I have been writing them for twenty four years now, since The Great Loss. I was never into journaling before but for some reason now I do. I guess I hope to look back at them when this is all over and have a place for perspective to teach me.
Remind me.
When I say ‘them’ I mean my journals. My books. I have lost some of them because of all the moving I used to have to do. And all the rancid places I have had to live. Some of them I have lost to getting wet and otherwise damaged. Some I have lost because I have had to leave in such a hurry, running from The Others. I have lost some of them because I can’t remember where I had stashed them until I found a decent and safe place to live.
Right now I don’t need to be reminded because I am hear.
In the darkness.
Waiting for the light.
For now and for sometime, I have been safe in the trees.
I am old enough to remember when tree houses were used for kids to play in and build forts in and start neighborhood clubs in.
These days the ‘neighborhood clubs’ are more like mobs and the tree houses are more like fortresses hidden among the branches.
Since I have lost the book that I had written down what had happened to me at The Great Loss I will explain it here again. But first I will want to say what it is like living in these days.
When I say the darkness I don’t mean it is dark here always. I mean the people. There aren’t as many bright and beautiful days. I miss the ones that start with a crisp breeze accented with a slow fog being gently evaporated by a warm morning sun. Days where you can walk through the forests for days and not come across any others. These days are darkened by the mobs of others. The Others whom have taken the mark. Seeking whom to devour. Not devour in a eating sort of way but in a consuming sort of way.
Like consuming all things. Like a wildfire consumes a forest.
That is another reason it is difficult to write my books. At times it can be hard to find blank paper because they take it to burn. Some of my books I have written over the copied paper of old books. Since hardly anyone who can or care to read is left, I don’t feel so bad. Sometimes I run out of pens and pencils and can’t write until I find some more.
That’s what most of my days are spent doing. Searching for food, writing utensils and books. Preferably blank books. Sometimes searching for building materials. Besides my boat, I have all but given up on trying to make electricity. Electricity is for the elite. They have a hard enough time keeping that going even with all their resources. Not like it used to be anyway.
I have built my house on the trees of life on the banks of the river.
When I say house, it’s more like a treehouse.
When I say treehouse, I mean it’s more like a fortress.
When I say Fortress, I mean it's more like a hideout.
I built my house out of things I can pull off of other buildings and trailers and anything I can get my hands on and carry with me, using the small hand tools. There is no more lumber left in the lumber yards. There are no more batteries for power tools. No batteries that I am going to write about anyway. I was an electrician for a time before the transition. Not much good that does me now, I guess. There is not much the same as it was before The Great Loss.
I have built my house up the river from the old city. So that I can float in undetected and carry anything I find upstream with my solar powered boat. When I say solar boat I mean it is a jon boat that I have wired four trolling motors together with a few solar panels I have gathered for power. I try to stay out of the old city as much as I can, partly because it is too filthy and also I don't want to take a chance losing my boat but I do find a lot of blank books there. And ink pens!
Until I find, which I probably won’t, any of my old books, I guess I will re-write what I can remember up until now. I am advanced in my years, so I can’t make any promises. When I say advanced in my years I mean I am only about fifty-eight. Which is pretty old for this world.
The Great Loss came to me in a time where I was already at a loss. Not that I was poor, I grew up poor but became wealthy. I became wealthy by any means necessary, some legal and some not. Mostly in such a way that was wicked. It was a time when I was overwhelmingly poor and overwhelming rich at the same time.
Financially I had more than I could spend. And I spent a lot! I had more houses, cars and women than I could keep track of. I had employees both legal and illegal and some in between.
Spiritually, I was in poverty. Not like poverty in the United States, I mean like poverty in the third worlds. The poor of the poor. The valley of the shadow of death. The spiritually poor of the spiritually poor. I can only believe and pray and hope that the promises that I have read of God are true.
Then Darkness came in the night, like a thief, stealing all that was shining. Stealing all that was remotely close to light. That’s when we lost anyone who knew the promises of God. Not knowing God in sense of know who God was, everyone knows who God is. I mean truly knowing God and following Him.
When darkness came, even death itself had lost it’s way. We were left to figure it out from scratch. Those that thought they knew, suddenly did not. Others that said they knew the promises of God, used the ignorance to their advantage. Those of us who can read the words of God are left in the dark to rebuild from nothing.
For us there is just barely enough light to see the trail by the river that leads to the mountain top. We are bitterly hopeful.
For the elite pretend nothing has happened, they tell everyone to keep watch for the rapture as if nothing happened.
The Others have given up all hope if they had any to start with. The Others are seeking selfish survival. Only God can know their hearts. They have one foot in reality and another in chains, with a bit in their mouths, being led by what is unseen.
The darkness came when I was in the elevator heading down, somewhere between the 13th and ground floors. The elevator didn’t jolt. The lights didn’t flicker. The guy next to me didn’t disappear or turn into a zombie and try to eat my brain. He let me go first as we stepped out of the elevator into the lobby. He rushed past me on his phone, leaving a message for his wife.
“I am just leaving, don’t wait for me. I hear traffic is pretty bad. Loveyabye.”
That's how The Great Loss happened.
They say darker days are coming.
