Chapter 25 — Fall
A serial novel in the form of correspondence among a family while the world as we know it collapses around us. I recommend you start at the Introduction:
https://readmedium.com/climate-for-change-introduction-5331d5ab9313
But you can start anywhere you want.
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Chapter 25 — Fall
Handwritten or printed on computer paper (delivered back and forth by Charlie):
Dear Mom and Mel and Grandma and Grandpa,
It has been months since I was last able to write. Charlie was just gone one day, and after that we didn’t have pens and paper or any means of getting a letter to you. I am starting to understand how cultures developed complicated oral histories before writing was developed. We have been keeping a history of the camp in our cabin. We tell the same stories every week about the people who have died or been transferred. We say their names and talk about important things they did.
We have been tracking the days and months by making hash marks in a spot behind one of the beds. By our count, Jeremy I have been here almost a year. We are the old timers.
It is cold again. We have started to have frosty mornings, but the prison director has not authorized fire in the wood stove yet. After last winter, they are cautious about running out of firewood again.
The days have been the same. Day after day we go out on a work crew in the morning and then hang out in the afternoon and then have school and storytelling in the evening. Day after day we complain about the food and the lack of it. Day after day we have re-education sessions where we learn about General Stewart and his vision for a New State. Stewart has promised to bring a better life to the Upper Midwest. Blah, blah, blah.
Jeremy and I haven’t heard from Daisy at all since Charlie left. We have not heard of anyone leaving our camp, so we must assume that she is still in her camp. None of us have been formally charged with a crime or sentenced, and it seems like Stewart has no plans to let any of us out. We wonder sometimes why we are being kept here for “re-education,” if none of us are ever going to go back to society. It is dangerous to think about that too much, because the alternative to re-education would probably be death. We stay in line, but we continue to plot resistance at night in hushed voices after lights out.
We heard gunshots yesterday. I was scared that someone else had been shot trying to escape, but it was a guard who shot a deer that had gotten stuck in the razor wire barrier that goes around the camp. It was a big buck, with 12 points on the rack. Prisoners were sent out the bring it back. We had venison stew today at lunch, with potatoes and onions and carrots. I almost felt like I wasn’t hungry this afternoon after the stew. It was bliss. Today was also the day we saw Charlie again. She was there at lunch, and she gave me this paper and pen. She told me Daisy is okay.
I want this to end.
Love,
Ben
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Dear Ben,
Fall is here, too. We are busy harvesting all of the garden produce from the block and the park. We have been processing seeds to save for next year. There are a lot of good squash that we are washing and curing. I remember last fall how your garden was full of jack-o-lantern pumpkins. Those seem like an extravagance now. Why would you use precious garden space and fertilizer to grow something that you are not going to eat?
We are trying to figure out what to do with our chickens for the winter. People on our block have hatched our eggs and now there are four flocks in the neighborhood. There is no ration for chicken food, but during the summer we have had plenty of forage for the chickens to free range. It has been great to have eggs and see the chickens cleaning up garden beds. We have a few mobile pens that allow us to move the chickens where we want them to eat leftover plants and deposit manure. But since the first frost, we have been running short of chicken forage. We had a block meeting yesterday and we discussed what to do. The neighborhood children have grown quite fond of their hens. They all have names. But we won’t have enough food for all of them. We decided to butcher all but two of the roosters, all of the old hens, and half of the young hens. We have a butcher party scheduled for next Saturday. There were children crying at the meeting and Melody hasn’t talked to me all day. I don’t think people will turn down the roast chicken at the potlucks, though.
Melody went back to school this fall. She turned twelve and is much taller than when you saw her last. She is a young woman now! We had a little birthday party and made a cake. It was sad for me to be celebrating one child, while my other child is off in prison. When you get out, we will have to have a belated birthday party for you and your friends.
We are adjusting to life under General Stewart’s New State. This must be what fascism felt like to people living in Germany during World War II. Protest has been banned. There are surveillance drones flying overhead at all hours. Our chips ping our location at all times to some central computer somewhere. There are secret police who take people away in the middle of the night. Food is rationed. Everyone must work, and it seems like all of the young people must serve in the military. News and information are tightly controlled. Travel has been severely restricted. It is bad.
Despite all of this, we are still here. There are still human relationships, and people are still falling in love and playing in the park. People still smile when they pass in the street and hold the door for each other. We have gotten used to the routines of oppression and accommodated our lives around them. There is a thriving black market and dozens of subversive newspapers and zines. There are code languages on social media and ways that people show solidarity by planting a certain kind of flower or wearing a certain color scarf on a certain day.
Nobody forgets.
Mom
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Dear Ben,
Fall is here in the country. I am feeling vindicated. The Greens are finally seeing Stewart’s true colors.
The Greens have been driving around in their trucks all summer and flaunting their relationship with General Stewart. One day, one of my Green neighbors stopped when he saw me walking along the highway. He asked me questions about my land: the slopes, the productivity; the soil types. He told me that Stewart had promised the Greens that they could take all of the Red land when the time is right, and that I should think about moving before winter comes. I thanked him for the information, and told him that I would have your grandma shoot him dead if he ever tried to take our land. He drove off laughing. I walked home shaking with fear.
We lived for weeks with the worry that at any moment the Greens would come in force and try to kick us out. Every one of the Red families was notified, and nobody traveled alone, always in groups and always armed. It was hard to do all of the fall harvests with all the fear hanging in the air. We would hear a tree branch crack in the forest and all turn around with weapons drawn. A couple Red families left in the middle of the night. Nobody knows where they went.
Then one morning the same neighbor who threatened me showed up walking up our driveway waving a white flag. He explained that on the very day that they had finished the corn harvest, Stewart’s military trucks had showed up at the farm and demanded the whole crop. Silos were unloaded and fuel tanks were emptied. They were told that the General needed their harvest as a matter of New State security. It was the same story at the other Green farms. In order to get paid, they would would have to go to the city and submit forms at the Capitol and get chips implanted, then they would be eligible for rations like any other citizen. Our neighbor said that this was not at all what the representative had promised them in the spring. The rep had promised that there would be barter goods and they would never have to leave their farms. The rep had specifically said “no chips.” Over the summer, Stewart’s forces have been giving them fuel and pre-packaged foods. Now our neighbor has come because they don’t have any food or fuel. They are asking for help and apologizing. It is ironic.
We had a meeting at the Red church. Some of the Greens showed up and asked to rejoin the gift group. These were the brave ones. Others had left for the city, worried that we Reds would start to want revenge. No one called for revenge, but we did ask for people to recommit and return any food or fuel that was taken that Stewart’s forces did not already take. Not everyone was in the mood for forgiveness. One Red family walked out when we voted to let the Greens back into the group.
The first snows are falling as I write this. I’m glad we have full barns, silos, root cellars, and wood piles.
With love,
Grandpa and Grandma
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Next chapter: https://readmedium.com/chapter-26-the-battle-for-the-twin-cities-8f34b4af5c5b
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