The Collapse CCXVI: Year's End +1

 31 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

The calendar that I keep hanging on the wall reliably informs me on this wintry evening that this is the last day of the year.

We are far beyond the main 12 pages of the original year this calendar was issued for, reduced to the smaller section at the end where 12 months are condensed down into a 3 x 4 grid. After this, there is one additional 3 x 4 grid – and then tempus incognitus.

To say this feels as if it one year compressed into five would be an understatement, given all that has transpired in the previous 12 months. Were I to still have access to the such things, I suspect that every event that tended to show up on “Likely to create stress” would be written in bold letters over the year.

It shocks me, Lucilius, that it has only been a mere 6 months six I was married, a little less than that since I marched to McAdams, and a little less than that for seeing wheat in the North. And a mere 3 months since the trial.

All of that, while managing the tasks of staying alive and keeping a community more or less together.

Pompeia Paulina asked me earlier today – as it is the last day of the old year –how I felt about the past 12 months.

I did not know how to answer, I responded. On the one hand – surely there were a great many things to celebrate, not the least of which was our marriage (even I can be taught) and the fact that we – not just us, but Young Xerxes and Statiera and almost the entire community – had survived as well.

Was I hopeful for the future, she wondered?

I had no answer for you, I responded.

How do we measure hope, Lucilius? There is no metric I am aware of, no plumb line I can drop. I can no more measure hope than I can measure love or anger, except by the outputs that it generates.

By that measurement, I have both reasons to hope – a community more or less hanging together, allies on at least one side of us, others in the Near Abroad – and reasons to despair – the knowledge that next year will likely be more difficult than this and the very real belief that we are really and truly on our own.

I confessed these thoughts to her. She sat in the waning evening light with the low orange from the burning branches illuminating her face. Maybe balancing the two, she suggested, is enough for right now. After all, given that we had anything to celebrate the year should be considered a victory.

The wisdom of my wife, my dear Lucilius, eclipses anything else I could say.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

(Author’s note: if some of the above incidents seem remote to the reader, they may very well feel that way. The year 20XX+1 was started almost 5 years ago in 2020. Apparently I am nothing if not slow about updates.)

The Collapse CCXV: Intellectual Weather

 30 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

The cold has returned with a vengeance.

It is hard for me to assess if this is colder than normal – yes, I could look at a temperature record and it would give me the numerical values, but it would not tell me the actual things, like the rationing of heating wood or how precisely long one can consider staying in before the outhouse becomes more than a nice idea.

One looks outside, sighs, and carries on measuring the cost/benefit ratio of the task at hand versus the cold.

I know I have written before about the weather and my perceptions of it – but I find myself thinking more and more about how those perceptions have changed as time has gone on.

It is fair to say that “civilization” – whatever that means – is likely not re-establishing itself this year (given that it is the end of the year!) and, if the complete lack of contact is any indication, is not on its way to making a bold breakthrough next year as well.

The cold should not feel “colder” because it becomes increasingly clear that we are on our own for whatever period of time that is allocated to us – but it does, a sort of intellectual thought that manifests itself as adding an edge to the wind that may not be there or a coldness in our bones that is imagined.

This inner sense impacting the outer sense makes little sense to me, but I know it to be true: The fact that the sun is warmer and the air clearer when we are love for example, or the fog that seems only deeper in our sadness. Our mind somehow adds to the outer world and intensifies the experience in a way I can explain, but not comprehend.

How odd, Lucilius, that the old saw “We make our own weather” is more deeply true than I imagined.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCXIV: Ad Astra

 28 December 20XX +1

My Dear Lucilius:

This afternoon as I was puttering around the house one of my science fiction books caught me eye.

It was one of those “military” science fiction books by one of the authors that I had come to enjoy (before the genre morphed beyond my ability to enjoy it). Starships, foreign worlds, the interplay of humanity in the future with all of the issues that are timeless because we are human. One of those authors who wrote science fiction when it was at its best.

I have many happy memories of reading books like that, of reaching out via space or magic to realms that were clearly unattainable but in some ways were far more real to me than the world that I was living.

I looked at cover, chuckled fondly, and put it back.

Our “science fiction future” has turned out quite different, it seems (Yes, I know, many authors wrote in some kind of mass apocalypse which humanity was able to push back from. I have no idea what the situation is outside of our bubble, but I suspect we are a ways from “the long march back”.).

One of the things that the best sorts of science fiction were infused with was a sort of underlying hope and optimism. Yes, part of that was likely due to the fact that authors wanted to sell books (who wants to read a book where everyone dies in the end), but it also reflected a belief at some level that hope matters, that good triumphs, that justice prevails. That seemed to change over time as the walls of the universe and technology closed in and travel “out there” became much less of a “Can we make it to the next star?” to “Can we make it to the next planet, or maybe even the moon?” Even those things would be amazing; for many that were raised on new worlds and new dimensions, “the next planet over” might seem a bit like settling.

Could I pick up that book, or any one of the other science fiction and fantasy books and read them today? Yes, without question: The books I have kept are the books that I enjoyed and that entertained me not specifically reliant on the setting or the technology/magic but rather about the relationships and the characters. In that sense, they are as great a literature to me as anything considered a “classic”.

But could I look to them as I did once as worlds more real? Sadly, no. That door has closed; possibly it has closed for all humanity at this point. The real world sputters in my stove with a minimum of wood or bends the bushes and trees as a cold wind that we can no longer predict days ahead, only endure.

I wonder if, out of all of this, a new sort of literature will be created based not so much one what we thought could have been possible, but what we actually learned from the experience.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCXIII: A Boxing Day Of Hope

 26 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Even if we have a day of celebration, time and tide wait for no-one.

One of the things that I suspect most people who thought about apocalyptic living but never even dabbled in it is the amount of effort involved in day to day survival.

We (Pompia Paulina and I) are fortunate: we had a stock to start from (although diminishing of course; everyone’s is), had lived in a location where periodic interruptions and inaccessibility was a regular thing, and lived general frugal lives. So the “dip” in that sense is certainly not a severe as others.

None the less, even just getting by is a lot of work.

There is not an “ordinary” day, especially it seems in Winter. As I have written before, life is largely dominated by the source of light that you have – and ours in Winter is short indeed. There are some tasks which are regular – checking on the greenhouse and quail in some fashion, looking to make sure a beehive has not fallen over, shoveling out the path to the outhouse – and some which seem regular but are just as likely periodic: gathering deadfall, pulling water from the pump, trying a hand at fishing (others hunt of course; I have no skill in that matter), being creative about food sources.

And now, more than ever, planning for what to do as soon as the weather starts to turn.

In Winter – at least for me – this total amount of work seems to split into periods of activity and inactivity. I go until I cannot go anymore, oscillate between being too cold and too warm. I cannot say I am starving – far from that – but I suspect if I put myself on the scale, I would find that some amount of weight has melted off.

Another part of my day – not really compensated in the normal sense, of course – is just stopping in on people. Hopefully – and I say this with sincerity – I will have an opportunity to begin to visit with our Erstwhile Neighbors as well; it is my sincerest belief we cannot have such a small community divided and not speaking to each other. The last few weeks have given me hope.

Hope. That is twice I have used that word in a paragraph. It is a rather funny thing, hope. If you were to ask me if I could point to something I am “hopeful” about I would struggle to come up with something long term. We occasionally hear from our friends to the North, East, and West of us, but distance lies between all of them and ourselves. We have yet to hear a peep out of any sort of governmental body to show that such a thing is working or will be back. And given that, except for the occasional invader, we have seen precisely no-one a year or heard from them, there seems to be little enough to generate that hope.

But as Pompeia Paulina reminds me – continually now, it seems – hope exists sometimes in spite of our outer circumstances, not because of them.

And that, my dear Lucilius, gives me hope as well.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCXII: The Day Of Christmas

 25 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

“’Sire, the night grows darker now, and the wind grows stronger.

Fails my heart, I know not how. I can go no longer.’

‘Mark my footsteps my good page, tread Thou in them boldly,

Thou wilt find the Winter’s rage freeze Thy blood less coldly.’”

Christmas Day came this morning with nary a whisper of clouds or snow, only the clear cold sky with fading stars and the hint of sun from the East as we bundled up and trundled out towards The Post Office. As we got closer, occasional bobbing lights betrayed the progress of others, Christmas Will-O-The-Wisps’ making their way across the snow.

I had not been into the The Post Office for some time following its initial remodel by Young Xerxes and the team he had cobbled together – not really since Young Xerxes’ plea some months ago. The room itself was much changed, widened by the removal of interior items and warmed by a wood stove which had been relocated from somewhere else – the efforts of my wood collection now being apparent.

Most impressive, however, were the Christmas decorations.

Somehow, Lucilius, a Christmas tree with decorations and of all things, lights, blazed away in one corner of the room. The room was hung with green and red tinsel, relics of an industrialized age that produced such things in abundance. Pictures had been applied to the walls, pictures from Christmas decorations of long ago, even before my time.

Along the back wall sat a table.

Having come in, we were of course put to work, pulling out folding chairs that had been transferred from the court room as hot tea in cups was thrust into our hand. Another of those irresistible was pressed into my hands.

As we worked away setting up chairs, more people kept coming in. And coming. And coming.

As they came, the back table began to fill up with, of all things, food. Oh, not the sort of feast that one would associate with Christmas once upon a time. There were quite a lot of jars of preserved food there, along with bread and what appeared to be cookies. But that was a spread that I had not seen in some days.

By the time it was a reasonable hour of the morning, I think almost every member of the community was there – yes, even some members of our Erstwhile neighbors though sadly not all. Still too soon, I suppose.

Still, with almost 60 people there, we had more than enough.

After a brief (very brief) prayer, breakfast started – topped by, of all things, venison and half a boiled egg for each of us. Yes, it was the oddest of Christmas breakfasts – my bowl filled with sauerkraut, pickles, venison, yet another biscuit, half a boiled egg, and a cookie – but it was a meaningful and delicious a Christmas meal as I had observed in many year.

After the meal ended, two to three of the folks I remembered having instruments pulled them out. And, of course, we sang the Carols of Christmas.

I say “Sang”. That may be a misnomer of sorts as not everyone could sing – at least well. And to be completely fair, some of the verses were perhaps a little different than I might remember.

After the songs went on for a while, Pompeia Paulina pulled me up and handed me a Bible opened to the New Testament. And so, after many years of reading it silently, I read the Christmas story out loud and openly.

There is something, Lucilius, about sharing the Christmas story verbally. Perhaps it is tied to memories of hearing it years ago, in church on Christmas Eve with family now long gone or reading it aloud to my own family. That story, so simple and yet so profound, can speak to us in every era.

Even in an era of a Collapse.

After I finished and sat down, one of the musicians started picking out the notes to Silent Night. And so, we sang to the crackle of a fire under the garish lights of a Christmas tree made truly magical by the fact that such magic did not happen like this at all.

At the end, there was a natural moment of silence. We all sat there in the glow of fire and lights and sunlight through the windows.

Perhaps not truly Peace on Earth, Lucilius, but perhaps as much as we are likely to find in these troubled times.

“In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted,

Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed.

Therefore Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing:

Ye that now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.”

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCXI: The Eve Of Christmas

 24 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

“Good King Wenceslaus looked out on the Feast of Stephen,

when the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.

Brightly shown the moon that night, though the frost was cruel,

when a poor man came in sight, gath’ring Winter fuel.”

Roll call this morning was a very organized affair. I say “roll call”, because Pompeia Paulina had me up and out of bed in a very organized fashion this morning. A quick – and I mean quick – breakfast, and we were off into the cold, clear morning with the tracks beginning to freeze into the snow.

