The Collapse CXXIII: Town

21 June 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Our march ends about a quarter mile from town, where the point guards and the Captain had pulled up short on the road in what was the last point of scrub brush and trees before the road we are on meets up with main road into town. From here to the outermost buildings it is largely flat grassland, the heads of grass slowly waving. We will wait here until dusk, when we start filtering in to a location to rest for the night.

Fortunately we had not more than 30 minutes of waiting following a drive and a long walk: not long enough to really rest but long enough to stiffen up. No matter how much I like to believe I am in good shape, it is never quite true.; age prevents the full recovery that we often wish for. As we sit, there is creaking and popping – I cannot decide if it is the brush and the trees or myself as I settle in.

Little noise emanated from the town: an occasional dog bark or rooster call. But no sounds of people. In a world without power and with unpleasantness about, dusk has become a time for being inside.

As we sit in the gathering gloom, the Captain came through and breaks us into parties of 8. These will be the groups that we move in. Even as he finishes breaking us out, the first group moves out onto the road. Every five minutes, another group leaves.

I am in the last group with the Captain and Blazer Man, Young Xerxes having departed earlier. With a hand gesture, the Captain heads out and we follow.

The road is still that of a smooth road we had walked on earlier, the newly paved feel of tax dollars hard at work once upon a time. We move at a quicker pace than before, a quick walk that takes us past the open and exposed flatland to the edge of buildings in town. This is the road I would always drive on when I came to town here; in fact where I came less than a year ago. The buildings are ones I recognize as we hurry by, small vacation rentals from a time when going away was a thing of pleasure, not a thing of survival or fear.

As we continue to move through and in, storefronts and businesses start to cluster as well as houses. For the most part empty glass reflects the sunlight as we go past; the windows here have largely not been broken (this is, or rather was, rural America: we tend to keep order). At a street corner we make a hard right turn and hurry on, now almost being driven by the sun continuing to fall in the sky.

We move down the street passing mostly houses now: some have flickering lights of candles or solar lights or headlamps, others sit in darkness. Where and how these people now live cannot be seen on our rushing tour. Either by suggestion or by fear, they choose not to see us as we glide by. Occasionally a blur of movement catches my eye, a curtain opened and then quickly dropped.

The Captain pulls us down to a halt as we make one last right turn – into the local high school, if the sign reads aright.

The gym. They have put us in the gym.

It makes a certain sense of course: a large facility, likely not used by many, with limited windows and probably even less foot traffic, buried in the center of town. A perfect place to put a force for a time.

I laugh silently. I have not slept in a gym since high school.

By the time we walk through the door, the bulk of the others have laid out whatever sleeping arrangements they brought: some has sleeping bags, some have blankets, some just have a tarp to lay on the ground and a pack or jacket for their head. Small strategic solar lights have been placed to avoid completely tripping over each other; I somehow almost manage to fall anyway. I find Young Xerxes away in a corner where he has made some room for me; Blazer Man follows, seemingly bereft of any other acquaintances. We make room for him as well.

Dinner is another version of lunch, although someone went to the troubles of making sure there was water from the river available in those old sports coolers that used to be at the side of every sporting event. Yes, it has to filtered – but at least that is one less thing we have to concern ourselves with.

The day has been too much for me; I will finish this line and lay down and sleep the sleep of the exhausted.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca