The Collapse CLXXIV: Huckleberries And Walks

 07 Oct 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

The temperature has continued it downwards spiral as the days continue to bleed daylight: at best we are now in the mid to high 50’s F at the peak of the day and easily drifting down into freezing at night. Winter, although not here, is rapidly making its presence known.

This coming season brings with it both a sense of relief on one hand and a sense of disquiet on the other. The relief, of course, is the knowing that unlike last year, the idea that the situation is going to “sort itself out” or get better is simply not on the table: it will not. The disquiet, of course, is the sense that in reality we are truly “on our own”, or as near to that as one can get. Outside of our local township, any assistance is likely to be few and far between.

We still merit over 12 hours of daylight, but the temperature change and general turn of the season means that tasks have become less varied. There is no outdoor garden to speak of now, only the greenhouse and the quail that need a daily check (and one avoids opening the door too much lest that precious heat slip away). The bees are fully wrapped and other than occasionally verify if they need any more food, there is little enough to be done there. Wood gathering continues to encompass a fair amount of my time, as does doing anything we can to stretch the stored food that we have available.

As it turns out, huckleberries are a thing in these parts (I would not have known that; it was all due to Pompeia Paulina). For me, huckleberries are a novelty fruit that one would buy a bottle of preserves of at a tourist shop. It turns out that, if you know where to look – and can beat other living things to them – they are available. As a result, we have gone on several local “huckleberry hunts”.

As a note – and it did not strike me before now – we have taken to being discrete about our hunting and only letting Young Xerxes and Statiera know where we are finding them. It seems a little… searching for a word here...exhibiting a lack of trust for others? Pompeia Paulina understood my concern but also pointed out we had no idea if others were doing the same.

I say that. I have taken to making a circuit once or twice a week around our small town, trying to gauge who is still here and who has left. In some cases it is blatantly obvious, in others cases not so readily discernible. Part of it, I tell myself, is to simply know who is left to either check on or ask assistance of. It is also, I remind myself, to acquaint myself with where I would expect people not to be so that in the event I see something, it will stick out in my mind.

I have always struggled with this sort of awareness Lucilius, this sort of planning for the future. In many ways – although I certainly planned for a retirement – I have tended to live a great deal of my life in the day to day. That does not work nearly so well now: not just in planning for “What will we eat?” or “What will we burn?” but other issues, like “Where will the people problems coming from?”

They have to come of course; I suspect this Winter is when many of the supplies that others had or could be easily foraged are now gone. People will be hungry and cold, and hungry and cold people are desperate people.

And desperate people do desperate things.

That reminds me that I need to ask Young Xerxes about the radio – or any radio – that may still be around. My mind wanders to The Colonel and Cato the Elder and Epicurus and Themista – long distance friends of course, but even long distance friends are better than none at all.

And you of course, dear Lucilius. Although we now remain far beyond the ability to assist each other.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca