October 15
We had our first harvest today!
I woke up in the morning to the sound of a pan sizzling and the air filled with the smell of food cooking, my stomach growling and my mouth salivating with the prospect of freshly cooked food. After spending the trip eating cold blocks of canned food, forcing down even the juices left behind on the bottom of the can, actually eating something real felt like a dream come true. There were even hints of garlic and scallion in the air.
The only issue was that the mustard greens were being cooked, something that I haven't really eaten before, and while everyone devoured their breakfast, I stared at the greasy, stir-fried greens with this sort-of apprehension. It's honestly a miracle that I've made it this far just eating foods that I usually eat, and somehow, I've been able to tolerate the cold, disgusting versions of foods that I'm alright with but couldn't stomach the thought of eating something brand new. I hate being such a picky eater.
"Neal," Dad said. "Eat up. It's your favorite food."
"It's not," I replied.
"It'll be. You'll probably be eating this until the end of your life."
"Hurry up," Mom added. "Your food is getting cold. And you need to try new foods. You can't be this picky in this–"
"I know, okay," I replied. "I'll eat when I'm hungry."
"If you aren't eating, then I will," May said, and Mom shook her head.
Pretty soon, I was the last person in the dining circle that hadn't touched my food, and just as I was about to spoon the lukewarm mustard greens into my mouth, I noticed everyone staring at me, putting me flat into the spotlight. So I said, "Can you guys not stare at me?"
"We're just marking the moment when you actually tried something new," Dad said.
"Can you guys not make this weird?" I replied. "Just go and do other stuff."
"Why do you need privacy–" May said, but Mom cut her off by responding to me with, "That's true. We've got a very busy day today. Once Neal finishes breakfast, we're going to come back together to work up a plan."
When everyone scattered into their own corners for a couple minutes of peace and quiet, I actually took a look at my breakfast. By then, the crispiness had faded and the greens were more soggy, but for some reason, I don't really know why, I did feel more inclined to eat the food. I guess it's that I really hate when people point out change or when change just happens in front of other people because I've always not liked change and to change a bunch will just, I guess, change the way other people see me. In this situation, it's not like I had an issue with the food (though I will still mourn the day that I will be forced to eat fruit-vegetables like eggplant or bell pepper), but I just couldn't change right in front of my whole family.
So I took a long look at my fork with mustard greens on it and took a long look around me to catch any peeping eyes before taking a tentative bite. To be honest, it wasn't terrible. It was a bit peppery but the garlic and oil covered it up, and as I shoveled the meager meal into my mouth, I realized that it actually tasted pretty good, kinda like soft, nicely flavored leaves. I also licked as much of the oil as possible from the bowl. Who knows when those extra couple calories would come into play.
I barely had time to breathe before Mom called a meeting, bringing out a whiteboard and markers and setting it against a wall as we gathered around her. It was pretty empty, except for two large words written on it: "Farming" and "Fishing."
"I've been thinking about this for a few days," Mom said. "And I know that it doesn't seem like much, but I didn't want to put all of my ideas onto the board just yet. All I've put down is a framework for us to work off of, so let's begin brainstorming."
"Under the farming, we could start expanding the greenhouse," I said. "I don't think permanently growing plants in our living room is going to be able to last forever, so we might have to expand outdoors."
"That's a good idea," Mom replied before writing it down. "But we're going to have to find some way to keep it warm and lit up, especially at night, on top of building the structure. It's brighter outside compared to indoors, so we might not have to worry as much about light, but heat is a big problem."
"Wow, Mom," May said. "Way to shoot Neal's idea down."
"I'm not shooting it down. I wrote it on the board," Mom said. "I'm saying that we need to find all the problems so that our plans will completely work. Thinking about the solar panel trip now, I realized that there were a million ways that things could've gone wrong, and I don't want to miss any spot when we're constructing the new greenhouse."
"For heat, we could use the extra power from the panels to run heaters," Mira said. "But I don't think that we'd be able to run them at night, so I was thinking that if we could get our hands on metal barrels and put some steel wool on top of them, we could build mini fireplaces in the greenhouse–"
"The smoke might be the issue," Dad said. "Even with the steel wool, we'd still have to worry about the carbon monoxide and the smaller particles. It's too dangerous. I want it to be possible, but I don't think it's happening, especially since we'd need to, at the very least, triple our wood gathering trips."
"That's true," Mom replied. "But we'll make it happen somehow. Between all of us here, we've got two lifetimes of gardening experience, two college degrees, one and two soon-to-be college degree and high school diplomas."
"Cover plants," Grandma said, chiming in from the back, motioning with her hands, and said the rest in Taiwanese, so no one else except Mom and Grandpa understood. Mom nodded and said to the rest of us, "It's a good idea to keep the plants insulated, especially at night, and she suggested that we use plastic wrap and empty jars to cover the plants up."
"But like, isn't it completely useless to keep things warm, if nothing's warm," May said. "Like, it'll just keep things cold, so we're literally going back to our heater problem."
We threw out a bunch of solutions for our heating problem. May suggested just going and getting more solar panels, but Dad told her that the journey was far too lengthy to attempt anytime soon, though he didn't mention our run-in with the looters, keeping the ruse of safety up. Mom wanted to pipe in heat from the fireplace, but that was a non-starter and still had the issue of smoke. Mira suggested once again to use mirrors, creating a sort of solar oven, but the big question would be how we'd disperse the heat. I guess it was at that moment, I realized a way to combine Mom and Mira's ideas, using a bit of knowledge from my chemistry class.
"What if we don't need to use a heater to keep the greenhouse warm," I said. "I remembered learning in chemistry that farmers spray water on fruit during winter because the water releases heat as it cools down. We could boil water at the fireplace and then place them in the greenhouse to release heat instead of piping the heat. And we could use mirrors to heat up more water to keep the greenhouse warm at night."
"What if we make the water black," May said. "I remember how our car seats always got so hot during summer, so that could also happen to the water."
"We could also paint the jugs black," Mira said. "And we could take some aluminum foil and line the wall with it to reflect more light back in, like the greenbox right now."
"Also, composting," I said. "I don't think we can compost our, you know, fecal matter, but I know that when we compost, it can get pretty warm."
May interjected, "But when you did your composting experiment, it was so stinky–"
"That's because there was way too much green stuff," I said. "It's not like we have many fresh fruits and vegetables anymore. There's just a lot of dead leaves and twigs everywhere. If there's anything we need to make it work, it's more wet, green matter. I think there's going to be way too much phosphorus and not enough nitrogen."
"We've got seaweed," Mira said. "It'll stink, and we'll have to wash it out since it's salty, but it'll be able to add some green matter to the compost."
"Eww," May said. "Is there literally anything else we can use? As much as I want to not die, I don't want to inhale seasickness every time that I breathe."
Then I heard Grandpa say something, after being relayed the issue by Mom, and Mom looked a little hesitant before saying, "We can also use urine."
"I think I'd take the seaweed," May said before turning to me. "Doesn't pee have a ton of bacterias and viruses–"
"Not really," I said. "It's actually not a terrible idea, I guess. It could make the compost more moist too."
May shuddered a little bit, probably at the word moist. For some reason, she can go out and break into homes, and yet, she can't stand the sound of moist or deal with the stench of the sea. To be fair, I think we all can't stand the days when the winds bring the sea breeze up the mountainscapes, the brine in the air tasting like loss. Even when Charles and I attempted to hijack the tidal tsunamis and panic of the evening that the world changed, the sunny beachside afternoons in the middle of July will always be tainted with a hint of rot of corpses strangled by seaweed.
"Those are all great ideas," Mom said as she wrote them on the board and looked at Dad. "See, we could find a solution."
"Yeah Dad," May said. "What happened to your ivy league education? Even I could get an idea on the board, and I was pretty much failing high school since I didn't have Neal's straight As."
"We'll still need to make the structure of the greenhouse," Dad said. "We've got tubing from the storage shelf in the garage that we could use to form a sturdy frame."
"Or the canopy," Mira suggested. "We could rip the tarp off the top and pad the interior of the greenhouse with it for insulation."
"Styrofoam would be better," Dad said. "It's a poor conductor of heat–"
"Hello," May butted in. "Aren't we forgetting the most important thing, you know, the thing that actually covers the greenhouse. We don't have any clear plastic anymore, so we're going to have to get it from somewhere."
"Weren't they working on a greenhouse at the community garden?" Mom asked while looking at me. "I'm sure that there could be–"
"It broke, and they were using glass, so all of it shattered in the earthquakes," I replied before remembering about the fertilizer and pesticides still in the garden shed, but I didn't say it since I knew that scavenging is still a touchy subject between Mom and Dad and Mira, and I didn't want to inflame the tensions right now.
But unlike me, May decided to just go right ahead and say what some of us were probably thinking, "We're going to have to get some of the plastic tarps from one of the abandoned stores, like Michael's or Home Depot. I know guys get triggered by this, but like, we're wasting good stuff, and we've probably been beaten to the best stuff by other people, so we need to get as much stuff as we can before there's literally nothing left. It's not even going to be that dangerous since who cares about art stores when the whole world is ending."
"It's going to be dangerous," Dad said, but May cut him off, saying, "You and Neal literally traveled across the world to get solar panels, something that everyone wants, and you think an hour-long walk to Michael's is suddenly so dangerous. It's literally empty out here, like you two have said, so we might as well take what we can before people start forming looting gangs."
"We don't patrol that far out," Mira said. "And as far as I know, there are no other neighborhood patrols around here, so there's less of a risk of getting hurt from one of us. But if we're doing this, I'm coming along. I could also ask some people from the Shepards to come–"
"We literally don't know them," May said, and I could see Mom and Dad nodding in agreement. "Plus, if there are limited supplies, we're going to be forced to split it, and we'll need all the stuff that we find. If you want to take more people, take more of us, people who you can actually trust."
"They're good people," Mira said. "Even Dean, who I've argued a lot with, still wants to do what's right. We've managed to stay together, even when food is dwindling, so we can trust them, just like we did with the Coopers and look what happened."
"I agree with May," Mom said. "We need to slow down. We can't be going around and inviting strangers. It's still a dangerous world out there, even when we want it to be better."
"We just need time," Dad said. "We've already got Tim and his wife to deal with. I don't think any of us will be able to deal with another group of people, let alone people armed with guns. And we still haven't dealt with the dangerous aspect of going scavenging."
"What if we have the Coopers do the scavenging," I suggested. "We could ask them to get the materials, and it'll give them more of a stake in building the greenhouse–"
"But we'd be indebted to them," Dad replied. "And we won't have any leverage if they decide against peace."
"Well, we could always change Mr. Cooper's proposal," I rebutted. "Install solar panels and gather materials and help build the greenhouse in exchange for a food-sharing partnership from the greenhouse, so there's no debt. Anyways, they already have leverage over us since only they know how to fix the solar panels and our knowledge of gardening is our leverage over them. It all works out in the end. Dad, you just have to trust the process."
"So we're not letting them touch the garden," Dad said and looked at me.
"Yeah, I guess," I said. "That's basically the idea. We deal with the crops and they deal with the panels and materials. It's like a division of labor. With more people, we can get more stuff done."
"I think we've got a lot of ideas for the greenhouse," Mom said. "And I just want to run-down our plans for fishing before Tim arrives to install the panels. While you two were gone, we all worked together and managed to sew most of the plastic netting together. We still need to put the lures on, and it'll take a while to individually sew each one to the netting and create more, but we should be finished in around two weeks to deploy–"
"Are you sure you want to go to the ocean?" Dad asked. "It's– We shouldn't go near it, ever. The closest you should get is at the tidal line, but–"
"We're just going down two blocks on the flooded street," Mom replied. "The deeper we go, the better chance we have of catching fish. We can't just stick to the shallows"
"The deeper we go, the more dangerous it gets," Dad said. "What if the tides just suddenly decide to rush inwards. You'll be trapped, and I remember– It was– I don't want to burden anyone with what happened–"
"What happened in the Mooncrash was because no one knew that the tides would come in," Mom said. "We'll watch the tides carefully. We're going to be alright."
"Okay..." Dad said. "I just want to be there, just to make sure nothing happens."
"I don't think–" Mom said with a sigh before turning to all of us. "We'll discuss this later. Just one last important note, we'll be splitting up into two. Your dad, Neal, and Mira will be working on the greenhouse while my parents and I will work on developing the fishing. Once we finish that, they'll help grow the plants, and we'll have some other project–"
"What about me?" May asked. "It's not like I hate not doing anything, but..."
"You'll just bounce around," Mom replied. "And mostly keeping an eye out on the Coopers. I trust them, but you just never know."
"So I'm freed from sewing duty?"
"Nope," Mom said with an amused smile. "You'll still need to contribute an hour a day to at least get better at sewing. Pretty soon, we're going to need to be repairing the clothes that we have, and you'll need to know how to fix your pants. We spent a hundred dollars on them, and there's no way that I'm letting them die."
May huffed, and Mom made one last announcement. "Just before everyone disappears, I wanted to give this board a name. I don't want to call it the bulletin of ideas."
"More like a bulletin of delusions," May said. "I'm just kidding. I don't know, like calling it future stuff."
"Our goals," Dad said. "Or our priorities."
"That sounds pretty corporate," I said. "I don't know what the right word to say this is, but it's like a vision of the future. It's not really there yet, but it's, like, so close."
"What about 'The Dream?'" Mira said, condensing my idea into one simple word. "I think it captures the idea nicely."
"I think it's a beautiful name," Mom said. "Certainly better than the bulletin of ideas. I don't even know how my mind came up with that."
We laughed a bit before we heard a knock on the door, initially sending a spike of fear before all of us realized that it was just Tim. Caspian wasn't there though, probably because I think he'd want to spend more time at home with his family, so there was just more quiet energy at home, with everyone working industriously to get the solar system up as fast as possible. Tim spent most of the time disconnecting our current solar system from the now-dead grid, which took a whole day since we didn't have much safety equipment (only rubber gloves and a bicycle helmet), so he went extra slow. I'm not sure exactly what he did to disconnect the panels, but I did notice take some cardboard from our garage to cover up the panels. Anyways, we had our own complications with the panels to deal with.
Because the panels that we had grabbed were ones meant for camping over rooftop installation, they couldn't be put on the roof, so we needed to create a structure to lift the panels high enough to overcome the shadows produced by the solid fence surrounding our backyard. But that wasn't even the biggest problem, which was that we needed a clear material to cover the panels, like a container or sorts to make sure that dust didn't land on them because even though it can be washed, it's much more efficient and safe to wash the covering versus washing the panels. We'll also need to brush all the ash caked onto the panels on the roof, and de-ionize the water that we'll need to wash the solar panels on the roof by slowly gathering evaporated water. I thought that installing solar panels would be easy, but there are just so many steps to this.
I realized that I hadn't taken a look at the greenbox for a long time, so I took a small glance. The potatoes and onions seemed to be doing alright, even if they were smaller than they were supposed to be, and the peas seemed to be climbing up the sticks that were put in the cans, and I could see buds forming with a couple of flowers with some fresh peas probably in time for Thanksgiving. Still, in that box alone, there was probably enough food to feed one person for a week, at most, with heavy rationing. Feeding our whole family the mustard has taken out a third of the marked supply for consumption (since we need to gather the seeds for the next generation). After around two months of growing the food, we only just barely got three meals of food. We'll need to expand. Drastically.
Dinner was a bit quiet. We did add some ideas to the board, specifically more niche agricultural ones, should we get desperate. Mushrooms were somewhat off the table, unless they came from one of the kits, because they could be poisonous. I also suggested growing seaweed and using the liquid seaweed fertilizer to keep the water nutritious since I know that seaweed requires lots of nutrients, which May pointed out as cannibalism, but Dad shut down that idea. We'd have to go nearer to the ocean to collect fresh seaweed since the ones on the beach were rotting, and he was paranoid around the ocean. Maybe that explains why he told me to accompany Mira and Mom the time that we went to gather the rotting seaweed instead of going himself.
I almost forgot that we had to gather wood and water tomorrow, the skipping stone of my life back up from the dip of difference that was the solar panel supply run into just usual life. Yet, it feels different. There's this hope in the air that we're not only going to just make it but that we're going to find a way to mend our small slice of the world.
I just wish that this hope was here when Charles was around.
October 16
Caspian gathered water with us today.
Apparently, Mom and Dad both wanted us to do these gathering trips together. For Dad, it was mostly to keep an eye on Tim and especially Cora since her and Mom do not get along for some odd reason, and having them out gathering wood means that they're not going to be breaking into our home. Of course, if they were part of a larger group, it wouldn't matter since the rest of their members could just break in, but I think Mom and Dad have abandoned that hypothesis.
Mom really believes in the dream of creating a community, even with these obvious tensions, so for her, it's just about getting to know each other. But even then, it's to figure out how trustworthy Caspian and his family are, though I don't believe that that reasoning is fully true. Somewhere down below, Mom wants us to just have a sense of normalcy, just like her forcing us to get books for school, even though we've never touched them beyond the first few days. The past, the values and the ideas that we associate with it, are just so hard to let go, even when faced with a world that seems to demand the contrary.
Anyways, I expected Caspian to talk with Mira and May, but for some reason, he gravitated towards me.
"We're going water gathering," he said. "Definitely a downgrade from the solar panel run."
"It's nice that we won't be going to dangerous places."
"I know," he said. "I was just joking."
"I know, but I mean, we need to survive," I replied. "So I think gathering water is pretty essential. Just like gathering firewood for winter."
But right after I said that, I remembered that they didn't have any real way to gather wood or water, as far as I could see, beyond just filling their water bottles from the muddy stream and gathering large branches for tinder. Maybe Mom and Dad passed them some supplies or maybe they've got their own tools (though I doubt the latter since they've been homeless since May), but I had to know.
I added, "Are you guys good, with the firewood and water–"
"Don't worry about it," he said. "We're doing just fine."
It's at that moment that I thought about Charles because Caspian's words echoed Charles' ones so much when he assured me that everything was alright when he was starving. I know that I'm not going to lose Caspian in the same way as Charles, but I doubt watching another person's frozen corpse, still against the wall with frost encrusting their fingertips and icicles blossoming off the tips of their hair, is any better. I don't know if he's being truthful, but I decided not to press it too much because there's a part of this that could be my paranoia, and I didn't want him to further think that I over-worry about everything.
"Okay," I said before impulsively adding, "I just want to make sure that everything's, you know, alright with your family."
"Hey, we're alive here in the now," he said. "I think that's more than alright. It's probably more than alright for you, Mr. I-Think-My-Past-Is-Boring."
"That's a very long nickname," I said.
"I'll come up with something better," he replied.
We talked pretty much the whole time during the trip, except when May intercepted us during one trip back because she was bored and needed to talk to me. It was not terrible being around him, even after the trip, where we were forced to be around each other, and in all honesty, it was actually pretty nice. I mean, he spent most of the time talking while I mostly formulated the most awkward responses possible, but when you're around people who are that confident all the time, sometimes it rubs off on you. That being said, I guess something just felt off. Maybe it's my insecurities talking, but sometimes, I guess I just felt like another person that exists in his life.
I think I'm just being cynical. I haven't really made any new friends since the beginning of middle school, only friendly acquaintances who would drift away as soon as we wouldn't have to be in the same room. I guess I just lost that magic touch that most people have, where they'd just be able to walk up to another person and bond instantly. It's because of this, I feel like I value my relationships with other people more than they value their relationship with me. It's a thing that happens when you aren't good with people: you cling to those who actually want you around and ignore their faults.
I wasn't able to make it to the fifth trip to the river since my muscles still burned from the trip, and I just didn't have the energy to lug the heavy gallons of water from the creek back home, so I decided to just keep them company walking to the creek. Caspian and Mira were talking to each other in the front with May and I in the back.
"You remember when you said that I could ask for anything?" May asked.
I nodded, so she continued. "Well, I'm cashing in the favor now."
"For what?"
"I'm restarting my looting missions," May replied. "Mom and Dad are taking too long to make a decision and supplies are definitely going fast, no matter what you say about the world being empty. They've been nicer since Charles left, and all the consequences they said would happen never actually happened, so I think it's safe to start again."
"Why don't you ask them about it first?" I asked. "They're going to have to scavenge supplies soon to build the greenhouse–"
"They aren't going to let me go," May said and looked down. "They never listen to anything I say."
"Anyways, you never had a plan to re-integrate the looted supplies back into our main supply," I said. "Mom and Dad will just figure out that it came from somewhere else, and you'd get into big trouble again."
"I thought this was a no questions type of favor," she snapped back. "I have a plan, so stop worrying."
"When are you going?"
"Same as before," she said. "Evenings on Mondays and Thursdays, which Mom decided would be the second wood gathering day of the week until the deep freeze hit, when Mom, Dad, and Mira are all out. I'll just use a combo of telling them that I found some old stuff hidden in the corners of our house, stuff from the Hunters since they haven't even touched much of the stuff there, and mixing it with their loot when they actually start fighting for supplies."
"Are you starting today?"
"You're lucky that I'm not," she said. "I'm going to be very busy dealing with the old loot, which you also need to cover me for."
She then gave me a hard look into my eyes. "You better not mess up, like before. I don't really care if you think lying is wrong or whatever, but whatever happened before can't happen again. My future is at hand, all the people that I'm going to meet and the guys that I'm going to date and all the dumb high school stuff that I'm going to do if things get better, which I know won't happen, and I don't want to die because you can't cover me properly."
I do admit that I was a bit surprised with her monologue because she's really, really serious about survival, unlike the person who wasted food and pretended that the world was like before during the early days. You know, I've thought a lot about myself and Mira losing the people closest to us during the apocalypse, but I've never thought particularly deeply about the people that May has lost.
I guess it's just that she had a lot of friends that I never knew well, so there was never that massive severed connection, but a series of cuts. Maybe she's the one that lost the most out of us as her friends slowly disappeared, and maybe that's why she's so focused on survival. We know that Charles and Leon are out there somewhere and going someplace better, but she never even got that piece of closure for the majority of her friends. They were just gone.
I guess just the other reason that I'm surprised is that she's got big plans for the future. It's funny that I'm even surprised by this since everyone has dreams for the future, but at times, she's so nihilistic that I guess, it becomes easy to think that she doesn't care. I know that some of her dreams completely contradict how isolationist she is, but she's fighting for something. We're all fighting for our own private somethings.
"Fine," I said.
"Good," she said before dropping her more serious attitude into her usual one. "You're lucky that I didn't make you sew lures onto the plastic net. I've literally poked my fingers so many times that I think I'm going to get a hole in my hand."
"I don't think that's possible–" I said as she ran up towards Mira and Caspian, leaving me, the bucketless person, at the back. But that wasn't for long since Caspian drifted back, and we resumed our conversation.
When we all got back home, there wasn't much relaxing since we all went to work, except for Mira since she needed a small break because she'd be out all evening patrolling. May was forced into sewing lures onto the giant fishing net, which Grandma had spent all day doing while Grandpa took water filtration duty. The net was massive, when unfurled, probably twice the size of the living room, maybe even three times, so no wonder that it'd take so long to sew together all the pieces of garden netting, and I saw a ton of small metallic trinkets along with some miscellaneous colorful items (like badminton feathers and silly bands) lying on the ground, presumably to make the lure.
Dad said that I wasn't allowed to show Caspian how to garden, and I had no intentions of building the frame of the greenhouse since I was worried that I'd mess it up. So, instead, what we did was gather leaves for the compost bin. I added another mask layer and handed one to Caspian before he could stop me because raking the leaves up from our backyard would kick up a lot of ash.
"I'm going to jump in it," Caspian said as he gazed at our leaf pile.
"You probably shouldn't do that," I said. "You might get ash into your eyes."
"I'm doing it," he said.
"But what about all the work that we put in," I replied.
"We've got all afternoon to fix it up again," he said. "But who knows how long we're going to have to wait before the leaves come back again? It's our last chance."
"I think I'll just take a break," I said.
"C'mon, you're no fun."
I stopped in my tracks because it was the second time that he's called me that. Who knows when that's what he only knows me by, the un-fun guy? I didn't really know how to respond, so I just tried playing it off. "Yeah, that's me."
But I think I let too much hurt out because he then responded by saying, "I was just teasing–"
"It's alright," I said a bit too curtly as I sat down to look at him, and for a couple of seconds, he seemed almost flustered before he swore and replied, "I'm sorry if I messed things up. Sometimes, I can push people's buttons too much."
"It's really fine," I said. "I'm, you know, owning up to my reputation. Mr. Un-Fun-Guy."
"Naw," he said. "You're a fun-guy. Get it, fungi?"
"So you think I'm a parasitic organism that likes to feed on dead and dying things?" I said with a bit of a smile.
"You know that's not what I meant," he said. "Now you're just messing with me bro."
And then ensued a very one-sided fallen leaves fight that mostly consisted of him throwing leaves at me, coaxing me to have fun, while I just sat down and didn't do anything. It was this fun, annoying each other kind of thing, and for just a brief moment, he reminded me of Charles, always pushing me to be more, except that Charles would never say "bro."
We harvested another batch of mustard for dinner, but there was a more muted enthusiasm since everyone was completely exhausted by supply gathering trips. All we mustered the energy to talk about were some light plans about tomorrow, beginning building the framework of the greenhouse and continuing the fishing net. Mira kinda found a way to lift the solar panels above the fence by stacking a cabinet on top of a fruit cart and then gluing a large piece of plywood on top so that it could support more panels. It also has the benefit of being mobile, so that we can shift it during the evenings, when the sun is setting in the west. We're planning to test it out tomorrow, but it seems like a good idea.
Everyone checked out pretty early, except for Mira and I, and we stared at the fire until we heard everyone softly snoring, which is when she asked, "What was that thing you wanted to tell me a couple days back?"
"When we were on a hill, we saw clumps of lights in the neighborhoods," I said. "They have to be coming from lights in the people's homes, and because they're so close together, there must be people out there, forming communities."
"Really?"
"Yeah," I replied. "It's possible, you know, to build a community. It's real."
"Maybe, once our community gets big enough, we'll be able to make contact with them," Mira said. "We could trade food, supplies, and knowledge and put our skills together to rebuild infrastructure. We could set up a sanctuary here in the west for everyone. There's too many possibilities..."
She seemed to trail off and that burst of joy was replaced with uncertainty on her face. I asked, "Something wrong?"
She sighed. "It's just that– I feel like everyone looks at me for being naive. I know that there's a danger out there, and I know that it's a risk to put people together because if the community implodes, we're all gone. But we can't be guided by fear. There's more people out there that want to make this work than those who want to destroy what we'll build."
"I'm– I'm thinking about quitting the night patrol," she added.
"Why?"
"It's just, I feel like I'm becoming disillusioned by them," she said. "Dean's not the only one suspicious outsiders. Even though we're a small community, most of them see it as just a security team and not a building block into something bigger. I like the idea of protecting people, and I like the hope that I think I'm giving people, but I want to focus on building up the community."
"What about when you suggested to everyone to bring the Shepards and their group along to gather supplies?"
"I wanted to show the patrol that we're building something bigger," she said with another long sigh. "I've been a bit of a hypocrite because I haven't told them about our plans for building something bigger, and part of it has to do with the fact that I need something concrete to show them to show that it's possible. I'm not doing a great job building community there, to be honest, and plus, like you and Dad said, the world out there is just so empty that I'm wondering if there's any actual threat out there anymore and that we're just pretending to protect other people to feel better about ourselves."
It's at that moment that I realized that the lie that I made to protect her dream had backfired badly because she got the impression that there were no bandits out there, at least not yet, even though we were nearly caught. But the truth would destroy the dream. I know that she's not fragile and that she could probably handle this setback, but I can't be the one to ruin the hope. There was a better way forward.
"I know that I don't like guns, but I think that you should stay on the patrol," I replied, and I could see her eyes widened in shock. "You remember that time when the people with the guns arrived at the plaza during the middle of the ash storm?"
She nodded. "It was one of the scariest moments of my life."
"There were only two security guards with nothing but pistols," I said. "The people could've chosen to come in to kill us all and take the food, but they chose not to. We've only got one life, and when confronted with even the possibility of death, people shy away from risk. Even though those guards were far outnumbered, there was still a possibility that they could land a killing blow and that's it, so they moved onto less defended areas because life isn't a video game, you know. There's basically no second chances when it comes to death."
"I guess what I'm saying is that the impression of protection is what protects communities," I continued. "Maybe that's what would've stopped the couple from dying, just having some vague order. And anyways, we're going to need some muscle to protect the community, even if we're opening it to everyone who wants to join. I think it's important to stay there. It might not seem like you're doing a lot of good, but these less tangible resources are as important as the greenhouse or the fishing net, if that makes sense."
"Yeah, I think I'm staying, then. We've got to make sacrifices for the dream," she said before turning to me. "What's your dream?"
"I don't really know," I said. "I haven't thought too much about it."
"Don't feel pressured," she said. "Anyways, I feel like we've been talking too much about heavy subjects. How are things with Caspian going?"
"What do you mean?"
"Something's changed," she said. "You two are talking all the time now."
"He's alright," I said with a shrug. "He just really likes to talk."
"It's good that you're making a new friend–"
"He's not my friend," I said. "At least not yet. We're just mostly talking about stuff that happened on the trip anyways."
Mira gave me that look that can only be described as a sarcastic "Totally" before leaving me to go to sleep. But I'm not kidding when I can't describe Caspian as a friend. It's not a bad thing, but you can't seriously call someone you've just casually talked with for less than a week a friend, more like a friendly acquaintance. Maybe this is how I've had my life dominated with many friendly acquaintances but very few friends, but whatever I have with Caspian isn't even close to what I have with Charles.
But I think what's bugging me more now is when Mira asked me about what my dream is. Obviously I want the community to succeed, but I realize that I haven't gotten anything more than that. I guess before Charles had been forced to leave that pretty much every future of mine had him in there, in one form or another, because it's hard, and still is, to imagine a future that explicitly excludes my only friend. Once he left, I was just so angry that I must've just forgotten the reason that I had snuck him food for two months: to make sure that we had a future.
Now, I guess I'll have to think about it more because all my old dreams have been scrambled. Mira and May have both figured out what they want. I think it's time that I actually figured out what I'm fighting for deeply, the things that I would lose if everything crumbled to dust.
October 17
We (mostly) have the framework for the greenhouse done.
In the morning, though, we had to clear out the space for the greenhouse and Tim needed some help removing the ash from the solar panels on the roof, so that he could test their effectiveness. Mom and Dad prohibited all of us from helping, and they double-decked in masks as they dusted the roof and swept the ash away to reveal the cracked soil. In the meantime, the rest of us were sent onto either net sewing duty (May and grandparents) or the painful work of gathering steam to make deionized water (Mira and I).
What we ended up doing was placing a tilted baking sheet over a pot of boiling water on the fire and gathering the water dripping from the edges of the sheet, as water flowed down the slope, into a cup. It was slow and painful, and we were only able to gather maybe 2-3 mugs of water in the morning, barely enough to clean our mucky panels on the roof. I think we gathered maybe a third of a gallon across the day, probably a bit more, from a gallon of boiled water, which definitely felt like a waste.
The afternoon is when much of the construction of the greenhouse began. We managed to deconstruct the frame in the garage and build it back up in the backyard, and it seemed relatively stable, even if it was a bit rickety when the gusts picked up. Dad and Mira also set up the canopy frames and ripped off the tarp on top to be used on the floor, possibly as a sort-of cover.
It was an oddly quiet day, despite being very busy, maybe because Caspian stayed at home. We've just returned to life as usual, the quiet, humble life of living right now, even as our loftier ambitions hung above us, watching us as we slept. The fireplace lights seemed warmer than usual, and there was this coziness present, flickering with hope.
"You want to sleep earlier?" Mira asked. "I'm not feeling tired."
"I'm fine," I said and stared at the board. "What do you think we're going to be adding to the board next?"
"Oh, I don't know," she said. "Water filtration, maybe? I can't imagine grandma and grandma enjoy having to hand-sift through so much water. Just more and more greenhouse aspects– we can never have enough food."
"I guess," I said. "Like what would you put on the board, just for yourself, you know?"
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe some community events or games for when we've set everything up. It'd be good for bonding, and now, I have the time to try out all the board games in the massive stores."
We shared a small laugh before the conversation became more serious.
"And sometimes..." she said, her words drifting off a bit as she stared at the ring on her finger. "I do wish that Leon would come back."
"I do miss his jokes," I replied. "Even if they were cheesy."
"Yeah," Mira said and nodded. "I miss him a lot, more than I miss the internet or electricity."
"So then why only sometimes?"
"Because I know it's an impossible dream," Mira replied, and I was a bit surprised because she had adopted a can-do attitude. "And it's not in my control, not anymore. I try to not think about an alternate future where he and his family stayed behind to help build up because it's too painful. The best that we can do is to make sure that no one has to lose anyone anymore. For Mom and Dad, the stakes are just our family, but for me, I'm thinking bigger. I mean, that's the whole point of the Dream here, to throw our wildest and most ambitious ideas onto the board and work on them until they become real."
"What about you?" she asked. "With–"
"I haven't really thought about it," I said. "It's just something that I've been wondering about."
"You and Dad are so similar. You guys just need to let everything ugly out," she said. "There's no shame in just being open with all the anger or fear or sadness. I'm here for you, and I'm not going to judge you for anything you say because I understand."
"Yeah, I'll think about it," I said and that basically ended the conversation.
Frankly, I shouldn't have pushed that question onto Mira, and I don't even know I went in that direction. Her response about all the what ifs and alternative universes isn't soothing my thoughts and the regret is bubbling in my mind. But like she said, I can't think like this because there are no do-overs, but my goodness, do I wish that was possible–
Okay, I'm definitely getting lost in my thoughts. I think I'm going to go to sleep early so that hopefully, whatever I'm feeling just fades away into the far, far distance.
October 18
We were snowed in today. Thank goodness that Caspian's dad had the brilliant idea to cover the one panel that he managed to clean up with plastic wrapping from the kitchen, so we didn't lose progress on that panel. But the area inside the frame of the greenhouse will need to be swept again, which will waste half a day, at the very least since the dust kicked up will need to settle again. Because most of the work on the solar system needed to be done outside, the Coopers didn't come today, leaving the rest of us by ourselves.
However, today wasn't a total waste. Mom, May, Grandma, and Grandpa were all collectively fed up with sewing the nets, so our whole family, instead, worked on creating potting soil to put in the cans that were piling up in the corner of our house.
"Anyone know how much of each we need to mix?" Mom asked.
"Aren't your parents the gardening experts," May replied. "Why are you asking us? We should just get normal potting soil instead of messing up while making our own."
"Because we need to learn self-sufficiency," Dad said. "And most of the potting soil would be taken by now."
"What about digging the garden soil up?" Mira asked.
"Too dry and frozen over," Mom replied. "We could try the soil near the creek, but I don't want to contaminate the soil with any insects."
"How many do you think that we'd be able to make with the peat moss that we have?" I asked. "If we do 50% peat moss and 50% everything else."
"Maybe 100 to 150 cans," Mom said. "200 if we really stretch it, but I doubt that would cover everyone. Each person would need to eat at least three cans worth of food per day if we'd want to maintain our strength, and we'd need to save at least a fifth of the cans to collect seeds, so we'd run out of food in less than a week."
"Mom, your math is completely off," May said. "That's not possible. We can't be losing food that fast."
"We've still got a lot of food stored up," Dad said. "We don't need to panic–"
"Yeah we do," May said. "We need to do something because whatever we're doing right now, it's not working."
"Couldn't we try growing plants without soil," I said. "We did that in, like, third grade with a pea plant on a floating styrofoam tray on top of water. There's no soil needed, and I think it'd work with everything except for any root vegetables. The only issue is that we'd need tons and tons of jars and seeds too."
"Let me find the seeds," Mira said before standing up. "I bought a whole bunch on our supply run that we could use."
"Go do that," Mom said as Mira dashed off before turning to the rest of us. "The water based idea sounds interesting. It might even help keep the greenhouse warmer. But since it's untested, what we do now is start creating the potting mix."
No one had any clue where to start, even Grandma and Grandpa since they didn't really work with potting soil and mostly used chicken manure as their fertilizer, something that we didn't have. All I knew is that the soil is supposed to be fluffy and aerated well, but I didn't particularly know how to make the potting soil like that. So, in the end, we just made our best guess for the ratios.
It ended up being a 3:1:1:1 ratio, with 3 parts of peat moss to one parts sand (from a couple of sand bags that Dad bought when he had panicked about flooding during the drought-breaking winter storms) to one part leaves and wood chip mulch to one part kelp fertilizer and wood ash. We then formed a factory line, with Mom and Mira in front using a sharpie to mark the inside of the can with lines to show how much material we should put in all the way to Grandpa at the back mixing up the soil. I had to crunch up leaves and put a small amount of wood chips in the can, and even though it was boring, we ended up filling all the cans by mid-afternoon.
Mira ended up finding the seeds that she bought. It wasn't a massive haul, only a bit more than twenty seed packets. The tomato and bell pepper ones were useless since they needed warm weather, leaving us with a measly thirteen seed packets. Luckily, there were some hardier ones in the mixture, with a packet of broccoli, spinach, and kale along with two lettuce ones. We also got a variety of root vegetables, with one packet of carrot, radish, turnip, and beet on top of some bok choy, arugula seed, and cucumber. For some reason, there were pumpkin seeds.
"I was saving this for Halloween," she said. "Maybe next year. I should've bought more seeds for everything instead of going for the flats."
"It's not your fault," Mom said. "We all didn't know this would happen."
It's not looking good at all to be honest. What we have may look like a massive haul, but each seed packet has an average of somewhere between twenty to thirty seeds, and assuming that most of them survive, we've only got three hundred or so cans that we could fill. We'll need to be growing at least a thousand cans of food at all moments just to be able to barely survive, and that's just for the nine of us here. We still have lots of dried peas and beans along with some other seeds, like mustard and chia, but we'll be taking out of our already meager food supply. If we expand our community, we'll have to drastically ramp up production. It's at that moment that I truly understood May's panic because we won't have enough, not in the long term, and just for a flickering moment, I understood Dad's fears of widening our community.
"We've got to scavenge," May said while we were eating dinner. "We don't have enough stuff to make the greenhouse work, and I think you guys all know it."
For a second, no one said anything, but then Mira chimed in. "As long as we're not taking from people's homes, I'd second this. It's our only option if we're going to make this situation work in the long run."
"I third it," I added. "We just need more seeds, more containers, more jars, clear tarp, and so much more."
Everyone was now looking at Mom and Dad, who were the only two people that hadn't said anything. Finally, Mom opened her mouth and said, "I'd agree. I think it's time to make this change. Most of the food out there has been picked clean, at least judging from the Hunters' home, and this is our only opportunity to have our own food supply."
Then, the eyes shifted to Dad, who looked defensive, as he said, "If you all are in agreement, then why do you need my opinion?"
"We want to present a unified front," Mom said. "That means that I want all of us to be on the same page."
"I just–" Dad replied with a sigh. "I just don't want us to lose track of who we are, to lose us and–"
"We'll lose everything if we don't–"
"I know," Dad said. "I know. I get it. It's just that when I went on the trip to get the solar panels, I saw houses, not with just one window smashed in but with all the windows shattered. One is relatively sensible but once you get more than that, the windows aren't being broken with purpose but just for fun."
"But we're different than that," Mom said. "We're a family, and we've got good values. None of us would go around smashing windows just for fun."
"It's more than that," Dad insisted. "Going out on the trip, it was exciting, like an adrenaline-filled high. It was this addictive feeling, even at the lowest moments, and going back to our more mundane and most importantly, safe, home, it's like I want to go back out."
"That's what I'm most afraid of," Dad continued. "That raiding homes will be too addictive to stop and that we'll succumb to this hedonistic lifestyle where nothing meaningful matters. I'm sure that there are families out there that have become raiders because it's one of the only ways to feel good, and I don't want that for us. I want us to build up because we'll have a life that actually has meaning."
Mom nodded for a bit before saying, "That's the whole reason that we have the Dream up there. This is what we're fighting for, what we're building towards, what we'll scavenge resources for. It's why I put it up there: to remind us what we have to lose if we give it all up."
"What about compromise," Mira said. "We rotate scavenging shifts so that no one person does it for too long."
"That would work," Dad said before adding. "It's a good idea."
"So are you on-board?" Mom asked.
"I've got your back," Dad replied and the subtle tension that had been lingering for the longest time finally faded away, just a bit.
We didn't push the topic of scavenging too hard since it's still a delicate subject, but we did add more to the Dream. My idea for hydroponics got put under the agriculture section while we added a new category for scavenging, and even though the board was still mostly empty, it was slowly filling up with ideas, one day after another, like a patchwork of ideas being quilted together. One day, I can even imagine the board being filled up, newest words squiggling between the older ones and turning sideways as we try to cram all of our ideas into one space, the board transforming into this symbol of resiliency.
But that's assuming that we even make it that far into the future. It looks so bleak right now, especially since we're starting our greenhouse near the winter, not during the warmer spring or summer months, because we've got no more options. I looked into the closet, where we relocated our food, and there just isn't much left, maybe enough for two or three months, just barely enough time to get the first batch of food from the greenhouse. We're probably going to be out by my birthday.
It seems so much easier to just grab a car and run to the South, and sometimes, the fantasy of just leaving this forsaken wasteland and just chasing a faraway hope seems tempting. But I can't do that and abandon the people that remain here. I feel so angry right now, angry at Charles leaving and angry at life for delivering the hope at our doorsteps a couple of days late. If he just stayed for longer or if I hadn't gotten caught or if Dad hadn't exploded and ruined–
I'm going to stop writing here. I'm just opening up old wounds when I need to move forwards. I've got to find my own dreams now that he's gone.
October 19
The ashfall stopped mid-afternoon, hopefully ending the storm hovering above us.
The morning was spent mostly brainstorming ideas. We threw out so many ideas that May, who was the scribe since Mom thinks she has the nicest handwriting, at one point told us to stop so that she could catch up. We ended up filling a whole piece of paper with ideas, which May and Mom sorted out in the afternoon, even with May's small handwriting.
In the beginning, we mostly focused on reach items: valuable supplies like soil, fertilizer, canned goods, dried foods, bottled water, and solar powered devices that were likely unobtainable since they'd have been snatched up in an instant.
"We need to get more creative," Mom said. "Let's focus on actually realistic options."
"We'll need the clear tarp for the greenhouse," I replied. "And tons of more jars, like mason ones or anything glass or ceramic or even plastic, for the hydroponics. More trays too, to hold the plants, and just more containers in general."
"The giant plastic buckets too," Mira added. "The hardware stores should have them. People would've grabbed the wood and tools, but I don't think anyone thought about the buckets. Also, more seeds. We can try our luck since the packets are small and some of them may have slipped underneath the shelves."
"Wait," May said and looked at me. "Didn't you do that weird gardening thing?"
"Yeah," I said before remembering the shed. "There are tons of supplies in the shed, I think. The lock is broken, but I'm pretty sure that there's fertilizer in there–"
"Well that's good," May said. "But what I was thinking is that a bunch of the plants in the community garden just died because of the whole volcano thing, right? But they probably produced fruit and stuff, so we could just dig up the dried up fruit corpses and get seeds from them."
"Now that's what I'm talking about with creativity," Mom said before adding. "I was also thinking, we need to insulate the greenhouses, and I doubt that there are any professional insulators out there, so what I was thinking are pool supplies since they are all made out of styrofoam."
"We could use the water boards," Dad said, and we all looked at him with a bit of surprise. "Or foam mats, like the ones found in fitness stores. We could line the floor of the greenhouse with it and some of the walls to stop heat loss."
"Don't forget about duct tape," I added. "We're–"
"Did you just say duck tape?" May said, interrupting me.
"I said duct tape," I replied.
"Totally," she said, rolling her eyes. "We're going to need a lot of art stuff too, like scissors, string, yarn, the metal string, glue, markers, normal tape, and like a whole bunch of other stuff. You know, now that you guys are finally listening to me, we can, you know, actually get stuff done."
"We'll also need aluminum foil," Mira added. "And a dark tarp so that we can cover the greenhouse at night–"
"To make sure no one spots our house," Dad said. "It'll also keep the light in the greenhouse so that we don't waste more resources."
"Because we've got so many ideas, we should start prioritizing what we need right now and what we can get later," Mom replied.
What we ended up forming were four categories. The highest priority were materials for the greenhouse, specifically the tarping, the insulation, containers for plants, and more tape. We made the reach items a lesser priority because even though they were extremely important, it's unlikely that many would be left and things like fertilizers are just so heavy to carry around. The third priority ended up just being general supplies for the future along with somewhat useful stuff while the last category was just filled with "for-fun" things that could be traded or have very niche uses, like cosmetics or board games, for instance.
We also determined what stores that we were going to hit. Mom and Dad wanted to steer clear of giant supermarkets and any places that could have a significant amount of food or medicine since those would be popular amongst the desperate and could be trapped or something. We ended up choosing two plazas, the safer one with the art store and nursery and the more risky one with the supply store and pool supplies that is surrounded by two massive supermarkets, which is just practically begging for confrontation. Dad was hesitant on sending two missions since we were supposed to go on rotating shifts, but Mom convinced him that this was a one time thing because of how important it was.
"Neal and you will be going on the trip to the art store," Mom said, looking at me and Dad. "Mira and I will take the supply store–"
"Let me take the supply store," Dad said. "It's not safe to have two women together and outside–"
"We'll be bringing Tim," Mom said. "We'll be fine. He'd know what supplies we'd need, and I want to talk to him more to understand them better, especially since his wife and I didn't get off on the right foot."
"You can take Tim with you to the art stores," Dad said. "You're needed more here. I can't speak Chinese, so I won't be able to communicate with your parents, and without them, the greenhouse wouldn't work."
Mom sighed. "It's just... Can we talk in private?"
"I know that the store is near the ocean if that's what you're worried about," Dad said. "I'm alright around it. Hell, I'm itching to go see the sea again. Whatever happened on the day happened in such a blur that I can barely remember."
But no one believed him because Dad had that wild look in his eye, and we'd all heard his opposition to the nets and how he mentioned that he couldn't forget what had happened. I don't know why Dad all of a sudden wants to go to the ocean just to prove that he's not scared of anything. I don't even know why Dad always wants to be the most fearless person in the room. All this incident showed was Dad's strong and solemn exterior cracking, as if the sea was battering him into sand.
"I think it's better if we keep things the way that they are," Mom said. "We cannot afford failure, not for the greenhouse."
"I can handle it," Dad said. "I'm not some fragile–"
"And I'm not some fragile thing," Mom shot back. "You still need time. You already biked across the world for the panels, so you don't need to go out again to someplace dangerous for you. It takes time and space to get over it, and you'll need to figure out some way to overcome it, but not when our future is at stake."
"If you go this time, I'm going next time," Dad replied.
"Fine," Mom said. "We should've discussed this privately."
Dad was going to say something, but May managed to cut him off, "I enjoyed the drama. But more importantly, when am I going to go out because I noticed you said everyone else's name but mine, and I just want to remind you that I am the only one with perfect eyesight."
Mom sighed and said, "You'll be staying home with–"
"Seriously? Again," May replied. "I literally never get to do anything fun–"
"That's why you aren't going out. You aren't old enough to realize that what we're doing isn't fun. It's dangerous, and it's what we have to do–"
"Dad literally said that it was fun when we went on his rant," May said. "And, like, I know that it's dangerous, but, like, what I mean is that I have to just sew nets while you guys actually go out into the world and do real things–"
"Sewing nets is useful," Mom said. "We're getting one step closer towards the dream. And it's a useful skill to have. Don't you want to make sure that your pants last forever."
"It's–" May said and muttered. "Whatever."
"Why don't we just take her out once?" Mira suggested. "We can't keep her sheltered forever, and scavenging could be a useful skill."
"We can't let her get sucked into this lifestyle," Dad said and that was pretty much the end of the conversation with May glaring directly at me, letting me know that my suggestion to ask them had failed miserably and that she was soon going to embark on her own scavenging mission, dangerously alone.
Part of me just wants to tell Mom and Dad the truth because May's putting her life at risk, and if she gets hurt or worse, I'd feel so guilty about it because I could've stopped her from doing her solo missions. But at the same time, I do feel like I owe this to her because it was her scavenging that got us the axe and the solar panels and because she was the reason that Charles and I were able to plan out our last day.
I feel like I've been a pretty shoddy brother to her, throwing her to the wolves when Mom and Dad confronted us because of my inability to tell the truth, and I don't want to inflame any of the tensions between anyone, so doing this in secret is the best option. But I don't know. Maybe this is just me trying to convince myself to go through with her objectively bad idea, one that could put all of us at risk.
When Caspian came over with his dad to help build the greenhouse, I think he noticed this tension while we were wiping down the ash from the frame using wet towels when he said, "You seem more tense than usual. What's up?"
That just made me tense up even more. I cannot express how much I hate the question "What's up?" because I still haven't figured out a good way to respond to it since I doubt that the answer is the sky or the ceiling or whatever is above you at that moment. I know that it's such a tiny problem in the grander scheme of the world, but it's like my anxiety spikes when that question pops up, often frequently in my previous life. Thinking about it now, maybe the reason that I had an inability to make friends was all because I couldn't answer that one simple, social question.
"I mean, nothing much, really," I said before realizing that we were doing something right now. "Just wiping down metal bars."
"I'm serious," he said. "You seem tense all the time."
"I don't think so," I replied.
"You are," he said. "It's like–"
"I mean we should be pretty stressed out all the time," I said. "Like the whole world is, you know, ending, even when we're having fun playing board games or something."
That was somewhat a lie. Maybe my revelation about how little time and food we have left to construct and operate the greenhouse worried me, and May's scavenging plan, rebirthed alongside my need to constantly lie and cover for her, as if we hadn't learned a thing from our failures, was a major problem. But that wasn't the issue here.
I just feel so pressured to act normal around Caspian that I can't be more of myself, and after the time when I told him about the friend that loved Lady Gaga and ended up being gay, which sounds terrible in retrospect for being a gay stereotype, I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. I'm probably overthinking this and that he just forgot about that embarrassing thing that I said, but I still don't know.
If I was with Charles, I'd probably sarcastically respond with the sky or something and confront him about the definition of that phrase, but I just feel too insecure to do that around Caspian. I like being around him, and I like the way that he makes me feel when I'm around him because he's so confident all the time, except in those moments where he glimpses the past. But I can't be the self that I show to others, much less my true self because I just don't know him well enough. I just don't want to lose the only person in the world left because I'm too weird.
That's the issue with blank slates: the emptiness they provide is devoid of the rich history of the past.
"You just need to relax a bit," he said. "I don't want to see you die of a heart attack next week. You know what you should try: meditation."
"Meditation?"
"Meditation," he said, and I furrowed my eyebrows because it just seemed so random. "I know you seem skeptical about it, but here's my pitch. If the world is ending, don't you want to spend your last moments not panicking but calm and collected–"
"Not really," I replied. "It'd seem kinda weird. Anyways, I'm not really into the whole meditation thing–"
"Woah, hold on," he said. "Meditation thing?"
"Yeah," I said. "I mean I've tried it in PE, but, like, it's just mostly because the teachers are forcing us to do it. It doesn't really work, and it just feels kinda fake."
"You've been doing it wrong," he said. "Meditation, it's like reading in a way, an escape into another world. It's how you focus on the present, the here and right now. It's like emptying your mind to allow you to focus on what matters."
"I don't really know..." I said.
"Try it with me," Caspian said.
"We have to work on the greenhouse," I said. "We still need to tape the bamboo staffs to the canopy frame to give it extra support and lay down the tarp on the bottom–"
"It'll be a quick thirty second breathing exercise," he said before guiding me towards the porch to sit down. Dad was inside, searching for more long, skinny stick-like objects that we could use to support the frame of the greenhouse without blocking out too much of the light, which left Caspian and I sitting alone outside.
"Was this something you did for volleyball?" I asked.
"I started doing it around the same time," he said. "It's fun doing sports, but it can get stressful at times, especially around the playoffs and conference finals. And with all the chaos happening right now, it's helped keep me in the present and my mind fresh. Also, I have to say that I've gotten good at this lately."
"How do you get good at–"
"I see you stalling," he said, and I could detect a hint of a smile underneath his mask. "Just give it a try. For me."
"Okay," I said and closed my eyes, as he said, "We're going to do a short breathing exercise, just five deep in and out breaths."
As he counted down, I somewhat tried to follow him, to let my mind's worries empty out in order to bring forth a fresh new perspective, but all closing my eyes did was clutter my mind with more things, specifically Caspian things. I could feel the heat of his breath, much warmer than the surrounding air, just barely brush my cheek, and I could feel his jacket brushing up against mine with him far too close for me to feel normal. It would've been embarrassing to see him see me that flustered, even if the wind chill and mask covered most of my blush, so I scooched away from him sometime in between breaths.
When he opened his eyes, he said, "My breath smelled that bad, huh?"
"No," I said. "I just needed some space, you know, to help get rid of my worries."
"Did it work?" he asked. "Or at least help a little."
"Not really," I replied. "I guess our brains are just wired differently, you know. It's like we have different ways of dealing with stress."
"Thanks for trying, at least," he said and put his hand on my shoulder, shaking it just briefly. For the first time, I didn't instinctually flinch away from his touch, and once we stood up, we continued strengthening the framework of the greenhouse, building up our future one bamboo stick at a time.
Dinner was pretty quiet today. We ate the last of the mustard while Mom and Dad decided that we were going to go scavenging early Sunday because even though our area doesn't have a ton of religious people, it could still make a difference. May is probably going out to scavenge tomorrow since Mom and Dad are planning to gather more and more wood, so it's going to be an empty day tomorrow.
Maybe that's a good thing because it gives me time to think about what Caspian said about meditation. I think it's almost frustratingly apparent that he lost multiple people close to him when the tides slammed into his neighborhood on the night of the Mooncrash because he's always tip-toed around the past, and we've almost never discussed the specifics of our post-Mooncrash, pre-meet up lives.
I think the reason he does meditation is to forget about what has happened. I guess I know this because of his reasoning, where he mentions that he meditates to stay in the present and refresh himself, as if he's trying to prevent thoughts of the past from straying into his mind. And maybe that's why I can't meditate, at least not in the way that he does it, because I can't let go of the past since there's hope for Charles, a tiny, little glimmer that he'll be doing well in the South. He's not dead in real life because that's just what has to happen.
But in all honesty, I think that I just lied to myself about Charles and the reason that I don't let go of the past. I just can't seem to let go of people because I've never had that many people in my life. Even when the fading memory of Charles is haunting me, I'm just clinging onto something, I guess in the same way that Caspian is attempting to forget the past or Dad is trying to appear stronger than he actually feels. We're just bad at dealing with what's hurting us on the inside.
In some ways, the letter from Charles is what's hurting me on the inside because it feels like a product of hopelessness. It's like a declaration that we're never going to meet again, that there is no hope of us meeting up twenty years in the future for that camping trip that we had joked about in Wyoming or Montana or someplace in the middle of nowhere. I want to have hope, and I just want to believe so hard and hope so badly that everything just works out. But I know that that's not hope, just complete delusion, so I guess I've settled on what I'm dreaming about and what I want to fight for.
Maybe it's not big news, but I want to fight for other people, kinda like Mira, because I've just been so selfish focusing on my own problems even though other people are suffering out there. At least I was afforded the dignity of not watching my best friend (or family) slowly wither away into a skeletal mass of a person or be forced to abandon morality and their soul to satiate their starvation. It's like I think my problems are the end of the world, but in reality, it's not something real and tangible like starvation or hypothermia, even if, in my head, it does feel real. But that's what it is: in my head.
I guess I also just want Caspian to be happy. I guess I'd want something to happen between me and Caspian, but I know that it's not destined to happen and that making fantasies about real people is immoral because they're not made up in my mind. I just hope that whatever it is that's haunting him that he finds a way through because he seems like a better person than me, and he deserves not to be saddled with pain that I doubt was even his fault.
But I'm also fighting for you, Charles. Someday, in the future when people in the South return northwards to begin recolonization, you'll find my journal, and even though my journal has a giant "Do Not Open," I know that you'll open it to read it. I just want to let you know that I've finally started figuring out what I want for the future, something I'm sure that your pre-Mooncrash self would've greatly appreciated.
I want to make sure that our community becomes so prosperous and so bountiful that you'll be able to come back so that we can have our camping trip and all the other stuff that we'd normally do in the missed time. I want to make sure that when I open your letter, that I know that there is hope that we'll find each other.
But maybe by the time that the dream happens, you'll have moved on with a better life and that's alright. I just wish that I could send all of this to you in that magical bottle so that you'd know that no matter what you wrote in that letter, no matter how terrible your confession was, that you had a positive impact on my life.
And that's all that matters.