Our destination was the old Post Office, now converted into our “central headquarters” (a rather wildly overshot description for such a thing). Imagine my surprise to see a dozen people there or coming as we arrived: Statiera, Young Xerxes, friends of Young Xerxes, the Alcmaeonids, even some of our Erstwhile neighbors.

All, curiously, men with their wives.

“’Hither page and stand by me and if thou knowest, telling,

Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?”

‘Sire, he lives a good league underneath, the mountain.

Right along the forest fence, by St. Agnes’ fountain.’”

Within 10 minutes of gathering, we were all “given” our orders for the day. Men were split up and sent in various directions. The women, after giving instructions, headed in the Post Office – with strict instructions that we were to knock and not enter (as opposed to before entering).

Young Xerxes and one of his friends was gifted with the task of heading out to the East for something. Mine was...gathering wood.

“’Bring me flesh and bring me wine, bring me pines logs hither,

Thou and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither’

Forth the went monarch and page, forth they went together,

Through the cruel wind’s wild lament, and the bitter weather.”

And so, I spent my day gathering wood.

Someone had generously donated a sled to the cause, which made things a little easier. Out I tromped to past the house to gather wood, break or cut it into smaller pieces, and put it on the sled. Back I would drag it to the Post Office and start a wood pile. Thankfully the day was at least sunny, so much so I reached the point of having to shed an outer layer.

Lunch, after dragging back another load, was some kind of beef jerky, dried fruit, and an honest to goodness fresh biscuit. How long has it been since I had one of those.

By the time the sun was sinking behind the hills, I flatter myself that I had dragged enough wood over to light the halls of Heorot, although I suspect my Anglo-Saxon ancestors would not have been impressed with my efforts.

That night, Pompeia Paulina seemed in an almost joyous mood, something which has seemed to elude her of recent days.

I have to confess, Lucilius, I have not looked so forward to a Christmas Day in years.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCX: In The Bleak Midwinter

23 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

My wife has informed me that there will be a Christmas in this community this year.

Even in my short time married to her, I hesitate to contradict her unless I am rather certain of the facts. In the case I tried to point out – gently – that given the state of things, this might not be the year, especially given the weather and the fact that as a community we were – perhaps – just healing.

She pointed to the four candles on the Advent wreath and a fifth one in the middle, to be lit on Christmas day. Being a man of wisdom and virtue, I quickly retreated from my position.

I carefully busied myself for the rest of the day while my wife was away “on errands”. By the time she arrived home in the late afternoon – given we are just past the Winter Solstice, effectively almost sundown – she had that sort grim happy determination of someone that was told they could not do something but went ahead and did it anyway.

I have been informed, Lucilius, that I had “best get my jolly on in two days”.

Finding my role models in the Wise Men from the East, I believe I will comply.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCIX: The Fourth Advent Candle

 21 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Although it seems all too quick to me, we have reached the fourth Sunday of Advent.

Our advent wreath sat in the morning light, its two purple candles and pink candle partial burned with one remaining full purple candle present.

“The Angel candle” said Pompeia Paulina as she lit each one, starting with the earliest candle we had used and working her way around the wreath. It symbolizes love”.

Love, Lucilius.

I have to be honest with you that love, especially under the current circumstances, seems like a very strange word. Yes, of course in one way it matters more – one holds the ones that one loves closer in such circumstances (or in my own, finds them in the midst of such circumstances in order to hold them) – but it seems out of place.

If I think back to when post-apocalyptic was a fiction construct circa the 1950’s to 20XX (when it suddenly was no longer fiction), it was something that almost never appeared. Sure, inevitably (it being fiction and all) there was undoubtedly some sort of underlying love story or unrequited love interest (the hero dying just as they reached The Promised Land), but more often than not there was a great deal of fighting and surviving and traveling across ruined country.

Love – especially love for something or someone that was not specifically within your reach – was a pretty foreign fictional concept.

And yet, I look at a candle reminding me of Love, of a message of love brought by an angel, first to Mary, and then to shepherds in a field (joined by thousands of other angels). And am reminded that such an unconditional love does not change, no matter what our outwards circumstances.

God so loved the world, says the Apostle John, that He sent His only Son, that whoever shall believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life. He loved the world through the Western Collapse of Empire, He love the world through the Religious Wars, He loved the world through calamitous 20th Century that led us to here.

We all remain sinners in need of a Saviour, Lucilius, not matter what our outward circumstances.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCVIII: Full Faith And Credit

 19 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

One of the practices Pompeia Paulina and I have been doing on a regular basis is a rotating cycle review of things. We go room by room, storage place by storage place. On the one hand it may seem a bit morbid – after all, we are counting down things like food and other supplies. On the other, it is fairly interesting what memories get randomly triggered by an item.

In this case, it was a silver dollar.

Not just any silver dollar: an 1879 Morgan Silver dollar, likely one of the first silver coins I came into. Its acquisition is burned into my brain.

It happened before the turn of the century, when I was a lowly college student working in my cousin’s convenience store. A kid came in – maybe 18, maybe not, who could tell – with a fistful of coins to buy a pack of cigarettes.

I was used to this: my cousin’s store was on the edge of the “appropriate” part of town, and we had more than our share of experience dealing with ragged bills, piles of pennies and nickels, and grubby food stamps (the first time in my rather innocent middle class life I had seen them). He asked for the cigarettes – likely Camels or Marlboros, that was what everyone smoked – and I started counting out the change.

And there it was: a big, fat, Morgan Silver dollar.

I had the wisdom not to raise a fuss about it, but definitely made sure that it was included in the pile of coins that went into the till. I gave him the cigarettes and shoved back the change. He pocketed it and left; I carefully removed the Silver dollar and replaced it with a paper one from my wallet.

It was in fine condition, a little discolored but not worn, quite likely from a relative’s coin stash that may or may not have known their collectible went up in smoke (as it were). And though I waited, no-one came back looking for it.

This was the first of many silver coins that I acquired over the years of working there and beyond, the results of careful attention paid to change. Over time I acquired a very small hoard, dollars from years past of women with torches walking and quarters and dimes and half dollars with mythical or historical figures on them. Some were worn, some were as good as the day they were coined.

That eventually ran out of course, as I got older and dealt with coins on a less frequent basis and silver coins became a commodity that were sought after; I do not believe I have seen a random silver coin in the last 25 years or more.

I held it there in my hand, feeling the solidity and the weight, watching the light catch the bas relief of the woman’s face. This coin was easily over 100 years old. It was minted, I found out once upon a time, in Philadelphia and was the least valuable of such coins, perhaps fetching 100 times its face value once upon a time. And now it sits here, in a pouch where it is easy to get to if we should need it. As if there was any need for it now.

I cannot eat this coin, Lucilius. I cannot plant it and grow something from it. The bees can make no use of it and the quail cannot nest in it. I could, I suppose, melt it down and make something else out of it. What though? A bullet? We have few werewolves in this part of the world. A piece of art? It is already a piece of art, something far more beautiful in its current form than I could craft myself.

I keep it, as I keep all of my coins, as a hedge against a day where things that are not of direct survival use will have value. If such a day will ever come.

They could be coins from the times of Vikings for all that it matters. Even then they would have no more true “value” than they do now, paperweights and historical markers of an era and economy long gone.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCVII: Death And Mending Fences

 16 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

We were startled this morning by a knock at our door. Imagine my surprise to find one of our Erstwhile neighbors on my doorstep. His hands were plainly in view, breath steaming away from the pulled up edges of the jean rancher jacket into the crisp and cloud free morning air.

“There has been a death” he said flatly.

I nodded back. I had been expecting something like this to start sooner or later.

In a few minutes I was out with him, trudging back through the snow on a path beaten down by his coming. Pompeia Paulina I had sent off with the snowshoes to get Young Xerxes and whomever else he could rouse in short order. The walk itself was silent, the crunch of boots on snow, breaths hissed in and out like steam engines.

We wound our way through the streets of Birch, existing paths more clearly laid out in the midst of the snow – but even with that, the lifting and setting of feet, the brushing through of those holes as they merged together into a path...I hate the snow at times, Lucilius, for all that I moved here willingly.

By the time we arrived at the house – a house I recognized a little too well, that of Terentia, the wife of the man shot by Cataline in self defense– a small crowd had gathered, both of our Erstwhile neighbors as well as Young Xerxes and a few of his volunteers. I pushed through the circle, as much as through assuming I could do so as any moral authority I might still hold with everyone here: the last thing that was needed was a fight in the snow.

Inside, a smaller group was there. I recognized some of Terentia’s family and The Fashionable Woman from the trial. They were weeping, but stopped long enough to give me a cold stare as I went by through the hall into a bedroom.

There, in bed, was Terentia.

Death had found her, it seemed, at night: she lay under covers, one eye closed and the other one bolt open looking up the ceiling. I forced myself to check her with a touch (How much I hate the thought of touching the dead, Lucilius): cold and unyielding. Whatever had happened – my guess would be some kind of heart attack; I had seen similar cases long ago – it had happened some hours ago.

The man I remembered as her son came in. We nodded at each other, then looked at his mother.

“Thoughts?” he quietly said.

“Likely a heart attack or some such thing” I responded. “It was quick.” We stood in silence for moments longer, the wails of the mourners filling the background.

I looked straight at him. “Any particular reason you called for me?”

He stared straight back. “Mostly to let you know it happened and make clear – to you, to me, to everyone – that it was a natural death, not something that was contrived or carried out. Things are already tense enough.”

I nodded back. “Will you need anything from me, or us?”

He shook his head. “No. We can bury our own dead.”

We stood there in silence together for a few more minutes. “My condolences” I said as I started to turn to leave.

“You know” he said as I started to trail from the room, “she never blamed you in the end. Although she refused to really confront the truth about my father, she eventually got over you. She was just too proud to tell you so.”

I turned to look back at him and then, on a whim, offered him my right hand, which he took. “Sometimes we can all be too proud to take the first step”, I responded.

The trip back to The Cabin was quiet, Pompeia Paulina giving me the space to think through what I had seen. As Young Xerxes and Statiera peeled off to go back home, I suggested perhaps he and a couple of his friends offer to help with relocation of the body.

It is never too late, Lucilius, to try to mend fences.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCVI: The Third Advent Candle

 14 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

The day dawned dark and overcast again with a cruel wind blowing, a reminder that we still have still have not yet arrived at the nadir of daylight for the year.

The Advent wreath bore three candles now, the two purple previously used as well as a pink one (“Rose”, corrected Pompeia Paulina. It still appeared pink to me).

“The Candle of Joy” she said. “It reminds us of the shepherds rejoicing on Christmas Eve.”

The Shepherds.

There was time, Lucilius, that I thought I wanted to be a shepherd. Call this being lured in by the idylls of Hesiod or a burgeoning need to get away from people that never left me, but I have always at some level wanted to be away from people and around animals. That faded over time of course: the reality of shepherds are quite different from the mystical apparitions in my mind and in terms of making a living in the modern world, it was a bit difficult.

But I do still think about them: alone most of the time, coming together periodically as dictated by the sheep and seasons, but always returning back to isolation and wilderness.

And then, something different happens.

In the modern world, we were amazed by the firework shows and bright lights that accompanied modern civilization’s celebrations. Imagine living in a world where (practically speaking) nothing was lit except by sun and fire. The darkness at night was the true darkness that the modern world pushed back so often.

And then, light and sound beyond anything that they could have ever imagined or known. A luminous being announcing to the “Good tidings of great joy”. How could these men not celebrate and rejoice after what they had heard and seen.

Did any of them survive to Christ’s last days? We will never know of course, but it is theoretically possible. What would it have been like when, closing their eyes at death, they meet the one whose life they saw at the beginning and saw the working out of these good tidings: The Resurrection, the Forgiveness of Sin, the New Covenant?

The candles were lit one after the other and we read in Luke of the shepherds and the angels and their coming to Bethlehem.

That joy still remains, Lucilius, if we will but seek it out.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCV: Mementos

13 December 20XX +1

My Dear Lucilius:

The Visitor In The Snow has caused, perhaps unsurprisingly, a flurry of activity in our snow packed town (no puns intended, but gladly accepted). Beyond just this digging out and checking on people, the biggest point of conversation as I walked from house to house – even with our Erstwhile Neighbors – was “Who was he? Where did he come from?”

To the first I have an answer. To the second, I still only have mysteries.

The second point first: I cannot tell you anything about where he came from, at least around here. Young Xerxes sent people out on sweeps around the various parts of Birch, out even to the former school. There was nothing: no tracks, no other bodies (of people, anyway), no signs. Two young men actually made it all the way to the ranch at the base of the tall him that dominates our southern landscape; they, also, had no idea and had not seen anyone.

Only the tracks coming out of the West remained.

Young Xerxes and I walked them as far as we could, until it became apparent that blowing snow had erased them. If there was a point where he came onto the road, that was not revealed as well. At some point the indentations continued to grow shallower and shallower until they simply disappeared and it was nothing but us and gentle plains of snow that whirled as snow devils created themselves in sparkling circles and then died.

To the first question, his name was J.

I have his ID in front of me as I write. J. Aged 30, judging from the birth date on his driver’s license, which is from a state (A former state? Are there any states at all anymore?) several states away from here. His height (5’ 10”) and his physical appearance (Hair: Brown; Eyes: Blue) look back at me from the picture.

His face is clean shaven and far heavier looking that than the frozen face that greeted us yesterday. He has that awkward smile that so many of us have for such official pictures: “Smile”, they say. We most often look either grim or goofy.

The other contents of the pocket on the back of his cell phone was generally unremarkable: a credit card and bank card to financial institutions I am sure no longer exist, a roadside assistance card long expired, a series of old fortunes from fortune cookies: “Changes are in your near future” read one that seemed rather new.

And in one pocket, a laminated picture.

It is clearly him. It is Summer. He looks happy, sitting on a boat on blue waters. The rod in his hands make it look like an ocean fishing expedition. To his right is a woman looking at the camera as well. She is clearly dressed not to go fishing, but to be there and enjoy the sea. They each have a bottle of beer in their hands. The sun is shining brightly, casting bold shadows onto the deck.

Who was he, Lucilius, this J? Yes, I know his name and I can gather a bit from where he had financial transactions, but other that the only clue I have is this picture.

Did he always like fishing? Was this a one time trip? Was the cashmere scarf that he had from this woman? Was she his girlfriend, his wife, his sister? A friend? What did he think of all that has happened in the last year? Where was he? What did he do?

And why did it all come to an end against the side of building in a snow storm?

His story is not unique, now or ever. For most of history most of us have gone to the grave known perhaps by a few around us but forgotten within a few years or a generation. It was only in the modern world, with pictures and videos and books and electronic memory that the names of millions could be remembered.

Could be. Were. Now, we slip by and if we are lucky, we are briefly remembered.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCIV: Habeas Corpus

 12 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

We had two surprises today.

The first – both a surprise as a blessing – is that Young Xerxes showed up at our house this morning. In snowshoes – garnered from the pairs that Pompeia Paulina had at her house. He brought a day that was both sunny and snowfall free with him, along with a second pair for me.

The second surprise – less welcome – was the news he brought. There was a body in the snow. A body no-one recognized.

Walking in snowshoes is a trick I had largely lost the talent for; at one time, Winter hikes were an occasional thing and having snowshoes was far superior to tramping through snow (to gain wet shoes) with the risk of postholing (sinking up to your knee or thigh) a risk. The picking up of my feet was not so bad after I got going; the fact I continue to look like a duck undoubtedly made for high comedy.

By the time I made it to the Post Office, there was a crowd of about a dozen or so – including, somewhat to my surprise, some of our erstwhile neighbors – gathered around an object leaned up against the building. Folks kindly cleared as I waddled my way forward.

Sure enough, it was a body.

It was a man – a very thin looking man, if the gauntness of his face was any indicator. His was curled up into a ball, lightly dusted with snow. He had what I would have considered “Summer gear” in these parts: jeans (cotton, become wet and damp easily), a long sleeve shirt with perhaps a layer or two beneath poking out, tennis shoes, and a beanie, and for some reason a beautiful gray cashmere scarf. No jacket, no gloves.

His extremities – fingers, nose, ears – were black with frostbite. His eyes – pale blue – were staring off into a distance that he could no longer see.

Someone pointed out that down the main road into town from the West, there were half covered footprints leading in. He had come then, sometime in the night before the snow had completely fallen, taking refuge against the post office (it is a large enough building in these parts and would have been fairly discernible – and died.

I scanned the crowd with raised eyebrows. People shook their heads all around: no-one recognized him.

There were two concerns in my mind at the moment. The first was any sort of transmissible disease that he might be carrying with him. The second was equally as pragmatic: with a huge dump of new snow, what were we going to do with the body?

I spoke sotto voce to Young Xerxes and off he went like a shot (well, really a snow-shoed shot) as the rest of us stood around. To keep people busy, I sent some of the younger folk down the road where his prints had come from to see how far they went. The rest of us waited, low mutterings around the circle punctuated by frosty clouds of breath.

Young Xerxes returned, bearing what I had asked for: Latex gloves. No sense in taking any risks. I put some on as he did and then, we pulled the body forward.

Only once have a touched a body in rigor mortis; it was as if I was moving a relatively solid piece of wood, not a body. The same was true here, with the caveat that in point of fact this was frozen wood. The sensation, even through the gloves, was not pleasant.

Keeping as much distance as we could manage, we “flipped” him over on the other side, like a fish in a pan that we were frying. This side was much colder and snow bound, of course. But nothing else was revealed.

His face and hands (from what I could see) bore no signs of obvious outbreak of sores or other skin outbreaks. I say “From what I could see”; I had no intention on bending closer to an unknown death.

Gingerly we felt around his pants and coat pockets. In one front pocket we found a Swiss Army knife stripped of its outer plastic siding, the metal parts exposed. There was a cell phone – probably dead now – with one of those wallet casing attachments on the back with some cards that I could not make out. Other than that, nothing: no rings, no jewelry, no weapons, no food.

An enigma.

Those I had sent off down the road came back; they said the trail had run straight down what was the old state highway from the West. Not a surprise, really – it was flat and one could relatively tell if one had gone off it.

Which, of course, left the body.

Three feet plus of snow and frozen ground does not lend itself a burial and just leaving a body around here might attract predators now looking for a meal or other sorts of predators later. It needed to move. I looked again to my energetic young friends: There was an oak about a half mile down the road; could they get the body there and place it? A discussion, 15 minutes later and a sled, and they were ready. Young Xerxes and I lifted the body up, instructed them to shovel a hole in the snow, and dump it in without touching it.

The crowd began to disperse, and even our Erstwhile former neighbors gave me a nod as they left. Young Xerxes and I waited until the burial party returned. It was easily 30 minutes; standing on the snow in snowshoes instead of in it mad for a better experience and after a week more or less inside, it was good to just stand outside.

Our young friends returned, reporting a successful mission. I suggested to Young Xerxes that we might go up there in a few days; given the nature of the Winter and animals about, I was of half a mind that the body would no longer be there.

I do not like mysteries, Lucilius. Especially the dead without explanation.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCIII: White Out Again

11 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Day 3 of the Snowstorm

The constant snowfall has deadened somewhat from the previous two days to at least a manageable wash of snow which has paced itself to a slow, meandering fall punctuated by flurries. I cannot tell you the full amount it has dropped, my guess would easily be three feet or more.

The paths around the house have become gullies, passages between the greenhouse and outhouse and around the house. It has not been so bad during the day: every two hours or so I go out and stamp everything down and rake the roof. It has been enough that in the morning, there is a credible amount to clear, but not an impossible amount.

Apparently to counterbalance the declining snowfall, the wind has picked up.

You cannot imagine the wind on this snow. It howls and yowls and pushes the snow along as if it were piles of dust or pet hair driven by a fan inside a house. Seeing the it hurl the snow hither and yon, one begins to understand the fear of being caught alone in a snowstorm in the plains. Here it moves the snow back and forth, piling it up against side of The Cabin before pulling it away again. It remains the constant voice beyond the low murmur of the fire, a mocking and yet playful voice as it both brings the cold and makes the snow into vortexes and swirls.

Other than the in and out activity of making trails (which I begrudge every time I have to open the door and heat leaks out), there is not a great deal that can be done. Read. Watch the fire. Huddle under blankets. Drink tea.

Solitaire, Lucilius.  I have played solitaire with a deck of cards for the first time in I cannot remember how long.

Sitting here in the encroaching darkness with nothing but the fire for light, I begin to appreciate how lonely the prairie must have been in Winter.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCII: White Out

 09 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Snow again.

By snow I mean a sheet of snowfall so constant and so white that it completely blanks out any attempt to see more than a few feet. It roared in last night, borne on a wind that howled not so much with the souls of the damned as much as the souls of civilizations that have disappeared.

Going outside is useless beyond a few feet. I have tied my ropes to the outhouse and green house as I do every Winter; this time I do not know that I could make it back without them. I also essayed getting out to try and check on others, but gave up within twenty feet of the house; I had no idea if I could find my way back.

There will be not much of anything done until this blows over.

I have endeavored to keep the front door clear and enough around the Cabin that I can use a rake to pull the snow off from time to time, and have tried (not very successfully) to clear paths to the outhouse and greenhouse. To both; I have tried to not enter the greenhouse at all to preserve whatever residual warmth may be left. This has left me frozen, sweaty, and hot at one or more points during this exercise.

On the way to the outhouse one can see the beehives, heavily wrapped for Winter and standing like lone sentinel rocks in a bay. They, too, need their snow occasionally removed.

Heavy snow was not a thing I had ever seen growing up. You remember as well as I do our childhood, with its occasional few inches or even foot of snow that was enough to slide on or perhaps coax a small snowman out of, snow that was good for a day or two and then melted to slush, retreating to the shadowed corners of yard and house.

Not now, Lucilius, not now.

I have driven Pompeia Paulina to distraction with my pacing and worrying to the point that she actually ordered me to sit - quietly – for 20 minutes to give her some peace. I sat of course – never before have I seen such a side eye from my wife – but the worrying did not stop.

Has snow happened here? Of course it does; every year. Sometimes heavy snow. And even with power outages at times. But between that snow and those power outages were things like power that came back on and places one could go to restock and refuel. There is none of that now, of course.

And nothing to be done for it.

I write this, bundled up even with the stove radiating heat. In a bit I will go back out, clear the paths again, pull what snow I can down, bring in more of the wood – and we will hunker down. Again.

Outside, I can hear the howl of the wind. It is ridiculous to think that I can hear the snow borne on the wind as it crashes into the house or piles on the ground, but I swear I do.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CCI: The Second Advent Candle

 07 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Today was the lighting of the second Advent candle.

