Grounded.

We haven't been flying for decades.  Of course, I remember flight.  I wasn't part of a wealthy family or circle of friends-- but I suppose that's all relative, as our nation as a whole was wealthy enough, and airfares had become inexpensive enough, that by the time I was in my twenties and thirties, I was not exceptional among people I knew inasmuch as I lived far enough from my family and the place I grew up (and loved deeply) that if it weren't for fossil fuels, it would have taken months to get back.  Surely, I wouldn't have gone so far away if it hadn't been the case-- or if I had known back-then what was coming.  As it was, I had been able to return home in a quarter of a day, could afford the flight on a week's pay (or at times I couldn't afford it, parents eager to see me could), and returned home for week-plus visits at least once most years, sometimes both at summer and Christmas.

It hadn't been unusual.

But it's been decades since flight was possible for those of us-- well, for almost everyone.

The technology still exists-- obviously-- but neither the easy access to fossil fuels, nor the vast sums of wealth stemming from the fossil fuel economy, are in-evidence any longer, nor is the easy, convenient, comfortable "lifestyle" that seemed to ever-increase during the couple hundred years of fossil fuel boom.

*****

"I don't believe you!"

"My grandpa told me!"

"Yeah right!  Whose grandpa is still alive?"

"My grandpa's alive, and he was already an old man, like fifty or something, when regular people stopped being able to fly in planes."

"Yeah, right!"

"He is!  He's eighty-something now, and he's alive!  He tells me stories of the Old Times-- and it's true!  This is his old one.  They called them "smartphones," he says.  You could watch movies on them, play what they called video games..."

"I know what video games are!  I'm not stupid.  My cousin has something kind of like that smartphone, but fatter and shaped different, with buttons on the sides, and you can put three different games into it when his mom lets him use some of the electricity, and we can charge it.  I know what video games are."

"Okay-- well my grandpa says smartphones had games you could play-- and you could get more games just through the air--"

"Yeah, right!  You're lying, or that grandpa of yours is living too long and getting a bit kooky in the head!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yes-huh!!"

"Okay, and you say people could call each other and hear each other's voices, even see each other on the screen of that thing--"

"Yep, that's what he told me, and he's NOT kooky in the head!  And he said they could write messages to each other's smartphones-- they called it texting-- and they could go onto what he called sites,  where you could learn about things, read about people and what's happening in the world, put your own photos and thoughts other people could respond-- and you could watch movies, cartoons, and like I said play video games..."

"All without any wires, like telegraphs have!  Just through the air, like the way our shortwave radios can-- but they could just DO all that stuff you're describing?"

"Yep.  Ask your parents.  If they were old enough to remember thirty years ago or more, they'll know these things-- and they'll be able to tell you how suddenly a lot of it changed!"

*****

It's funny-- no, that's not quite the word-- to look back on the myth of Progress that came with the seeming ever-upward climb of technologies which were made possible by seemingly-endless, easy, cheap energy resources.  People at the twilight of that era, which I lived (survived) through, tended to divide into two camps:  there were techno-progress Utopians, who saw an ever-upward arc of human endeavor and achievement, who saw the progress from steam engine to automobile to airplane to jet plane to space shuttle, from room-sized computer to inter-networked pocket-sized smartphone in a matter of decades, as metaphors for our species' brilliance and resulting, inevitable Destiny, onward and upward, ever-faster, ever-more capable, ever-more mobile and comfortable and genetically fine-tuned; and, on the flipside, there were those who saw imminent Doom in the same mechanisms of ever-faster Progress.  The techno-Doomers saw the ever-increasing pollution of air, water and soil, the deforestation and ravenous worldwide resource extraction, the species extinctions and human-induced climate chaos and capacity for nuclear self-annihilation, among so many easy targets for such a perspective, as clear signs of imminent Apocalypse, as surely and certainly as religious Believers had been prophesying the End Of The World for centuries on end.

Both the Utopians and the Doomers operated from a premise that upward Progress was unstoppable, irreversible-- though it would seem Doomers might think otherwise, the general conclusion of most Doomers was that the ONLY thing which would or could stop the upward momentum was Apocalypse: a sudden cataclysm, a total collapse in a instant or a year or a decade-- many preached the imminent extinction of humanity as a species.  As a result, every time the stock market hiccuped, every time two nuclear-armed nations faced-off, every time an asteroid was predicted to come anywhere near earth's orbit, every time a hurricane or tornado or flood or drought hit hard, or a record-hot summer (yet again), or when yet-another wildfire overwhelmed some large swath of the American southwest or Australia-- weather was undoubtedly getting more extreme, and most of it definitely had everything to do with techno-industrial humanity's emissions and pollution and overconsumption of the earth-- but Doomers' urgent, manic insistence that This was the year that Everything was coming down became an ongoing laughingstock, because it didn't ever all come tumbling down in one fell swoop-- any more than Progress and Constant Growth continued unabated.

The thing that Utopians and Doomers had significantly in-common was that their confidence-- confidence in Progress and confidence in Collapse, respectively-- prevented both camps from doing anything significant to alter their own behavior or actions, their complicity in the momentum that human culture had developed, and thus we continued on the foolhardy road that has gotten us where we now stand, where things are now, inexorably, going.

*****

When Thorn got home, he quickly sneaked back to his grandfather's room and replaced the small rectangular plastic-and-glass object where he had found it in the back of a bottom drawer.  He had seen his grandfather remove it from there the evening he had described it to Thorn-- and he had not just told Thorn the seemingly-magic things about what the object used to be able to do...  He had also offered a warning and cautionary tale about how things had used to be--and how they had gotten to be so bad.

Thorn hadn't told his neighborhood friends the cautionary, warning parts of what his grandfather had told him.  The cool parts were more appropriate to the one-upmanship and bravado which characterized so much of the interactions he had with other boys.  They all did it--and as soon as his grandfather had described the magical capabilities formerly bestowed upon the small rectangular object as he showed it to Thorn, it was immediately clear to Thorn that he would get razzed for passing such stories along, and that disbelief and challenge would be the primary texture of response-- but he knew, nonetheless, that he would share such stories, and that ultimately they would glean him some respect among the others-- particularly Amon, who he wanted to impress, and who would surely challenge and disbelieve him most assiduously.   When his grandfather began with the cautionary stuff, though, highlighting that a heedless, wasteful age of fossil fuel overuse and dangerous environmental pollution had gone hand-in-hand with such seemingly magical technologies, etc.-- Thorn listened attentively, but ultimately couldn't wait to get through this familiar rant, and he knew with certainty that none of these parts of his grandfather's stories would reach his buddies' ears-- not through his lips, anyway.

 His generation didn't need to be told that fossil fuels and other pollution had been bad for the planet's life-systems and formerly stable climate, both because it was so damn obvious that the climate and life-systems were unstable and screwed up-- the very fact that people his grandfather's age were such a rarity was testament to how precarious and unstable life had become, among so many other glaringly obvious factors of daily life which paid similar testament-- as well as because fossil fuels and all the goodies that ultimately came with and by virtue of them, were no longer a part of people's lives.  People Thorn's age were not only uninterested in such warnings, not-least because those older than them who proffered such warnings clearly hadn't heeded the same advice when they had been younger and able to do something to prevent or at least mitigate what in fact occurred, but also because-- well, because they were YOUNG, and eager to make their OWN mistakes and indulge in their own folly and whatever appetites it is still possible to indulge...  Young men (boys, still) Thorn's age do not live under the illusion that they are Very Likely to live much beyond forty if they reach that age-- as his grandfather tells it, people in His generation had been raised with a confident certainty of a long life (which his grandfather has lived, but not without a clearly-evident struggle, and some amazing stories to come with it), as well as with a host of other promises and vividly-painted portraits of the way The Future was certain to look, pretty much none of which came true, even though almost everyone believed in them as a given.

