White male, 72, northeastern Kansas, United States. Recorded Dec. 12, 2038.
The big shots on Wall Street started getting freaked out well before that, you know, and then it was the crash, the Great Compression. Luckily, they kept me on at the University (see, on paper there was still tenure – and still courts), even though the – what? – 200 or so of us left, with maybe 15 departments – were teaching 5 courses a semester, even with the student numbers way down. And the pay cuts. But most of the neighbors couldn’t find work – they looked at me a little funny, when I saw them. I guess a few still have gardens and collect rainwater. People started driving a little less than they had because they couldn’t afford it, which is nice, I guess; but of course it didn’t help us. I tried to get everybody in the neighborhood to pull together, start finding new hardy plants to grow for food, chip in on a water well, even form a little self-defense group. People seemed agreeable for a while, but nothing much came of any of it. People still like their privacy and independence, I guess. I just hope they know what they’re doing. Let’s see – what else? Like most everybody, we had to close off the downstairs of our house because of the New Floods at the start of the 2030s. But the smell is still bad, from the ones that got in, don’t you know; especially from March-December, when it’s hottest. Fortunately, dengue is still fairly isolated in the southeast of the state, but right afterwards, when there’s still standing water, it can get dicey. And of course, it’s spreading north. When the turbine worked and we had connectivity, I’d get on Nextdoor to find out what was going on. Neither the Proud Boys or the Land Sharks had moved into the neighborhood yet, though some newbies and hangers-on shook down a few people a little bit for money, water, gas. As long as we don’t get caught in the middle of one of their fights we’re generally OK. What could we do? Move to higher ground? And do what – build our own house on some abandoned land? The hills camps on the hills are getting crowded, and it still floods in the wet season & bakes you in the hot. Nobody would buy this land even if they had the money for it. We’re not going to start walking north like all the others: shit, I’m past 70 and my wife’s well into her 60s. We’re in pretty good shape – we can walk a long way; but – could we make it to Canada in this heat? We’d definitely have to have a lot of water, and even if we could get it, we couldn’t carry it all. And if we carried cash, we’d get robbed, for sure. And a lot of migrants get caught in the floods, when they’re not dying of thirst. I don’t think we could do it. I feel sorry for the younger people who came in from the coasts and from the burned-over districts out west – some of them were just starting out, with families . . . We tried putting some of them up. Two of the families were just lovely, very grateful, willing to help out a little around the house. But the guy in that third group – I think he must have been on something – things got ugly, and it was a hell of a thing to get them out. And now the others have moved on. Maybe we’ll just check out. That might be best for everybody – we’d be out of this mess and it’d leave more food & water for the young people. But wouldn’t that mean giving up – not just on us, but on all of us? I was a professor of the humanities (which now sounds a little ironic to say nowadays), so can I give up on humanity? Shouldn’t we stick around as long as we can to try to do what we can for whomever we can? Hell, I don’t know. I wonder if people had known how bad things would get, if they would’ve done different. Knowing people like I do now? Prob'ly not.
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June 2021
Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |