The Collapse: A Visitor

Friends - occasionally (and really for my own pleasure) I write short stories about things.  I am not sure that this will become a regular sort of series or just a periodic posting of sorts.  Either way, I hope you enjoy it.

The Visitor

 The knock at the door came just as I settled into the kitchen table for my afternoon study.

It struck me as odd for two reasons: the first was simply that I had not had a visitor in some 6 months, not since Halloween. The second was that I never had visitors at this time of the day.

I got up and cracked open the door to find a young woman in semi-professional attire staring back at me with a black bag over her shoulder. Her face lit up with the sort of smile one anticipates from Youth Workers, Event Planners, and other people that have that unsettling sort of cheerfulness no matter what the situation seems to be.

“Mr X?” she asked in a voice that matched her outfit and attire perfectly.

I nodded slowly. My mother had always taught me to be polite, of course, but I racked my brain in the course of 10 seconds. I could think of no reason a young 20ish year old woman would be on my doorstep asking for me.

“I'm Amy Mc_______ from the Industrial-Government Cooperation Council” she said, thrusting her card into my hand, her smile getting even broader. I looked at the card now in my hand. It listed her name, some kind of logo to go along with (I suppose) the Industrial-Government Cooperation Council, and her contact information for somewhere in Virginia.

I smiled back. “I am sorry, Miss Mc______, but I am quite sure you have the wrong person. I have not worked for almost 10 years now.

“Oh no” she chirped up brightly. “You are the one I am looking for. May I come in?” And before I could respond one way or the other, she pushed at the door behind me, ducked under my arm, and went inside.

By the time I had turned around she had already made herself to the center of the room and was looking around. “Wow” she said “this place is out of the 1960's. I've seen pictures about decorating like this.”

I smiled thinly as I sat down, nodding her to another chair. “This cabin belonged to my grandparents. It was just easier to keep the decor when I moved up here.”

She settled into her chair and pulled out what must have been her computer unit, which was a cross from what I remember a cell phone and internet computer looking like. She looked up and smiled at me again – again, the cruise director smile – and clicked away on her keyboard.

“Mr. X” she started. “Born 196X. Attended school and graduated with a degree of _______, followed by a degree in P______. Worked in the _______ industry for almost thirty years. Wife deceased, three children.” She looked up. “Is that all correct?”

“Are you from the government, Miss?” I asked as she continued to scan the screen. “You seem to have quite a lot of information about me.”

“Oh no” she looked up brightly. “We're an industrial group that co-operates seeks to maximize private and government industry and activities. I'm not with FBI, if that's what you mean. We just have a lot of information. It's the Internet Age. Not very hard.” She smiled again, undoubtedly comparing me to a T. Rex struggling to make it in the world of mammals.

I sighed. “And you are here about?”

She looked down one more time and then settled her hands on her lap. “Mr. X, as I mentioned, we are working to maximize private industries co-operation with government to help in making sure that industry is doing its best to meet the social and physical needs of society.” She looked down at her screen. “I see you stopped working seven years ago today precisely, just after the death of your wife. After that you sold your house and the bulk of your belongings and apparently disappeared from industry.” She looked back up - “You have heard of our agency, haven't you?”

I shook my head. “Miss, I have not followed any developments in the world for some years now.” Which, for the most part, was true. The day my wife had died was the day I had turned away from following the world.

I pointed over to the laptop my wife had bought me almost 20 years prior. “That, Miss, is my outlet to the world. It will not handle modern internet traffic – insufficient memory and processor.”

She smiled again, somewhat flatly this time. “I'll be blunt: we need you. The people of the country need you. Industry needs you. I'm here to get you back in the game.”

She leaned in. “Mr. X, I can tell you that I can get you a job in the industry today – anywhere in the country you want. I can get you your old salary and then some. I can get you every perk you could ask for. And I could have you working in two weeks.”

“I'm not going to lie” she continued. “You may have hidden away from the world, but the world has kept right on going. We are facing tremendous challenges right now – Antibiotic resistance, new hemorrhagic fevers, even some old diseases come back. The industry is doing all it can, but it needs people with your experience and talents to help us. The government needs all of us to do everything we can as individuals to help meet these challenges. Will you help?”

She had continued to increase in volume and intensity as she spoke, until at the end of her speech her face was flushed and she was half out of the chair, looking towards what I assumed was the future but looked a lot like the bookshelf in the corner. She paused there, for a moment, then looked expectantly at me.

I quietly shook my head. “No, thank you” I responded.

She looked at me in disbelief, then started clicking away at her keyboard. “Mr. X, I see that you only earn the minimum amount in this state – you fall under the taxable income threshold” - at my look, she made brief eye contact but carried on. “You need to have more – and I can get you more. Much more. Name your price. I can get it done.”

I shook my head again. “Miss, I do not need it.”

She looked at me with almost a greater stare of disbelief. “Mr X, you only spent X dollars last year – not even your entire income. I'm sure that's because you don't have enough. Let me get your more – a decent house, decent furniture, perhaps a decent life. Let me rescue you from this”.

I sighed. I had undergone this conversation years before with my children. I could hear the confused voices and pleading and arguing in my head all over again.

“Miss, let us imagine for a moment that I wanted to do this thing – that somehow I was trapped here by a decision that I made in haste but regretted now. Let us say that I went back at the most fabulous sum I could imagine. Would I pay taxes?”

Her response was immediate. “Well of course, everyone over the minimum Basic Income pays taxes. It's required. It's our duty.”

I nodded. “So that fabulous sum has been cut by...what? 50%? 60% or 75%? Suddenly this amazing income you have promised me may be no more than what I make here.”

I lifted my eyes around the room. “I am well aware this does not represent much of a life to anyone of the modern age. But my needs are quite simple Miss. I have a greenhouse, which I am sure you saw coming in, for a winter garden. I have space for a garden for the other seasons. I have bees just out behind the house that provide me with honey and wax and a small income. I have all the time in the world to read and think and work at what I truly want to do. Once, perhaps twice every two months I go shopping – but again, my needs are very few. “

“And what would I go back to? Not just work Miss – surely you can acknowledge that. I would go back to systems and policies and people. Suddenly I would no longer be operating as I pleased but under the rules and restrictions of someone else. I spent many years under the judgment systems of others, Miss – I am not bridling to return to that.”

Her smile was slightly deflated, but appeared to be none the less put off. “But Mr. X – the needs of society? Surely you can see your way clear to help-”

I shook my head firmly. “Miss, society decided that I was nothing more than someone to earn money for everyone else. I had nothing to offer beyond that. My voice was to be ignored. My opinions were considered worthless. And yet through all of this, society demanded that I give my all to those who demanded these things from me – respect for non-respect, entitlement for income, ignorance for education. It was not so much that I left society Miss – I was very politely driven from it.”

She sighed at that point, now very deflated, and looked up at me, the smile all gone. “Nothing I can say or do will convince you?”

I shook my head in response. “Your world had done with me years ago, Miss. As I did with it.”

She slowly closed her screen and picked up her computer, putting it into her bag. She lifted it up and suddenly it seemed as if it had weighed as much as an old Tower computer instead of the slimline model she had displayed earlier. We both rose and she headed to the door.

She stopped just as she left and looked over her shoulder. “I learned about people like you in school. Selfish. Concerned with themselves instead of enriching society. Now, all just waiting to die.”

I nodded back. “We had nowhere else to go Miss, so we went into the shadows.”

And with that, I closed the door.

But something stuck in my mind, something that did not seem right. Then it hit me – her car. I did not see a car.

I went to the front window and pulled aside the curtains of lace. The young Miss Mc_____ was slowly wending her way to the main road. I watched her standing there, a semi-professional statue in a field of creek reeds and wild grass, until an old model car slowly pulled up, looking nothing at all like the sort of vehicle an industry-government council member would drive, let alone ride in. I saw her lean over to squeeze into the back of the two door micro car, which lurched off under the increased weight of another passenger. The plates, I noted, were not of any government organization but rather local.

I pulled away from the window, letting the curtains fall. I needed to forgo my usual schedule and make my trip to town tomorrow and stock up.

The collapse, it seemed, was happening more quickly than expected.