The first promise to dissolve before everyone's eyes was the promise and assumption that, particularly in the United States of America, each new generation was all-but guaranteed to do fundamentally better than the previous generation.  This Story, which had roughly borne out in the generations preceding his grandfather's, had been seen as a virtual birthright and all-but inevitability by most Americans, to be violated only by an individual's failure or life mistakes or "bad investments," which were to be ignored or judged by those not directly affected...  When the bad investments and foolish behavior of the Society As A Whole, particularly its investment in the massive but nonetheless  depleting energy stores shoring-up the entire edifice, began to teeter and suddenly shudder, collapsing as surely and swiftly as a tall building with a compromised understructure-- the ubiquitous promises of what his grandfather says everyone had called The American Dream became almost immediately, unceremoniously forfeit.

Oh, it wasn't technically immediate, Thorn's grandfather added.  It took around a decade from the first shudder and "hiccup" of the economy, way-back in 2008, before it became clear to almost everyone that the "recovery" was false and that almost all signs of it which people had been pinning their hopes upon had been machinations  of the biggest banks and investment corporations on Wall Street (his grandfather called it-- Thorn didn't understand what a street had to do with money and  the financial Collapse) in collusion with government at the highest levels...  But over that decade of generalized but ultimately false hope, many millions had lost and never retrieved jobs, millions had lost homes and pensions and other significant "investments" his grandfather called them-- and though most news programs had talked a lot for those ten or so years about "recovery," many had already entered what eventually became the new, inexorable Reality.

****

There were those of us who behaved differently.  We were not nearly as vocal or visible (or numerous)as the  Utopians and Doomers.   In such circumstance, there's no satisfaction to be had in "I told you so"-- instead of words or beliefs, we tended toward actions.  Understanding that constant growth was a figment, a concomitant of cheap and seemingly endless fossil fuel energy-- and understanding that the days of such energy being so inexpensive and plentiful were rapidly coming to a close, it was clear to those paying close enough attention that growth would be ending.  Understanding that the energy from fossil fuels had been SO concentrated, so dramatically plentiful and so inexpensive to "produce" (extract) during over a century of constantly-increasing consumption (and resulting constant economic growth), it was very clear to those clear-eyed and informed enough that no form of renewable energy would (could) serve to replace the vast extent, the economic cornerstone of all industrial processes, which such fuels had been from their earliest extraction.

The simple fact was, techno-industrial culture, constant growth, constant Progress, could not continue without cheap, plentiful, always-ever-greater supplies of these fuels.  The fuels did not need to RUN OUT to render such a status quo no longer operable.  They merely needed to reach a point where supply no longer constantly increased, the point at which they cost more to extract and "produce" than industry and individuals could afford, and still run a surplus--that is, profit.

Once this, inevitably, occurred, vast changes were equally inevitable.

In that sense, the Doomers had something going for their perspective.  Things have changed drastically as the "transition," as it has sometimes been called-- sometimes the "descent"-- has gotten undeniably underway.  Expansive wars, killing droughts and resulting widespread crop failures in areas once dependable (and, crucially, depended UPON) for food led beyond mere "food insecurity" to the point of widespread starvation, in parts of the once-called "first world" which had grown totally unprepared for the possibility, and where home-growing food had become a fringe hobby, and most people assumed that food literally came from the grocery store.  As the climate warmed, diseases associated with the tropics wended north and claimed many without tolerance or the remotest immunity, and rapidly-lowering "standards of living" led to many more depredations upon a decadent, already unhealthy population.  Malnutrition, obesity, abuse of myriad substances but particularly the exotic array of prescription drugs which were legal and ubiquitous at the end of the age of plenty-- these and much more, not-least very widespread gun ownership in the United States, led to exaggerated vulnerability when things became even remotely unstable-- so when things began to contract, when oil prices inevitably exceeded a certain threshold, when the heat of ever-hotter summers turned up the pressure just so, and the first of several financial "periods of adjustment" (no one wanted to even whisper the word depression, much less collapse) rendered once-secure homeowners across the middle class suddenly destitute and jobless-- the edges did more than merely fray.

