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To the coast. Vox 72499026.0.0.jpg
When the police rounded up those in town, in late August, they couldn't be bothered with the families scattered in the rural areas. They didn't have the time or the numbers. It was a rush job. They left us and many others alone. We still felt safe. But matters in the rest of the world were definitely starting to turn.
By this time a half of the population, those who survived the last waves, were out of commission. The last orders of the collapsing government were to retract and horde everyone they had into the cities along the Eastern seaboard. So many were dying, it was as if they were shrinking the East coast back to the boundaries to its eighteenth-century limits. The same forced migration of people was happening out west and down the Mississippi, herding those people to the gulf coast, or LA, Seattle and San Francisco.
From what we could follow on the media, the job was still not quite done when they gave up. But they kept reiterating on hourly bulletins that the coastlines were the only places where the power grid and food supplies and safety would be intact. The interior of the continent was going dark soon, with only hell and chaos to follow.
Most people got in their cars and drove, draining the last of the government supplied gas. They used up every reserve, with only a few refineries kept running. There'd be no need for cars anymore, with everyone huddled along the coasts. But some people wouldn't go. Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit were just too large for fleets of buses to depopulate and move everyone without a car. And the military forces manning these operations were growing smaller every day.
They managed to convince most of the inland populace to make this trek. Even farmers realized that without gas and electricity their crops would die, their comforts would disappear and few had little notion or any desire for the life their forbearers, their great, great grandparents, the settlers who came and managed in the eighteen hundreds. That era was too far gone, too primitive to return to. I wondered about this. Had farmers softened or changed so much in just two hundred years? I thought they were the salt of the Earth, the 'diehards', who'd never leave their land. But most did.
They must have imagined it to be too hard without electricity or tractors, a life of constant manual labor and few comforts. They wouldn’t even have the kerosene for lamps. After a long day’s work tiling a field with a plow and horse there would be chores, sharpening plowshares, the wives milking cows, preserving foods, sewing, a constant effort to survive. Little did they know they were soon to enter a life far worse.
This all transpired by the end of Fall. The population of the United States was now below forty million, with more dying each day. The grid had been down for months but we still had our array and the internet channels and our food and comforts all intact. Rick and Jane and the children moved into our house at our invitation, for a feeling of security. We asked Bill too, but he wisely declined. He loved his loft and from its windows said he could keep a better eye on the entire property, in case of intruders.
I called him 'wise' because he seemed to have a foresight we didn't. Maybe that came with age. He was near sixty but in perfect health and could easily pass for fifty. I asked him what he meant about 'intruders'. He told me bands of men might form and go from property to property looking for food or whatever else, especially guns and ammo. He said we should all spend an hour a day getting familiar with our own arsenal, target practice and learn how to reload and clean each one. We were so far out in the woods no one would hear the shots, and now was the time, before we needed them.
So it began, even Nancy and Jane participating, while the kids watched. We had ten large caliber rifles, 277's with quality scopes, a half dozen handguns, shotguns, smaller riffles and four Uzi's with many clips and cases of ammo for each one. Bill taught us everything about each one. He'd hunted deer all his life and I noticed he was an excellent shot with the rifles and scopes, hitting a beer can at fifty yards with ease. Nancy too became adept, especially with the handguns, hitting cans in quick order at a hundred feet. The rest of us were lucky when we hit our target, unless we had an Uzi and used up a clip.
There was one more bedroom upstairs, a large room at the end of the hall, full of windows and light. From the colors of the curtains and the walls it was obviously a child's bedroom long ago but completely empty now. It had so many windows and light Nancy said it would make a perfect artist studio. She practiced oil painting as a teenager, but these were no times for leisurely pursuits. The children's beds and desks were moved in and all their toys from the living room floor, free to cross again without tripping. The children loved so much space. It must have been forty feet long. They each had their side. Jane and Rick took Nancy's bedroom. She'd been in mine for months. We combined our closet and moved in an armoire and her dressing table. The room was cozy now, cozy like our love.
All the rooms seemed too large for comfort, even my study. I suppose the rich considered this a sign of luxury, a room twice as large as it should be. But emptiness bothered me. I guessed that might have come from my cramped beginnings, living in dorms or small apartments in my university years, then my cottage after that. Three steps and you were in the next room, all possessions piled up high.
The children ran to our bed every morning to wake us with hugs, right after their parents. It was a good change as our spirits needed all the uplift they could get to relieve the sad news abroad. The six of us would eat breakfast together, chattering away. The others would be off to their barnyard chores, while I took the children to my den for a few hours, leafing through atlases and history books full of pictures spread open on my large desk, having each one read to me the captions. This was their informal education and the best part of my day. Then they'd run outside to help their parents, collect the eggs and other easy chores, while I leaned back and lit my pipe, mussing on tomorrow's lessons.
The government dissolved shortly after the mass migrations. Another change was proceeding along with the endemic. There were now only two channels left, broadcasting from New York and Los Angeles, around the clock, and it was nothing I ever expected.
A group of televangelists now controlled most of the airways. All the other shows were being replaced by them. It was as if the pandemic focused us on their constant promises of a rebirth for those who were left. They ranted against the science that led to this disaster, against all technology as something evil, while promising God's forgiveness if we returned to purer, simpler ways, erase the filth that had poisoned us all along. And that was everywhere, in books and machines and corporations, and all the cars, trains and factories that went with them. It was just greed, and everything associated with money and our former, decadent lifestyle was condemned. This was God's answer to our sins. And people who were never religious before started believing.
The city of New York was in shambles. The houses and apartments were filled with bodies and garbage, the cars without gas, littering the streets. These new religious leaders worked with the remaining politicians and took charge of the few remaining police and military personnel, who followed their orders. They were eager to help.
They directed work crews from lower Manhattan, up to Central Park. It was still fairly clean. Nobody died at their desks. When they fell sick they went home to the suburbs, to their homes and families once the hospitals shut down. When the pandemic really took flight most of that area was deserted. The big stores closed their doors, then the smaller ones. Only some apartment complexes and the back rooms of delis had the stench of dead bodies to clean up. Even the streets were empty of vehicles.
This happened in all the big cities. The people were moved to the centers, the skyscrapers, where they made living spaces, with people tightly packed in, the worst thing to do with a communicable disease. But with road travel nearly ended, this was all they could do to distribute food and supplies. Centers had to be within walking distance. The suburbs were already looted and left to rot, with corpses still contagious for weeks after death.
By now New York could hardly boast a population of a few hundred thousand. The old bishop of New York, strangely still alive, though senile, in his white frock promised that the only hope of salvation, here on Earth, would be by a thorough cleansing of the streets, a purification of the pollution that infected us and for all those who undertook the task, a sure path to heaven. Those who were touched and knew they would soon die came in hordes.
So most obeyed. They had nowhere else to go, no hope, no one to guide them and nothing to do. This cleansing kept them busy and their minds off the plight. Apparently, this message was communicated to all the other cities, and they followed such guidance, full of detailed planning while the lines and internet still worked.
A council was called to determine a new world order in the old U.N. building and religious leaders of every sect from around the world heeded the call, some taking weeks to arrive, while thousands of people were seen scouring the streets throughout downtown, scrubbing them on hands and knees, while others emptied the buildings of everything unnecessary, desks, machines, piles of papers and books which were burned in huge bonfires that lasted weeks. They made these former offices into living spaces, simple ones, Spartan at best as the rooms were small, a bed a table and chair and a set of drawers was all one needed now, along with white candles, for the frequent power outages. For a family a larger room was cleared and everything painted white, even the sidewalks, as if this held some potent magic against the plague, which was black.
The first followers adopted white robes, these cleansers. Soon they were the majority. Then the rest followed suit, as humans always do, flock mentality.
That pure, white cloth had a marked effect on the diseased psyche of mankind. In the following days, either by chance or pre-arrangement, a small council of religious leaders along with two popular televangelists, met at this strange site to discuss the significance of this council. The media, with one channel covering the event around the clock, brought in more people of all sorts, hesitant at first to leave their smaller towns and cities, like a pilgrimage to some new Jerusalem.
The first group of evangelists received the most prestige and attention. By now they were joined by many others, and in their great hall they debated for days and nights. On the fifth day they called for a vote and came up with the resolution that a great choice now faced mankind, either to adopt the true path of light, or to plummet down a deadly, black course of complicated technology and disease.
A brief proclamation was written denouncing all our foul, anti-spiritual, scientific ways, and a new religion was sketched out in embryo. It was a very simple creed, to which all existing religions could decently nod. It stressed the brotherhood of mankind and the need for spiritual unity. It proposed a single, holy mission on which we could all agree and use as a common guide to raise ourselves out of the darkness we were in, to destroy the past and build a new future.
Though the council adjourned, the business was only beginning. The televangelists put their organizations into high gear, and the network began booming away on the need for social change and the recovery of our spiritual values. As usual they ranted against sin, spouting off warnings, accusations and alarms. But what made a deeper impression and began to precipitate a world of sympathy was the hint of something new, a new light or star in the sky to follow, spelling purity and health and simple nature again, things we really yearned for, now that the world of science was in shambles.
At first they didn’t realize the power that had fallen their way, until one of their number, in an off-hand remark, suggested one evening as a show of support for this new "Ministry of Light" the faithful of Boston should gather at Harvard square dressed in white and carrying candles. There he’d conduct a sermon and offer up prayers for the dying. A few thousand were expected, but when tens of thousands came out, and kept coming out, the network swooped in and declared the scene a "miracle".
While darkness tripped around the globe that night hundreds of similar miracles occurred in similar gatherings of candle bearers in every other city. The world was aching for deliverance and grasping at gestures. People even convened where there was no one to lead them and anyone from the crowd could step up and become an instant minister. In smaller towns inland generators were set up along with television monitors so that the people could watch the live sermons in the bigger cities through the night. Every camera was covering the miracle.
Before dawn broke upon the ground where it all started, it could truly be said that a new, world religion had been born. It had no distinct shape yet. It had to be licked into shape by its parents like the mythical bear cub. But to this new challenge they were not remiss.
The great council was convened in New York city. Its purposes were broad, no less than to settle the scope, the doctrines, and the administration of the new faith. The heads of all religions were invited: the latest Pope, the ninth that year, the Dalai Lama, an ayatollah, Buddhist leaders, in short, all who would come, including heads of states. And most of them did come, or regretted not coming, as there was a vast, new empire to be carved up, and only those present got a slice.
The United Nations provided the perfect venue, and much oratory rang through its chambers. This went on day and night and everybody watched the proceedings eagerly, as if their own fate hung in the balance.
I watched these sessions each afternoon, since I had nothing else to do. I was surprised at the calm and civil manner in which the business went forward. I expected much ranker and rudeness between religions that had never even sat down together before. But I suppose most of that went on in the back rooms where the real power was brokered.
Before a world audience, in the general chambers, it was wisely decreed that the standing orders of all religions should not be dismantled. They would be smoothly incorporated as they were, with their ancient rights and prerogatives and prayers, into the service of a new one, which, as it had no bible, no letter or law, affronted no one. It only directed more beautifully and purely the spiritual aims of the older faiths, which could all be considered as holy precursors unto it, with their proper messiahs and histories and holy scripts intact.
What was added was merely the goal of the new order. A set of universal prayers were formulated to be recited daily in public gatherings, along with any of the old. The painting of something white was declared to be a holy act, and a praiseworthy step in the purification of our environment. What they only briefly mentioned was the tearing down and destruction of everything connected to science, a necessary step to the purification. This would keep their flocks busy and under control. They could easily watch and see who participated and who didn't.
In short order ranks were assigned to everyone. And everyone had to join or secretly flee the city into an unknown, lawless and dark future. Tables were set up in New York's Central Park and people were told to congregate in long lines. After a brief interview, lasting only minutes, by a row on some twenty priests on one side, you were asked your former profession and skills. These grim, old and mostly bearded priests would eye you up and down and with a few sly questions determine if you were a complete and pure devotee.
They would judge you by your sincerity, by your tone of voice. Then they would consider other factors, your looks, your age and health, and especially your skills and level of education. With hardly a pause, and no chance for you to explain, any ameliorating circumstances to your one-word responses, they would hand you a star, one of ten sizes to be pinned on your uniform and to be always visible. Any tampering was a death sentence, as your name was marked in a book with your assigned star. The interview was over in a few minutes. But your rank and fate lasted a lifetime.
Some professions, like executives or academicians or anyone formerly a boss or elite in any way, anyone with an educated mind, were suspect and frowned upon by these grim inquisitors and given the smallest stars. By those you were assigned the worst jobs, cleaning out the houses of the dead, removing their bodies to the streets, to be picked up by bulldozers into trucks, driven and dumped in a central square in one huge heap, then doused with gasoline and a bonfire lit each evening after prayers, to the wild applause of the entire congregation, as if the world was being purified. And in a way it was.
As the corpses were contagious, many of these laborers fell ill and died soon after, just what the Church wanted, to be left with a flock of perfectly obedient and unintelligent disciples. Another wretched task, for those with the second smallest star, was in the basements of these newly occupied buildings, washing clothes, peeling potatoes, cooking stews to feed the laborers outside. Those who showed advanced symptoms of the disease were given no star at all and sent to a quarantine district, like lepers, to die.
To justify these Draconian edicts, the Church leaders thought they should have a legal document to justify their acts. One clever member came up with an idea and the Bible of the blank page was born; a bible that offended no one as it said nothing; that no one could refute, as there was nothing to refute; and which even the meekest and most illiterate could fully share in, as there was nothing to read. If only people could have read the consequences of this "nothing"!
It was what the French call a 'carte blanche', and with that they could do anything.
To universal applause a model of this blank book was produced and held up before the members of the assembly. It didn’t cast out other bibles, they were quick to explain, but it unified them and surpassed them in its spotless purity. It was time, they said, to bow to the very essence of purity, the white, billowy throne of God, which no human eye could look upon, only the spirits of the blessed.
There were some, of course, who objected to these decrees, and about a quarter of the congress walked away before it was over. But they did so to the loud hissing of the majority, and left as if in shame or blind stubbornness, and they stepped out into a nothingness as empty as the one they opposed.
As I watched these strange developments on television, I was disturbed at what I saw to be the signs of a final disintegration of our civilization. In just a few weeks, and almost at the whim of a mob, the mentality of mankind was dissolving. I saw a danger in this purportedly blank bible, not in itself or its simplicity, but in what it wordlessly and silently displaced, which was everything but a blank page. While others only saw what they were painting white, I saw what they were painting over. Nancy and the others agreed with me that under these symbolic acts lurked a monster about to devour the greater part of human culture.
Few people consider that whenever there is an advance or change in our society, that when something new comes in, something old goes out. People are mesmerized like little children with the new toy, something to play with and explore. But I, with my love of the old, considered what was displaced, superannuated, retired and made obsolete. Then I tried to see other factors that went out the door with it.
Sometimes it was a human skill, the new, improved tool taking less effort to use, less exactitude, less hand-eye coordination. And in a generation this old talent would be lost, along with the health and hardiness and wholeness humans once had.
Being a philosopher in the old sense, I sometimes thought such things like: "who can now make a fine, stone arrowhead and a bow, or a fire from flint. Those were our survival tools for eons. Is our survival now threatened".
With every gain there's a loss. With this quick rise of the new Church there was a great loss.
