The Collapse CXXXII: Sorting

 28 June 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

I awoke to the smell of bacon – dear Lord, actual frying bacon. It smelled heavenly. Crawling of my sleeping bag and freshening up to the best of my ability, I wandered around inside the circle of cars surrounding the combination post office/general store to find the bulk of the party there, watching a someone had a grill frying bacon. Apparently, somewhere, there was at least one tank of propane.

Ox shoved a foam cup into my hand of...what was this? Actual coffee, that now-become rarest of delights of which hoarded the single can remaining to me with a miser’s eye. He then pushed a plate into my hand, with something resembling a pancake like substance with something that smelled vaguely of maple. He went and added on some bacon.

As God is my witness, Lucilius, it was as if I had manna to eat.

The explanation, said Ox as I continued to wolf down this miracle of a meal, were our now dearly departed Looters – and the 40 odd Summer homes that sat right outside the improvised barrier, homes that were likely never reached by their inhabitants. Likely the looters had not only what they brought with them, but the pickings of the end of a modern economic system.

As we all finished up our meals and dabbed our faces and hands with water removing any residual stickiness, the Colonel called us all around.

There had been now signs of any Looters in the night or early in the morning; if they had other parties out in wild they either were still out there or had kept going. A guard would continue to be maintained – not just here in the now named compound, but along the houses at each edge of the development. The rest of us would spend the day sorting through the goods here and organizing them for later retrieval – this was a gold mine, not just for the town we were most closely defending but to all of the towns within the somewhat self proclaimed Garnet Valley association that had come to defend this place.

A voice popped up from the back of the crowd. It was all well and good, it said, to have defeated the Looters and to find this treasure trove. But everyone that was here had put in time and effort and resources and the time here was not the time spent back at their homes, feeding their families and taking care of the property. What was the split to be?

The crowd, seemingly jovial after a fine breakfast, tensed almost at once. It was an uncomfortable question, but a logical one and eminently practical: if the response was “nothing”, likely such a force would not be able to be gathered again so easily. If it was “everything”, we would have become no better than the looters themselves.

The Colonel, it appeared, had already thought of a solution.

One of the things found inside was at least two lock boxes; the Looters had apparently hit at least one precious metal shop on their way here. In it was a hoard of silver, junk and silver dollars. He was prepared to offer the equivalent of one dollar for every two days we had come out: counting our likely return, that would be rounded up to $5. Whatever food we had used would be replaced from what was here; whatever ammunition had been expended, the same. Other items would be on a case by case basis but in no case was there to be more than three items leaving with each person. Someone would check; woe betide the individual that disregarded that rule.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then someone broke out that it even less than the last time he earned minimum wage. Laughter broke out, and the moment was broken.

With that, we were organized into work parties and went to work.

My group – With Ox and Young Xerxes – was assigned to one of the six or seven small sections that the site consisted of. Once inside, it was a mess. Things had just been randomly piled in with any real sense of order or even similarity. Some of it was old and broken, some of it looked as if it had recently come out of the houses that were outside the auto palisade. It was not getting organized any faster by us looking at it, so we started in.

Tools, both sets and the “emergency car kits” one used to find. A Barb-be-cue. A box of what may have been useful dishware at one time but was smashed into a thousand pieces by rough placement on the floor. Sectional rugs. Chairs. Flatscreen TVs – apparently the takings of all the homes around us had made their way into this place.

What was not here? Food. Drugs. Firearms of any kind, although Ox found random shells scattered about.

We made three piles, the first everything that definitively did not have a use in the world we now lived in. In the second, things which possibly had a use. In the third, the things that definitely had value. I am sure you can imagine the way the piles sorted out.

At the lunch break – beef jerky, dried fruit, water, and stale Oreos, the Captain mentioned that based on what they had found, it was likely this group had come from the nearest large city, about 50 miles away. That had a certain sense to it, especially with what we found horded away in our case – likely a group that had survived in the relatively urban environment of a college town, then started making their way out, driven by hunger and perhaps a fear of what was left behind them. When they made it here, they must have thought they had reached the promised land: houses and houses of unplundered goods, isolated ranches for the taking, and a reasonably sized town that they could use as a continual “golden goose” when their own goods ran out.

After lunch, we were assigned to a different area. Here we made out better: at least two first aid kits with unexpired supplies, a complete (and fairly fancy) socket wrench set, and five boxes of 12 gauge ammunition were the best finds. And an actual case of coffee in 16 ounce cans, along with dried packages of rice mixes and ramen.

Sadly and surprisingly, Lucilius, there was not a single book except a Road Atlas.

The “useful now” piles were brought out at the end of the day, everyone suspecting this only represented a partial amount of what was actually there, but likely what we could find in a single day – to the nameless voice’s comment, we were all away from out homes and families and work. Medical supplies, a very small pile of weapons matched with a small pile of ammunition, knives, jewelry in the form of rings and necklaces and bracelets, food such as we had discovered, some tools manual and mechanical, a smattering of Winter coats and boots.

With that, we lined up for pay.

My pay was given to me in the form of 3 Silver dollars, four silver quarters, and two silver half dollars. I always like the Walking Liberty motif; it was nice to see it again. And then, we had our choices. Mine was a can of coffee, a box of 12 gauge ammunition (mine own caliber was not going to be there), and a solid winter coat that would fit Pompeia Paulina.

Dinner that night was mostly a repeat of lunch, with a different round of stale cookies thrown in for good measure. The mood was relatively upbeat, considering the fact that only 24 hours earlier a different group had sat in this camp, a group that was now dead.

Sitting over at the edge of the palisade, watching the sun sink and the stars come out, the monumental nature of the change in society hit me. A year previous I still had access to modern living; I paid for everything with paper or electrons. Things were readily available. Now I was paid in coin from men that I had likely killed, men that had liked to have kill me and take my things if the situation was reversed. There was no shopping expedition, just a few items from a world rapidly vanishing which were in turn likely taken from the homes around us from people that were now long gone and likely never to return.

Was it theft? Was it recovery? Was it the law of the jungle? Is this, this situation – sitting in the stronghold of our enemies having slain them, enjoying the spoils of battle – the place where all civilization crumbles to?

The sunset and stars did not have answers, Lucilius. They never do.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

(Author’s note: I may accused of “creating” the situation described, where a number of homes are just outside of the local post office/general store. In point of fact for the location on which this is based it is absolutely true. A housing development has developed there (long after my first visits there of course, or even my most recent one). The idea that these are largely vacation homes is not supported by any data, but a reasonable guess on my part given the rather severe Winters and overall lack of industry in this region – a slight author’s invention on my part, but not too much of one.)