*****

His favorite time-- and one of his two favorite activities-- of the year.  When he thought about it, Thorn realized he loved seeds.  They have a kind of inborn magic that even the ever-feared, ever-evoked "descent," "transition," "collapse"-- all the big scary words his elders used to conjure up the great crisis and continuing implosion of the previous techno-grandiose time, the civilization they all looked back on with such reverence and terror-- could not erase.  Smartphones may only be rectangular, useless objects now-- but seeds spun their unspeakable, uncanny magic in every eon that life has existed, long long before any sort of human civilization or technology graced the planet with its narcissistic "innovations"-- and in the post-sunset of the era of human self-astonishment, seeds still work their magic.

So, this time of year, as he and his grandfather roamed the region, just as his grandfather has taught him, spreading, burying seeds throughout the hilly landscape in the various and particular places his grandfather has taught him that the various and particular seeds are most-likely to flourish-- Thorn exults in the magic, the happy knowledge that he is contributing something real to the survival and happiness of those he knows.

Instead of tilling, constructing or otherwise fashioning a typical garden on a typical garden or farm-like patch of land, Thorn has been raised to view the entire landscape, all the land in all directions surrounding their home, as an array potential places to plant.  His grandfather, many years before, had become a self-taught somewhat-expert at an approach to growing called permaculture, as well as to the myriad traditional and organic approaches to saving seeds, companion planting, composting, soil salvage and plain observation which allowed him to learn and utilize knowledge of what crops grew best in what parts of the land surrounding them.

He had honed this knowledge in the difficult times when food was scarce and the forces of political, military and police power were the most aggressive, coercive and unreasonable (to put it kindly), and people were having their homes, livelihoods and means of survival severely compromised.  What had started as gas prices getting uncomfortably high, many home mortgages being foreclosed upon, and many people without jobs being unable to find work, for over a decade of increasing desperation with constant institutional promises that "things are getting better, the recession is coming to an end"-- became rather suddenly much worse, for a much-wider swath of the middle and even upper-middle classes in America, just at the time that many most hoped, assumed, and had been promised by the powerful and every available media megaphone of the powerful, that things were just about to "turn the corner" and "get back to normal."

Thorn's grandfather had been among the rare individuals who foresaw the impending calamity early enough, and prepared sufficiently (and in the right ways), to survive if not flourish in the bleak times directly following.  His approach, his preparation for the future that actually appeared, had not been about "survivalism" in the sense of loading up on guns, ammunition and food rations to create a fortress culture of "each against all"--  a broad subculture of America had done just this, and most either lived-out the truism "live by the sword, die by the sword," or more-often were ignored by the authorities they hoped to oppose until their year's worth of rations ran out in a year.  Mostly, those situations didn't end pretty, Thorn's grandfather had observed.

Others, if they had been fortunate enough to, tried to prepare themselves for an unstable future by hoarding money, gold, living in gated "fortress" communities away from those "less fortunate."  This had mostly, pretty much immediately backfired as well.  When things got bad, and it became clear that nothing the government or other "powers" could do was going to work any further "magic" on the economy or other deeply depended-upon mechanisms of society's security, looting and brigandry quickly became commonplace and rife.  Those whose survival strategy soon depended-upon theft knew exactly where to turn, for those with something to take had all chosen to live in similar gated communities, or up on hilltops and mountainsides (topography permitting), away from the fray yet arrogantly self-advertising.  Though their money had bought them aggressive and well-equipped police and other security personnel, that money only went so far in a depressed economy-- what didn't land in the hands of the security personnel they'd hired to protect them was carried away by the bandits once they had run out of sufficient funds to pay those security forces.  Eventually, the police, former police and former military personnel had joined with the robbers, rogues and others outside of the law who roamed the land hoping to survive by the use of brute force.  Those who had hoarded and hoped to use wealth to protect them, with the exception of some at the very top, had not fared well.

Thorn's grandfather also hadn't gone the Revolutionary Resistance route.  Many who observed and were concerned, as he himself certainly had been, about the compromised state of nature and the planet due to the machinations and manhandling of the techno-industrial juggernaut, came to various versions of the conclusion that direct, sometimes violent resistance of the forces of government and corporate power were the necessary and only ways to "bring down civilization" and save the planet for future generations.  Others didn't put the planet at the center of their frame of resistance, but pursued human rights and economic justice, and they opposed the powerful economic and military forces of what Thorn's grandfather called Homo Colossus (Thorn loved that one!) through legal, whistleblowing and other means of standing in solidarity with the oppressed humans receiving the most brutal and inhumane treatment by the most powerful.  As Thorn's grandfather conveyed it to him, these and other motivations for direct resistance to the massive power-structures of the monolith techno-industrial colossus were understandable, but ultimately represented a vast expenditure of personal energy with little direct harm to a system that was so close to the verge of inducing its own implosion.  Though he was as passionate as many in opposing the injustices and huge harm being done by the leviathan culture of that time, he came to the conclusion that preparing for its self-induced collapse, preparing to care for and nurture the land he chose to live and grow food on, preparing to live as self-sufficiently as possible, far from the endangered city centers and sprawling suburbs which had no way of continuing in the ways they had been trained and grown so accustomed to living, was his chosen route.

As he understood that food would quickly become a paramount value, and would be needed and coveted by all, he also anticipated that typical farm- and garden-configured landscapes and plots would be observed and scalped of their produce at the first quavering sign of insecurity in what the majority viewed as the normal way of living.  As soon as grocery stores stopped providing guaranteed tons of every conceivable edible item, and after the obviously well-off in a given community or region had been looted for everything the newly-hungry could scrape away from their estates-- farms and gardens would be important, vulnerable targets for those roving, searching for viable means of survival.

Thorn's grandfather had come to this understanding before things had descended into obvious crisis, had begun hiking through the many meandering hundreds of acres of public-access land trust properties around the rural area in which he had intentionally chosen to settle as the dust began to unsettle.  In studying permaculture, he came to a rather sophisticated understanding of what sorts of seeds, what sorts of fruiting trees and vines, squashes and berries, greens and brassicas-- as well as many food-bearing native plants not normally found in grocery stores or seed catalogs-- liked to grow in what parts of the surrounding landscape.  He became a sort of rural guerrilla gardener, planting things particularly at the edges, the boundary between a wooded forest and an open meadow.  These edges are where many introduced plants most readily thrive, and he was attentive to how sunny or shady a spot, how high and hilly or low and marshy an area was, and would sow seeds in areas most suited to those plants' likelihood of thriving with minimal human intervention, tilling, irrigation or "weeding."  Sometimes he would bring dung or his own composted material and disperse it in the areas where he knew he had deposited seeds, helping enrich the soil and encourage healthy growth.  Sometimes he would bring a spade or pitchfork along on his hikes, and subtly augment the land so that it would hold more water during dry spells in the growing season, purposely creating dips, swales and small ditches and filling them with mulch gleaned from the plants, leaves and other organic matter at hand, wherever he was.

He never left seeds within visible distance from roads, or anywhere near highways or other commonly-trafficked areas.  He had purposely chosen to live someplace undervalued in the time of mega-cities and suburban sprawl, a rural area far enough from the beaten path that it was far from harm's way when harm became commonplace.  He did not move back to where he grew up, as much as he loved it, for personal reasons of circumstance but also because he began to recognize that it was a part of the country which would become severely affected by extreme drought as human-induced climate change worsened-- whereas, this region has gotten earlier, warmer springs, and more rain from spring through fall, making for good growing seasons most years.  (Of course, no location of the planet has been immune from negative effects of climate disruption, and his chosen home-region has endured heavy storms frequently, blizzards and unusually heavy snowfall in winter, more frequent hurricanes than had previously come this far north...  And tropics-like humid heat through the dog days of summer which keep intensifying.  No place is immune for the effects.)

All of these approaches to sowing food crops, and the different methods of harvesting and on-location food storage and preservation (such as individually-dug cold storage pits, hundreds of which dot the landscape; sun-drying on special light-weight frames which are easily-portable, and render dried produce easy to store and lightweight to transport without worries about bruising or rotting) have been the central substance of Thorn's education at his grandfather's side.  They have also been among his favorite "subjects"-- everything hands-on, relevant to his actual day-to-day existence, useful, are what Thorn enjoys learning.  Abstract things like mathematics and writing, science and its recent-historical but mostly now-nonexistent (or much simpler) applications in technology and knowledge of the universe-- much of this information tends to strike Thorn as absurd.  The recent world had so much knowledge, so much "magic," understood stars and planets and animals, plants, ecosystems, biology, how to cram endless information into tiny microchips (his grandfather calls them), could travel long distances in unimaginably short spans of time-- yet, with all this knowledge, they had completely compromised life and stability on the planet in a handful of generations.  It is clear that the spiral of crises has not ended, but that their legacy continues to increase in its extremity and stresses on the adjustments they keep making to merely survive...

Thorn is not impressed.

*****

Most analyses looking back pinpoint 2008 as the first year of the first step of decline-- what media and government for years afterward insisted on calling a "recession" was, at bottom, the first market reaction not only to the Ponzi fraud of the world marketplaces themselves being momentarily exposed and vulnerable, but much more crucially and substantially, it was the first market reaction to the peak of oil production, globally, being reached and transcended in that same time-frame.  Though governments and federal banks printed money recklessly to shore-up the appearance of a return to biz-as-usual, though stock markets and global banking institutions rolled-out every trick and machination in their deep bags of tricks (most of which enriched them at the time, making the stock market and "the Economy" in the U.S. appear relatively sound while leaving the poor and struggling middle classes struggling and ever-more jobless), the underlying source of the world's energy-based economy was showing its first signs of teetering at the time, and no one wanted to publicly admit that the Empire had no clothes.

What has been occurring since certainly doesn't fit any of the models or predictions of the techno/ Progress Utopians.  The ever-upward arc of ever-constant economic growth and ever-more shiny, astonishing technology is not what has occurred, and is not likely to occur in a foreseeable timeframe.  There are still a few, very few, among the remaining population, who still insist on seeing the human Destiny through those now-shattered lenses.  Most, though, who prospered in the "Information Age," who had once laughed at the idea that the upward spiral of technology would ever cease, much less sputter, fizzle out, and (like all that goes up) find itself reversing, first "trending" then not too much later careening back toward the hard earth-- most of those who formerly believed in the techno-Utopia, and hadn't seen (or been willing to accept) what was coming, fell into deep despondency and torpor as the truth of things unraveled before them.  They had been such Optimists, frankly very arrogant, many of them; seeing their confidence so thoroughly unmasked and swiftly pulverized was, for many, like a personal blow to their own identity.  Many succumbed and, through myriad (mostly self-inflicted) means, perished;  among those who physically survived, only the true, Deep-Down Optimists saw what needed to be done, what could be done, and transformed their previous talent for all things techno-logical into a palette of skills and knowledge suited to thriving in the world presented to them.  These people proved very handy to have around.

There are those who have witnessed, and survived, the vast transformations of the last few decades, who may argue that the Doomers I've described had it pretty much right.  Techno-Industrial Civilization has suffered self-inflicted body-blows, is unrecognizable already in its retreat from prominence and once-assumed "inevitability."  Just as many Doomers insisted, climate instability has continued, increased, and pollution from myriad sources, not-least the deeply unsettling remnants of the nuclear industries, leaves the air, water and earth in deep disrepair, still-always near the edge of even further calamity due to the explosive, radioactive, chemically unstable nature of much that remains left behind, nearly-unusable but still-deeply-hazardous.  Many have died in the years since the descent/ transition began, as a direct result of the multiple massive crises I've already described, and so much more.  This is true; but I distinguish the Doomers of the previous age as having frequently, if not always, predicted a full-throated Apocalypse, likely human extinction, and a quick, total Collapse of-- well, Everything.  This harmed the credibility of many warning of human-sourced wrongs and dangers, climate change and peak oil-- the whole arena became a third rail for many in the consumerist all-American mainstream; expressing concern, even quoting the warnings of a majority of scientists, became viewed by many as fringe semi-lunacy, or merely boring, or too overwhelming for many to even consider.

So, very many did nothing-- or very little.  Some who could afford it drove hybrid cars and purchased organic food.  Those who could afford even more bought organic clothing, had solar electric panels (on whichever side of the house neighbors could see), and heated their pools with solar thermal.  People got apps for their smartphones that helped them make smart, conscientious consumer choices.

But all too few eschewed seeing themselves primarily as consumers.  Even the Apocalysts basically expressed the nihilist view that, if everything's going down anyway, there's nothing individuals can do to blunt the blow, so...  Anything goes!

And the descent continued to intensify, the transition became more harsh, inevitable, consequential.  It was not a sudden, all-extinguishing Apocalypse-- but it could have been a much smoother road, had things been a bit less decadent at the peak.

But isn't that just the way it goes-- the way all civilizations fall?  Not with a bang-- but with a Rager!  A party to end all parties!  A binge to end all binges!  Morning in America, indeed!

But what a hangover.

*****

Thorn and Amon followed a meandering, barely-visible path between thickets of thorny wild raspberry bushes, clusters of sweet olive (a non-native non-relative of actual olives which have similar-looking leaves, became rampant in the region after householders introduced them into their landscaping at the height of the Age of Oil, and like so many human-introduced species became a regional scourge; on the other hand, they produce vast quantities of tart-sweet dark red berries each harvest season which Thorn and his neighbors harvest and use for everything you could use berries or grapes for), and the woods leading down into the ravine far down to their left.  More manicured, machine-maintained paths, either mown or laden with wood chips, etc., were part of a past neither boy has known-- but these paths, created and worn by consistent use in most seasons of the year, network for miles and miles in every direction-- and the boys know how to navigate them well.

Thorn likes when he gets to be with Amon one-on-one.  Amon seems to feel a similar relief-- a relief from the pressure to be tough, challenging, alpha around other boys.  Amon is more aggressive and extroverted than Thorn to begin with-- but when the boys get to be together away from other boys, an entirely distinct dynamic emerges.  Thorn sees a side of Amon that is less harsh, less snide and challenging.

"It's actually really cool that you have a grandpa," Amon says after they've walked silently for awhile.

"Yeah.  I think so.  He's one of the most interesting people I've ever known."

"I bet."  They walked another minute before he added, "I'm jealous."

"I'm jealous of myself."

Both boys giggled, in a free, giddy way they wouldn't have allowed themselves around the other boys.

Another few minutes of silence, walking without destination or purpose.  Floating through the day.

"I don't know why so many your grandfather's age are no longer alive.  My pap says he remembers a time when he was young, when there were LOTS of older, they called them 'retired' people alive, and kept on living, lots of them, into their eighties and beyond.   I mean, I know Pap's version of what happened to MY grandfolks-- and what took my ma, as well-- but I don't understand why So Many are dying young, why so few of us have grandfolks..."  Amon began to heave in convulsive sobs, his wiry frame shuddering and overcome by sudden grief no longer hidden by bravado.  Between sobs:  "I mean, it's not like people beyond a certain age were marched off to death camps, or some other obvious evil or ""enemy" we could fight and struggle against...  It's just...  Things changed...  And more people have died, younger...  Our parents and grandparents!  And it wasn't like that BEFORE, at least not in America..."

"My grandfather has told me a lot about this, as he understands it..."

"What does he say?"

"Well-- he says that people, when he was younger, had all this stuff, like the smartphones and other almost-magic stuff, and cars and planes could get them anywhere-- AnyWhere-- in a single day-- and food came from everywhere in the world to get onto grocery store shelves, always full every day...  And he says that's the key of what went really wrong for a lot of people who believed the promise and assumption that such things would always continue, or even get better, easier, more convenient, which seemed to have been happening all of his life and into everyone's memory.  Everyone had assumed that it would keep up that way...  But when the energy sources being used for all of those purposes became more expensive to get than people could afford to pay-- things changed quickly, and never went back.  First there was less and less food on grocery store shelves, getting more and more expensive; then most grocery stores shut down.  Other types of stores almost all shut down before the grocery stores.  Lots of people didn't know how to grow or get food without stores."

"I can't even imagine that!  How stupid!"

"Well, my grandfather says it's just what most people thought was normal.  And they were not prepared for it to change, to go away.  But it did change.  Pretty quickly."

"So how did your grandfather survive, and so many didn't?"

"Well, he was aware of what was coming earlier than many people were aware or would admit.  Even among those who knew something was coming, many of them didn't prepare, or if they did it was in ways that grandfather says drew attention to them, or their 'emergency supplies' ran out and then they were in the same boat as everyone else."

"So what did he do that was different?"

"He started doing what we do, now.  Planting seeds all over the region, in places he could find food even if others, or animals, plundered some of it.  He focused on food, the land, his neighbors, and being able to supply his own needs without deliveries from all over the world, without gas to drive, without money.  In the previous way the world was, nobody was doing this, or even thinking about it-- he almost seemed kooky to people then-- speaking of what you said about him the other day--"

"I was just joking-- you know, in front of the other boys--"

"I know.  Don't worry.  I understand."

"So what?  People just-- starved?"

"There were a whole bunch of different specific things people died from, grandfather says.  Many of them were violent.  Some were diseases that had been much more under-control when medical supplies as well as food had been available everywhere.  But yeah-- he says that food had been the bottom line, as well as non-polluted water, and many deaths stemmed from how fast people had to shift to another source of food which most weren't prepared to grow or otherwise obtain."

Another minute-plus pause, the boys swinging from low branches in the wooded area they were now traversing.

"Wow.  Nobody likes talking about those old days.  I can't believe I didn't know most of what you are telling me before today...  Wow."

"Yeah."

You're really lucky to have your grandfather."

"No kidding."

*****

Of course, many who have survived through the transition so far see what has occurred as having been an apocalypse, something the Doomers had been pulling their hair out about in the previous time.  Many of those who are no longer around found themselves declaring or feeling that the End of Everything had descended...  Of course, such conclusions can be rather subjective, and self-justifying.  One person's death, for that person, IS an apocalypse-- it is the end of everything-- for them.  And there has undoubtedly already been a lot of change, and much of it destructive and devastating for a lot of people.  Many of those people have their own ideas and interpretations of what has occurred-- or had such ideas while they were still alive.

And things are still changing, challenges still monumental, toxic, dangerous, such as how we are going to handle all of the radioactive nuclear and other highly-toxic substances and chemicals left behind by people in the former world.  Among other challenges and changes still oncoming-- it is clear (to me) that the remaining residual economy will contract again in the future, though for now it has somewhat stabilized and most have grown accustomed to what is now considered the "normal" way to live.  Already, though, there have been three significant crises in the economy, each of increasing severity, each followed by a period of seeming stability and adjustment.  So I am not kidding myself that more aren't coming.

But I for one draw a line this side of full-on Apocalypse in describing what has transpired.  Some may say that I am speaking from privilege, as one of a rare collection of people my age who has made it this far through the descent.  I think the challenges we have faced, and still face, are what we had to face, based on our own actions and on the laws and plain realities of nature.  Many might not have seen it coming-- and many might want to interpret what happened in religious terms, or as a judgement upon humanity leading toward our own species' extinction.

I, for one, don't think humans are heading toward extinction or final judgement.  And I, for one, still love to be alive, on this beautiful planet.  As challenging as things have been.

I love my three grown children, of whom two are still alive, and one still lives nearby.

I love my grandson.

Things are good.

Still.