The Collapse LXX: Bodies

21 February 20XX +1

My Dear Lucilius:

Word came from young Xerxes this week that the first group of refugees which have been heard from in a while were found this week. Found, but not able to speak, as they were all found frozen – and expired.

Winters here, as we have talked about before, do not quite have the brutal element to them that one can find farther East, where there are simply no mountains to break up or provide some modicum of shelter from the wind – but “not quite” is not equivalent to “not at all”. Below freezing here is a regular event and even when civilization functioned more properly; if one did not have an emergency road kit to enable “getting by” until someone else came by or was contacted, one was a fool.

The vehicle, Xerxes related, had been found just outside down the road between the next town and the town that fronts the former highway; likely they had been coming from somewhere and had taken the turnoff to avoid something. It was two families packed into one of the “Suburban vehicles” that those in the city often buy, thinking that by having one it makes one immune to weather and the elements.

Without understanding, of course, that any unheated vehicle effectively acts like a refrigerator.

The bodies were all emaciated. There was little enough food to be found. They had run out of fuel – likely at night – and the cold had simply done its work. Beyond the vehicle itself, there was little enough to be found with them.

This is the first time we have seen or heard from anyone outside of our narrow radius of cities – maybe 30 miles in all directions – since September of last year, when you will remember my truck was “requisitioned” for official Government work.

The vehicle, Xerxes said, was filled with the flotsam and jetsam of life that someone, not knowing better, would have with them: wrappers of food and containers of drink, most of the “junk food” variety, clothes and pillows, stuffed animals, a video disc player with children’s movies, cell phones, a single fuel can, now empty. But no tools, no cash or precious metals, nothing that could be used for barter.

They all, he said, simply seemed to have fallen asleep.

Practically speaking, of course, there is little enough to be done. The soil here is too frozen to easily dig graves, and the fuel situation is such that one does not fire up a backhoe or tractor for this sort of event. It is a larger town there, so someone seems to have planned for the event already: a large pit was dug last fall in anticipation by someone with foresight. The bodies are placed awkwardly into the pit– rigor mortis and just plain cold has set in, of course – dirt and lime thrown over, and a prayer said.

Everything else, of course, has value and parts and pieces and salvage. I have no idea how other locations are parceling out this sort of thing.

But that is the clinical description of the events, Lucilius. My heart hurts as I write this.

Who were they? I suppose, once upon a time were someone interested, they could look at the identifications on their person and at least know who there were and possibly where they lived – with the failure of the InterWeb, any sort of history is now buried away in records we can no longer see.

But that will not tell us anything about them: who they were, how they had survived the last year, what they saw in wherever they were coming from and why they had chosen to flee now, in the dead of Winter.

We can interpret some things. Their lack of supplies could mean they either were not prepared, had their supplies pilfered, or simply did not have enough. Their emaciation suggests food had been absent a long time; the lack of what most here would consider adequate traveling supplies for emergencies suggests they were either not ready or they had lost all.

The most telling thing though, was the flight itself.

It is clear, even with the fuel can, that they had little hope of getting anywhere that would be worth getting too, especially in the midst of our Winter. What was it that drove them into the cold on what seems like a completely hopeless quest? How bad would it have to be where one was living that complete uncertainty was the better option?

I fear that for these people and their vehicle; there are thousands or tens of thousands of stories that are similar that we will never know simply because we will never be aware of them. One wonders if the architects of this disaster are aware of the suffering they have caused – or, if they are even alive to do so.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca