I woke up late, drugs mostly,
so I had a dull hangover headache,
but it wasn’t long before an uneasiness set in,
like the tense calm before a bad storm,
something was not right and my sixth sense
wasn’t even working yet.
I grabbed my phone from the charger,
it wouldn’t come on, but it’s old, an android,
I get kidded about it all the time, it acts up a lot.
I switch on the tube, nothing,
probably the remote.
The laptop screen doesn’t get past black.
I get dressed and go looking for a morning paper,
no paper, but the street is full of people,
some neighbors I didn’t know I had, everyone
looking for information from one another,
anyone; nothing worked,
and no one seemed to know why.
Everyone is doing the same thing
and asking the same questions,
it seemed like I was late to the party.
Are we at war with someone who is fighting back?
There is a consensus, the government must
have something to do with it.
A truck with a megaphone and tinted windows
turns into our suburban street announcing that –
The internet is completely gone, everywhere,
but we are working on it.
Do not panic and do not travel.
Stay in your home until we know more.
The chaos on our street was immediate,
everyone realizing that when the power grids fail
so does everything else,
there would be no Keurig or toast this morning.
There would be no credit card transactions,
and the next big question was, do we have water.
The crowd on my street seemed mesmerized
by the same questions and the realization that
we are all in this together.
The initial thought was to blame it on the government,
maybe not ours, and that we may have to pool
our resources to eat, defend one another.
We already had a neighborhood organization,
and it was easy to decide on a leader, form committees.
I was assigned to a scouting party that went out beyond
what quickly was seeming like a village.
We rode bikes, preserving gas, and quickly found out
that not all would survive this chaos.
The airports, hospitals, banks, and almost all
businesses and services were shut down.
Parts of the city were rioting, people were beating
one another and stealing money they couldn’t spend.
The wealthy neighborhoods were boarded up, the rich
going through papers for proof they were rich.
Our neighborhood stuck together, set up a perimeter,
shifts of armed guards. We protected local merchants,
their supply chains were shut down, but there were
inventories of food. Generators and the gas to run them
became priorities. We got to know one another.
It was clear this was survival, we didn’t abide guests.
The hot spot after everyone started breathing again
was the library, reading became quite popular.
My scouting party became sophisticated at avoiding
the rest of the world but bringing back the news.
We were also responsible for water, its conservation,
and locating springs and other sources.
There had been a middle-school in our suburb
and we got part of the building up and running.
Teachers, librarians, candle makers and mechanics
who knew generators became the stars of the community.
I saw first-hand on every excursion that people
either banned together, died, or were killed.
On the fourth we gathered on what had been
a shopping center parking lot. We celebrated
with acoustic guitars, oldies, fireworks – guards
at the gate. No one cared or talked about Washington,
presidents, Congress, the war, the economy.
We had our own and we were making it work.
