New Worlds, Old Gods
You wake up from a deep sleep. The sunshine seeps into your bedroom. It's time to start the day.
You walk outside and take in the sights. You look out at what once was your lawn, now a food producing garden. What once was sterile and invasive grass now hosts a variety of fruits and vegetables. Intermixed with the tomatoes and kale grow non-edible plants indigenous to your region. You see hummingbirds and bees float around these local flora.
As you walk by your neighbor’s yard, you see the changes that have occurred in the past few years. Their house is covered with thin black tiles at many angles - solar panels that can power the vast majority of their electrical needs. You look at what was once their recreational pool. It has been converted into a functional aquaponic water garden. Lily pads crown the surface. Turtles soak in the sun. You can count at least three species of edible fish living in the artificial pond and native aquatic plants line the bottom. While this is now converted into an ecological and food producing pond, people still regularly swim and enjoy the water. You reflect on how, in the past, before the collapse, you would have struggled to identify even one kind of fish species, let alone how to catch and cook them. Now you often spend mornings and dusk fishing with your neighbors, both for food and for the companionship that the task gives you together.
You continue on. You see more houses and lawns, all similarly transformed as you and your neighbor’s have been. Blueberry bushes grow next to cannabis plants. Beehives, both natural and manmade, are abundant throughout your neighborhood. The road has been torn up, and native plants have replaced the concrete.
You see your neighbors and friends, now one and the same, all around. An old woman teaches a group of children about the cultivation of herbs. Two older men are sitting on their porch, quietly conversing. A group of young men and women, sit in a circle, with books and notebooks open. You see two figures walking towards you. They both carry rifles.
This is not alarming. You know both of them - they are volunteers from your community. One is a tall bearded man with clear blue eyes. The other is a young woman wearing a hijab. They are not there to enforce or to terrorize, but to be the first line of defense on the off chance of an emergency. You notice how they not only carry weapons, but first aid supplies. You stop and speak with them briefly, then continue on.
You finally arrive at your destination. It is a former restaurant, now transformed into a community center. There are a multitude of activities taking place. In one corner, you can see a feminist reading group. It is clear that there is a disagreement between several of the members, but the respect for one another is evident in the way they discuss. Each person speaks their piece and pays careful attention to the responses of the others. There seems to be no leader, although several members appear to be helping moderate the discussion.
In another part of the building, you can see a space has been cleared for a class. You see a man demonstrating the proper functioning of a rifle. His audience is diverse, and includes everyone from 19 year old men with short hair and fatigues, to grandmothers who have never held a firearm till a month ago.
You walk to the bar, which is still functioning. You know the bartender well - after all, you work several shifts here each week. It’s early, so you take a coffee. You sit outside on one of several couches. You talk with the other people at the cafe. Someone passes a joint around, and the caffeine blends with the THC to create a pleasant haze. There are several international travelers visiting, who are interested in the new world you and your neighbors have built. They are staying at the hostel, once a strip mall, another building converted to better serve the people in your neighborhood. Some pay to stay, but most work a few hours in exchange for room and board.
After several hours of conversation, you feel as though it is time to move on. You again start walking around the neighborhood and notice that there is a group of people working in the community farm. While most of your neighbors have small gardens, and strive to produce as much of their own food as possible, your community manages a small farm on common property. You look over fields of corn, wheat, barley, as well asparagus and squash. Chickens roam freely, as well as goats, which help to control the grass and balance the Ph of the soil. You walk over and begin helping weed, then stirring the compost, then feeding the animals. Farm labor is hard, and can be repetitive and taxing on the mind and body. It is made easier by the stories one of the elders is sharing, by the jokes a younger woman is telling, and the enjoyment you get from teaching some of the children about how to properly take care of the animals. You again reflect on what most simply call “Before”, when your life looked much different. When you had constant electricity, hot water, and quick internet. You often miss the convenience of the supermarket, the steady reliability of the supply chain, and the ease of driving a personal vehicle to wherever you wanted.
That isn’t to say you don’t have water, or food, or even internet. You have a water collection system in your home, and the community has also built a small facility to purify water from a nearby river. There is generally ample water, but you don’t treat the faucet as a strange and magical object of endless abundance, like you did before. You can see how much water you have in your rain barrels, and while there is no shame in from drawing from the community supply, you take pride in being able to collect and conserve enough for your own household. Besides, you have people in your community that do not have the means to collect their own water. You have an inherent respect for the fact that you should not take any more than you need, as it could impact them.
Your mind comes back to the task at hand. You and your companions finish the work for the evening. Hours have passed since you first arrived. Your muscles feel heavy, and you have calluses on your hands. That’s another new experience. You were always in shape - you went to the gym, participated in some beer league sports, etc. - but you never had the calluses that your grandfather did from years as a contractor. He would always make fun of you for that. It came from a loving place, but it was true. You wish he could see you now - dirty, rough hands, working side by side with your neighbors. You think he’d be proud.
You begin the walk home. After spending so much time with others, you take a moment to appreciate the solitude of the evening. You walk past house after house, and again reflect on how your neighborhood has changed. There are electric lights in all the houses, but they are much fewer and softer-obviously a change due to the shutdown of the national power grid. There are no street lights, but this doesn’t make you feel nervous, as it would have Before. You feel safer now than you ever did when electricity ran freely and the police were always a phone call away. You are content with the knowledge that you could call out to any of your neighbors, and they would assist you in any way you needed.
The lessened light pollution gives you the opportunity to have an unrestricted view of the night sky. Hundreds of stars are visible, and you see a meteor zip across the darkness of space. You can hear crickets and frogs perform an unearthly and haunting chorus. The Moon, nearly full, rises above the horizon, basking the road in a cool light.