so many ways for the social world to collapse, the physical world we've built crumbling around us. running in the dark with my bub clinging to my back, telling her not to cry while we try to escape those who would hurt us if they heard us. looking for daddy, we take a car and drive on the desolate highway, hoping he has gone ahead.
in the front seat beside me, from bub - "do you think daddy is feeling sick?" and i remember that with no power, no medicine and no dialysis, death is a certainty. soon.
i wake up - i am crushed with grief. only to go back to sleep and find that he is gone and i am reliving it in the telling of the story to my best friend, whom i have found after months of searching through wreck and ruin. there are child slaves shuffling past and a sea wall built of broken buildings.