Pompeia Paulina was patiently waiting for me when I came out into the early morning grey that constitutes daylight in Winter here. It is one of the things that I had underestimated when I first relocated here, the true shortness of the days of Winter. Especially in a world without power, one can work before the daylight, but one’s effectiveness can be serious curtailed – who wants to risk an injury just to get a 20 minute head start on something in the dark?

The Advent wreath was there, along with its for candles. The match sparked; one candle, then another candle glowed in the early morning gloom.

The second candle, she said. The Candle of Bethlehem, of Preparation and Peace.

Bethlehem in our day was one of the most well known small towns of history; we had the benefit of 2,000+ years of Christian history behind us. And while even leading up to Christ’s birth it undoubtedly had some fame as the birthplace of David, one of Israel’s great kings, it (like many other birthplaces) had slipped into backwater status; were it to have happened now, likely there would be some small sign commemorating David’s birthplace and perhaps a small museum preserving David’s birth house, manned by volunteers and preserving his parents’ memorabilia (all of the good stuff would undoubtedly be at the museum in Jerusalem), selling post cards and bumper stickers that read “I felt Bethlehome in Bethlehem”.

It was a small place, that history seemed to have moved on from. And yet Scripture promised that something amazing would happen there:

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,

Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,

Yet out of you shall come forth to Me

The One to be Ruler in Israel,

Whose goings forth are from of old,

From everlasting.” - (Micah 5:2)

It was almost 1,000 years between David and Christ and almost 700 years between the prophet Micah and Christ. What did people do?

They waited. They prepared.

They prepared for the coming of Messiah. They waited. They kept the laws as they were given and looked to the future and God – sometimes a God that was not speaking to them at all. They prepared their hearts for the Promised One.

And then, in the fullness of time, Mary and Joseph prepared themselves for a journey they did not intend to make under circumstances not of their choosing to this small, backwater town. Where something which had been prophesied – but was still very unexpected – happened.

We sat in the candlelight as Pompeia Paulina read and then just watched the candles burn for a bit in silence. And then, in silence, blew the candles out and began the day.

Even with the promise, Lucilius, there is still preparation – and waiting – to be done.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CC: Bicentennially Yours

 06 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

I note by the count that this appears to be my 200th letter to you since this situation more or less started.

I say “200th”. In point of fact I do not know that this is precisely true; this is based on my count – which to be fair, has often been off in the past; as I like to say I am accurate but not always precise.

Still, let us assume that – for better or worse – this is indeed letter 200.

I have to confess to you (you will already know this, of course) that most likely these are more letters than I have written to anyone ever, perhaps even as many as I have written in my life. That strikes me as a rather odd thought.

Even when we were growing up, letters were still something that were “done”, even if not to the frequency of the previous two generations (by our time phone calls were a regular thing, even if there was such a thing as “long distance charges” – how strange that sounds now). And we, in turn, were building on a tradition that went back in some form to the Roman Republic, where we still have the correspondences of Seneca and Cicero.

I remember writing in high school to our friends that were slightly ahead of us in college, the anticipation when sending the letter off and the pleasant surprise when the letter returned. And not just any sort of letter: decorative letters in calligraphy or the text written in a spiral or wave or even with elements of foreign languages.

That age, at least for us, passed too quickly. Letters became small notes in cards and then just cards on holidays – and then almost nothing at all, as e-mail and text messages overwhelmed even calling someone else.

And then, of course, The Collapse. And up to 50 years of electronic records were wiped clean.

Buried in a small chest somewhere I still have the letters I received and in some cases those that I sent to my grandparents and parents and family members. It is odd, looking at them now, the cramped pen style and the thoughts of a boy and teenager writing about far away places that likely none of them would ever see. Beyond that, I have nothing except what I may have downloaded on a computer that I begrudge the use of for the power drain it represents.

Except for these letters now, of course.

They are perhaps not as remarkable or meaningful as the letters written in the past and savoured by generations, but perhaps also they represent yet another small way to push back against the entropy of a civilization that, having placed all on an altar that was more out of control than it believed, suddenly consumed it all.

Cicero and my namesake, I suspect, would probably be pleased.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CIC: Found Things

 05 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

The Picking Over is largely complete.

It is rather amazing what a group of people can do when focused on a particular task. I also have to admit, much to my pleasant surprise, that the operation has been quite an organized one – and by “organized”, I mean I did not organize it. It happened organically.

As the saying goes, when the leader has done his job, the people say “We did it ourselves”.

One of the practical matters that was brought up was that a central clearing locations would be needed to sort and organize stuff. As it turns out, there was another idea that came up: use of the Post Office which has been a somewhat fortified. It is central, it is now fairly impregnable to anything that we have or know of locally as a weapon, and it can be secured effectively.

And so, a series of piles, organized and unorganized, has started to fill floor, standing like isolated islands on the old wooden floor worn smooth in places by foot traffic.

I have been through this exercise already once this year, in the Summer as you might recall. It is odd to me – in an interesting sense – what has shown up this time.

The piles are smaller of course, due to the sample size of homes visited. They are also smaller because most of the homes here either had folks that already left (and took their things) or were the sorts of vacation or Summer homes that generally do not store as many things.

Foodstuffs were of the commercial canned or dry variety. Some clothing, mostly of the non-cold weather variety although there were a few coats. A surprising amount of tools – the “general tool box” sort as well as an assortment of shovels, hoes, rakes, and the like. A variety of kitchen wares – not so much things like table utensils and flatware but kitchen utensils and pots. And somehow, a pile of books and reading materials (I see Young Xerxes and Statiera’s hand in that). The sorts of over the counter medicines and first aid kits people store for minor emergencies.

A few standout items as well – an early 20th Century stand alone record player in the wooden cabinet with the hand crank and a collection of records and packages of needles, an entire tea setting for six, some well restored wooden antique chairs and tables.

What was not there: Firearms or other weapons, beyond the equivalent of some utility sorts of knives. Valuables of any kind (except perhaps for the tea set, which may be silver). A wide variety of food. And, of course, anything that required power to run things (not surprisingly, everyone had the presence of mind not to drag those along).

