm before, and I hoped that they would make their way to us. It was no secret that the farm was Paul’s safe haven. I got the impression that he wasn’t very troubled by the state of the world. To him, it seemed that it had all been inevitable. It was as if he possessed an understanding of human nature and, in particular, of our inherent need for a connection to the natural earth that few of us enjoyed. His aura of peace throughout that time brought the rest of us at least some comfort. A few times I noticed him looking to the sky with his eyes closed and a slight smile.

  As we wound through the woods on the gravel road that led from the highway, a light snow began to fall. It was a perfect powder snow. The trees glistened beautifully, and as the snow accumulated, the sunlight sprayed a bright, angelic glow through the forest. The air was quiet and still. When we pulled up to the cabin, the roof was covered in a fine white layer, completing the image of the quintessential gingerbread house set on a picturesque rolling landscape. I could hear the stream still babbling, though it was then half-frozen.

  “Make yourselves at home,” Paul said as we started to unload the cars and Maria’s niece and nephew ran off to play in the snow. A few of the men collected wood from the shed and got a fire going inside, and the cabin warmed up quickly. We already felt more at home than we had in a while, with a sense of safety that had vanished from our own homes. The farm was the same as it had always been, untainted by the deterioration of the modern world. It was nice to feel some consistency somewhere.

  Our food supply was getting short, but Paul said there was a neighbor down the road who would help us out—an old man named Abraham. Abraham was a farmer who had lived out there for Paul’s entire life. I would guess he had been there even before Paul’s grandfather had built the cabin. Paul’s description of the old man painted a picture of an eccentric hick—the kind of person I would have scoffed at in days past. Then, it seemed, that was precisely the kind of person we needed to help us find our footing out there. He had skills and resources that most of us lacked entirely.

  Paul and I took his truck and headed toward Abraham’s farm while everyone else got settled. The few homes out there were separated by many acres of undeveloped land, and the drive took some time, but it was peaceful. I wasn’t used to driving without the sounds of music or a radio show. Instead, the muffled sounds of rubber on snow-covered rock and the hum of the engine took me back to the last quiet moments of ignorance on the morning that it had all begun. The old man’s driveway branched from the same gravel road as our new home, but it was invisible under the snow. The only landmark was an old wooden mailbox with no street number that I imagine was seldom used. It was a long driveway, and Paul kept the pace slow since we could not quite tell if we were on it or not. I think we probably created more of a path than we followed.

  We crested a hill, and I caught a glimpse of Abraham’s house just as I heard the grinding sound of the truck’s antilock brakes. We slid off the road where a tree caught the front passenger side fender and spun us around, and the momentum carried the truck over onto its side, creating a puff as it tumbled softly into the snow. The engine died on impact, the wheels stopped spinning, and for a moment, the two of us were frozen in silent confusion as we tried to regain our bearings.

  “You all right?” Paul asked after catching his breath. I looked over and saw only snow and dirt outside his window.

  “Yeah, you?”

  “Yeah. The bridge is out ahead. I was trying to stop.”

  We smashed out the windshield and climbed out of the truck. Down the hill in front of us were a creek and an old wooden bridge that had collapsed into it. From the looks of it, the bridge had been out for a while. Beyond that was a vast open field where Abraham’s small house stood all alone, surrounded by wooded hills that spread upward from all sides of the quiet valley.

  “Well, I was almost out of gas anyway,” said Paul as we brushed snow and glass off of our clothes.

  We began the half-mile walk across the white field toward the house, leaving footprints in the snow behind us. There was light in the windows and smoke rising from the chimney in a thin white ribbon that dissipated gradually as it reached the sky. The old man emerged from the door and stood on the front porch puffing on a corncob pipe as we approached. He was bundled up warmly, and under the beacon of his red nose was a huge white beard through which I perceived a sly grin. A short distance away was a stable, and I could hear horses uneasily rustling at the sounds of unfamiliar voices. Two dogs ran from the side of the house and greeted us, barking and jumping excitedly.

  “Whatchyu boys want?” the old man called to us. “Y’all junkin’ up my prop’ty? Damn city kids.”

  “What’s the deal with the bridge, Abe?” Paul asked as we stepped onto the porch.

  “Don’t use that driveway much no mo’. Got riddama truck.”

  “Why?”

  He raised his eyebrows and looked past us at the carcass of Paul’s truck lying on its side. “Unreli’ble,” he said. “An’ Tennessee Walk’n Horse don’t need no gas.”

  Paul scoffed and shook his head. “Listen, Abe, we moved our families out to the farm.”

  “’Bout time. Don’t see folks too much no mo’.”

  “Well I expect you’ll be seeing quite a bit more of us. We’re running low on food, though. This is my friend Joe. We were hoping you could help us out.”

  Abraham smiled and shook his head.

  “Oh, you city kids gots lotsa learn’n ta do. But da good Lode blessed me wit’ mo’ den I need here. I think I can help y’all out. Come on inside.”

  Abe never asked why we had all moved out to the farm. I still don’t know if he had any idea what was happening in the rest of the world. He probably figured that regardless of our reasoning, we were better off, so the why didn’t matter. He took us to a series of underground storage containers with straw bedding where he had stocked away more than enough produce to last through the winter. The yields of his harvest were divided and stored by type. He had potatoes, cabbage, spinach, carrots, broccoli, celery, onions, beets, winter squash, and varieties of nuts and grains. They were kept separate not only for the sake of organization, but also to maximize the life span and quality of the produce, as different varieties have different shelf lives. It was an underground smorgasbord of commodities from the garden, orchard, and vineyard. Some were fresh, some canned, and some juiced or dried for preservation. There was no way we were going to go hungry.

  Abraham helped us fill sacks with his produce to take back with us. He told us that his surplus at the end of the winter was normally the first stock on the tables at the local farmers’ market when they opened in the spring, but that was only so it wouldn’t go to waste. He didn’t need the money, but he kept on harvesting his crop season after season and year after year, simply because the farm was his life. It always had been. It gave him purpose. He would deliver his produce on a wooden cart pulled by a pair of his horses, which he then graciously loaned to us so that we could deliver the same load to our own families for no compensation.

  Once the cart was filled and the horses hitched, Abraham pointed us in the direction of a new path back to our farm through the woods. The horses knew the way, he said, and he would be over later with some chickens, milk, butter, and various other items that we would need. We thanked him and set off.

  In the months that followed, I realized that my skills scarcely exceeded those of a plecostomus, but those months were made easier by the old man’s presence. He never stayed overnight, but he visited every day to make sure we had everything we needed, and he provided instruction on every aspect of our new lifestyle. Although he had lived alone out there for years, I think he was grateful f
or the company. He continued to bring us produce regularly until our own underground storage bins were complete. In the spring, he said, we would learn farming techniques so that we could start producing on our own. Then he would bring us livestock. In the meantime, we absorbed the basics of a truly self-sustaining farm. We churned butter from milk. We pressed oils from seeds and nuts. We grew yeast to raise bread or collected the yeast from nearby woods, and we ground flour from wheat grain. We heated well water for bathing, and Abraham taught us how to make soap the old-fashioned way. Cleanliness was vital to preserve our health. Without doctors to diagnose illness and to treat us when we got sick, it was up to us to ensure that didn’t happen.

  Lye was vital to the manufacturing of soap, and since we couldn’t just run out and pick some up at the hardware store, we had to make it using fresh rainwater and hardwood ashes from the fire. Our lye solution was combined with animal fats and fragrant natural oils to create a versatile bar soap that was even suitable for hair cleansing and conditioning. Oral hygiene was just as vital. To clean our teeth, we used various mixtures of ground fruits and vegetables with a more grainy texture, such as carrots and celery, mixed with strawberries to whiten or with mint for those who were still partial to the classic toothpaste flavor. To their parents’ amazement, Maria’s niece and nephew actually enjoyed brushing their teeth. Thorough rinsing was important so the acids from the fruits didn’t sit too long and corrode enamel. Those of us who could tolerate the flavor and the temporary blackened mouth even made paste from wood ashes. Toothbrushes and picks could be made from twigs.

  Abraham taught us a variety of personal care recipes composed of natural ingredients from our own land. More and more, we found that those products kept our bodies healthier than the ones we’d had before, and the recipes could easily be manipulated depending on the preferences of the user. If you had dry skin, you could add more oils to your soap or use less potent lye. If you had delicate teeth, you used fewer acidic fruits in your solution.

  Everything slowed down. Our sleep cycles gradually synchronized with the setting and rising of the sun. The work required to maintain a minimum level of comfort was exhausting, and by the time night fell, we were usually more than ready for it. I spent so much time chopping wood to keep the fires burning that I could already see significant improvement in my physical ability. My muscles toned. My belly vanished. As we began to adapt, the laborious evolution into this farming lifestyle got easier by the week. It became our new normal. Every few days, more people fleeing the chaos of the cities would arrive looking for a place to stay, and we always took them in. They came from all over—from St. Louis, Springfield, Memphis, and Little Rock—from every urban center within a couple hundred–mile radius. Even the unfamiliar faces became family. Some of us made occasional trips back to the darkened town that had once been our home; we went by horse to gather tools, whatever supplies we could find, and people we knew to bring them to the farm, and every time I saw the city, it looked more and more desolate. The violence was dying down as it became necessary to focus on survival rather than on destruction. Groups of migrants passed by on the old highways, looking for new places to settle away from the hideous urban skeleton. We moved the cars back to the highway, stripped them of any components that could be useful, and left them there so that we wouldn’t have to look at them on the property anymore. The sight of complex machinery, plastic, and rubber was a constant reminder of the collapse that we just didn’t need.

  Our tiny community continued to grow, quickly surpassing a hundred people. Most of them slept under brush piles around open fires to keep warm. At the first sign of spring, we began to build more cabins to accommodate everyone. The smell of fresh-cut cedar and oak lingered constantly in the air. We chopped trees down to size, fit them together like the old Lincoln log toys I remembered from my childhood, and used the remnants for firewood. With our growing workforce, each cabin went up surprisingly quickly. The foundations were built of stone, which came about eighteen inches above grade, so the wooden walls and floors were less accessible to termites and carpenter ants. We packed the gaps between timbers with mud and clay. The means to manufacture glass and metal products were not yet readily available, so for the time being, windows and doors were simply rectangular openings in the walls with wooden planks that fit within them to keep the cold out. Every cabin was equipped with a door on each end for circulation and with a large fireplace to be used for heating and cooking. The roofs were also framed with notched logs at three-to-one slopes to minimize wasted space underneath while still ensuring proper runoff and the strength necessary to support the weight of snow in the winter. The roof surfaces were coated in mud to seal them and would eventually grow grass, the roots of which would absorb moisture and act as a binding and insulating blanket that would protect the house from the elements. Our cabins varied in size depending on the number of people who would be living in them. Nobody wanted to heat more space than necessary.

  We also needed beds, blankets, and pillows. Few of our new arrivals had brought any more than the clothes on their backs. Bed frames were built of wood. All of the soft components were made from animal skins stuffed with feathers or wool since it had grown warm enough to shear the sheep that Abraham had given us. They were held together with wool thread or with twine made by cutting the inner layer of bark from a tree branch, tearing it into strips after removing the brittle outer layer, boiling the strips, laying them out to dry, and finally cording them together. Sometimes we used vines or shrubs that could be broken down and stripped into fibers. Rope was made the same way, but thicker.

  After some months, there weren’t many things we had that we couldn’t make on the farm. Among those still leftover were our clothes, though they were becoming worn, and we were starting to make new ones from wool and cotton and sometimes even by felting the fur of our household pets. My Ka-Bar was constantly on my waist. I still had my kinetic wound watch that would keep time as long as I wore it daily, and my shotgun was stored in the one-room cabin that had been built for Maria and me. And then there were our wedding rings.

  There were some things that we missed more than others. Indoor plumbing was at the top of that list. It was something that we had always taken for granted. I had never invested much thought in the massive network of pipes that routed water under pressure directly into our house for our disposal at any time and for any reason and then took it all away to a treatment plant somewhere once it had served our purposes. At the farm, we were collecting water from the well or the stream and heating it over a fire, which was another burden we had to adapt to. We couldn’t turn a knob or flip a switch to turn on the oven or the stove. Cooking meant building a fire. Paul and Sarah were the only ones in the community with a wood-burning iron stove, which then seemed like quite a luxury in comparison to the fireplaces the rest of us cooked in. They were also the only ones with glass windows and a door on hinges. I remembered when that cabin had seemed so primitive.

  Much of our food was still coming from Abraham’s farm, but our increasing population was depleting his livestock. Paul had been hunting for a while to keep us all fed and to lighten the burden on the old man. Mike and Gabe, a couple of our friends who had recently arrived, usually joined him. I had never been interested in hunting. Fishing, I could get into, because I felt no connection with a cold, scaled water-dwelling creature. Killing a mammal was different. I had always enjoyed the flavor of meat, but I had never wanted anything to do with the process that put it on the table. I was realizing that hunting meant more than just food. A deer, for example, had served many of the needs of Native Americans. The hide was used for clothing, moccasins, tents, and satchels or pouches, among other things. Hides and hoofs could be boiled to produce a strong adhesive. Antlers and bones could be made into tools. Sinews, or tendons and ligaments, were used for thread and bow strings, particularly the back strap sinew. We also used them for dental floss. Almost every part of the animal served some purpose, and because we had no store-
bought synthetic substitutes, I felt an increasing intimacy with and respect for the original inhabitants of the land.

  It was inevitable that I would learn to hunt. Paul preferred a bow to a rifle, and he insisted that it was important for me to learn that way. Although we could make gunpowder using guano, coal, and sulfur, those commodities were limited, and we only acquired them infrequently. Abraham, who was never short of useful wisdom, came with us on my first trip out. He met us—Mike, Gabe, Paul, and me—early in the morning, and we headed into the forest when it was still dark outside. They had given me some lessons on the bow and arrow, and I thought my shot was decent, but the shot itself was just a small part of the hunt. We wore camouflaged attire made from the very woods from which we gathered so much of our sustenance. My steps were hasty, and more than once I was reproached for the noise I made when I walked. “Boy, you mak’n a racket,” Abraham said. “Scar’n deer next county over.”

  When we were deep in the woods, we separated until we were far enough apart that we couldn’t see each other, and I found a sturdy tree and climbed about ten feet up. After half the day I hadn’t seen anything close enough to take a shot, and suspecting that the height of my perch might have been inadequate, I decided to climb higher. Heights were not my favorite of things. I reached about twenty feet or so and settled into the pit of a large branch where it met the trunk and secured myself with a leather strap around the tree. Then I waited.

  The sun was going down when I spotted her—a young doe. She strolled casually right under me and stopped nearby to gnaw on a dogwood branch. For a few moments, I just watched her, admiring her beautiful presence in the quiet setting. Birds were chirping. The yellow light on the leaves changed as the breeze blew and their shadows flickered, and the stream babbled faintly behind me. Her bronze fur glistened as she ate. She was like the finishing brush stroke on a long labored-over painting, the graceful completion of which finally granted rest to the artist.