Perhaps not as much as I was hoping for.

Still, something is better than nothing, and the activity has given folks a place to focus their energy and emotion other than on everything else. The sorting will continue on; Young Xerxes assures me there will be second round of going through to make sure nothing of use was missed.

Sometimes, Lucilius, it is in the smallest activities that we can find elements of what feels like progress.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CXCVIII: Annals

 02 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Walking between houses today, interacting with our small community and checking in on the harvesting operations (which somehow seems more palatable to me than “looting”), Young Xerxes - who obviously knows that I continue to write to you – asked me if we were really done.

Done, I questioned. What did he mean by done?

Finished, he replied. Finished as a civilization.

What a remarkable question, I responded. Made even more remarkable, I thought, by the thoughts around Hope we had when we had lit the first Advent candle.

The collapse of civilizations is (sadly) not as well documented as perhaps one would wish, if one were trying to create a template or project management tool with the ability to point “You are here”. At best we have some records of some collapses as written by either those who lived through it or by those who were the “winners” in it. At worst we have a handful of documentary evidence or no documentary evidence at all, just artifacts in the ground that tell a partial story at best.

Civilizations as such have always come and gone in the world, many of them simply subsumed into a new one or disappearing without a trace except for occasional folk customs or stories. The dwellers in Ireland before the coming of the Gaels become the Fir Bolg, the Latin peoples’ that shared the Italian peninsula with Rome became cities and regions with their languages and traditions lost. We know of Mesopotamian cities by name but likely not all of them; Mesoamerica teemed with unknown cities and people groups that even up to The Collapse we were still finding out about.

The collapse of civilizations was a thing of interest in modern times; Edward Gibbons The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire was a book more acknowledged than read in recent times and even in that, was incomplete – archaeology continued to fill in many holes that were not evident in a world that in many ways predated modern archaeology. Likely most of that modern interest was “How can we help that not happen to us?” rather than a deeper interest in the nature of the collapse of civilizations.

But that, I sighed to myself, was not Young Xerxes’ question. The danger of asking questions of the old, Lucilius, is that they always seek to give all the background up front instead of answering the question at hand first.

Are we done, I responded. Done as in a civilization, or done as in us? The two are not quite the same, although I can understand why people would confuse the issues.

Civilizations, I pointed out, are vast things, built on a multitude of small traditions and habits and large systems and practices. They gain a certain inertia over time that is hard to bring to an immediate halt. And there are individuals and organizations that have a vested interest in ensuring civilizations continue, even if they are detrimental to some or many of their inhabitants.

A civilization is also something of the mind, as suggested by Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue, that when people stopped identifying with and trying to build the moral community of Rome and turned instead to building other models of civility and morality, Rome final died – not as a concept, but as a viable civilization. Up to the end of the 6th Century there were still those who called themselves “Roman”; after that, one hears of the idea of Rome but not its practice.

When do civilizations end? When people stop believing in them.

When the underpinnings are no longer taken as fact, when people no longer see themselves as members of that civilization, when the things that made that civilization unique are no longer regarded as worthy of fighting for or maintaining – this is when civilizations die.

We continued walking in silence, icy snow crunching in sync with the shloop of mud and splash of puddles. Finally he asked me if I still believed.

I sighed and let the silence speak for both of us.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

The Collapse CXCVII: The First Advent Candle

30 November 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Pompeia Paulina announced to me today that it was the first day of Advent and we would be lighting an Advent Wreath.

Unaware as I was of the advent (no pun intended) of Thanksgiving, I was even less so of the Advent season. I suspect most of that is a combination of things: Christmases for years on my own combined with a loss of the traditions that once upon a time marked this time and a series of churches for which the traditional season of Advent was more of a mention than an actual practice.

That, apparently, has changed this year.

Pompeia Paulina had brought out some candles and had a wreath (a back-up wreath, she assured me; the “good” one was with Young Xerxes and Stateira for their first Christmas) and set it up on our table. The candles – three purple, one pink and one white in the center – sat amid a psuedo-greenery that was clearly not from around here at all.

She had me light one of the purple candles -a taper somewhat burned, clearly used from its charred wick and the runnels of wax down its side. The candle looked strangely cheery in its fake pine branches, as candles often seem to do in the semi-dark of cloud cover days and early evenings.

I looked at her. I admitted that I remembered nothing about this other than the candle lighting.

She smiled back at me. This is the first candle of Advent, she said, the candle of Hope. It is meant to remind us of the Old Testament prophets, who preached the coming of the Messiah through the vicissitudes of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah and the Captivity and Return – and who, through all of it, had the hope of God’s promise.

I admit I teared up.

Hope. How long it seems that we – really, I – have been without such a thing.

It has been said, Lucilius, that Hope is something that we can manufacture if needed. And it has certainly been needed for a while now.

It can take many forms with others, be it continually saying things will get better or providing plans and ideas for how to exist through one season to get to another. Without hope, people eventually give up and die – because living when one day is like another and only leading to worse days will crush the human spirit in irrevocable ways.

But while I can generate Hope for others, I struggle to generate it for myself.

Yes yes, I understand the religious aspect of it and that – at least from a Christian point of view – we hope in something beyond ourselves. But that sense of Hope of salvation can seem bleak in world where the walls feel as if they are closing in and every initiative seems to peter out before it gets started.

Which is why, I suppose, we need others around us to help us find that Hope as well.

We stood there, hand in hand, watching the candle burn, a true orange-yellow flame that went straight up in the cloudy light of Winter’s sky. We read Matthew 4:16: “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death, Light had dawned”.

And then we blew the candle out – after all, we have to light this at least four more times this year and one should be practical, now above all times.

And perhaps, Lucilius, that is the very nature of Hope itself: to blow something out, believing that you will need it again.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca