Dystopia Now

Sarah Williams dug a spoon into the can of beans. She held the spoon over a candle for a few seconds before putting it into her mouth. The beans were only slightly warm, but it was still a treat to have something that wasn’t completely cold. The temperature in her home had hovered around 40 degrees for three days now with no sign that it would change soon.

Yesterday her nearest neighbors, Lily and Bob, had left home trying to find someplace that still had power, food and water. They asked Sarah to come with them, but she declined. She said at her age, she didn’t want to leave her home. Sarah was hopeful the crisis wouldn’t last much longer. Before they left, Lily had given her a few canned goods and a bottle of water. Sarah wept when they left, partly because she appreciated their kindness, but also because now she would be completely alone. The rural area where she lived had always been sparsely populated, but since all the recent calamities, it was almost deserted.

Sarah knew that things would have been better if Jim was still alive. He would have prepared for the situation. He would have purchased batteries and gotten charcoal for the grill and kerosene for a space heater. He could even have gone hunting when the stores ran out of food. Jim would have heard the early reports of bad weather coming and he could have been ready. Sarah had ignored the warnings, like most people.

It was hard for people to believe what was happening. Sarah had lived in the same town for all of her 74 years and had never experienced such cold weather. Summers were always very hot, and winters were mild. But in recent years, the summers had become brutally hot. Winters had become unpredictable, with cold snaps becoming more common. The news used to say it was “climate change,” but she and Jim, and pretty much everyone they knew never really believed it. As she ate her lukewarm beans, and shivered under two blankets, though, Sarah now believed that there probably was something to this climate change idea.

The wind howled against her trailer home and the sound made her feel even colder. She climbed into bed and buried herself under as many coverings as she could. Where here nose poked out from the blankets, she could see her breath. Even wearing two pairs of Jim’s hunting socks her feet felt frozen. She wished Jim was with her. They could have could have warmed each other under the covers. Jim had always made her feel safe. She reached under her shirt to find the heart-shaped locket he had given her over 50 years ago when they got married. It had been his mother’s and held a picture of him when he was a child. Sarah had never changed that picture. It reminded her of her husband’s sweet, childish nature. She loved that about him right until the end.

Thinking about him overwhelmed her with grief. The tears on her face felt cold, which made her feel even worse. Nothing made sense to her anymore. Only two weeks earlier government officials had been on TV saying there was nothing to worry about. There would be no power problems or food shortages. Then the cold weather came, and the power failed so Sarah couldn’t cook, or run a heater, or even pump water from the well. Then the stores ran out of food and water. Gasoline was hard to come by. Only a year earlier, when people started getting sick, the government officials had been on TV saying that it was nothing to worry about. The virus would just go away and everything would be fine. Then Jim’s cousin got sick and passed away. Sarah’s sister and her nephew got sick. Sarah’s sister didn’t survive and her nephew never completely recovered. Finally, Jim succumbed to the plague. He put up a brave fight for weeks, but by May last year, he was gone. So many thousands were dying that Jim didn’t even get a proper burial. Sarah had just been given a box of ashes which she ended up burying behind their trailer with a simple wood grave marker.

Sarah started shivering uncontrollably. The temperature must have dropped outside and the thin walls of her home were doing little to hold in heat. Even under all the blankets, she felt completely chilled, as if there were no blankets at all. As the cold took over her, she held tight to her gold locket. “Jim,” she said to herself. “Please give me strength.” She didn’t think she could endure the cold one second longer, but then, as if in an answer, she stopped shivering. She suddenly experienced a sense of warmth, and she felt almost as if she was dreaming.

“Mom,” she heard someone say. Things were hazy, but Sarah tried to focus. She saw her son J.J. standing by the bed. She felt such joy to be seeing him. Jim Jr., or J.J. as they always called him, had been killed along with his wife three years earlier. A supremacist terrorist had burst into their church and murdered twelve people with a high-powered weapon. At the time, government officials had been on TV saying there was nothing to worry about. They said that domestic terrorism was nothing to worry about, but during the following year there had been two more attacks. For Sarah, though, all it meant was that her son was dead.

“I’ve missed you so much, son,” Sarah said. “Not a day, not a minute has gone by that I haven’t thought about you.”

“I know, Mom,” J.J. said and smiled. “Dad is here, too.” Standing next to her son was Jim. Sarah couldn’t hold back the tears.

“Oh, Jim, you’re here!” she said. “I know everything will be fine now. I love you, Jim.”

“I love you, too, honey,” Jim said. “There’s nothing to worry about, now. You just go to sleep, and everything will be better.”

“Alright,” she said. “My men are here to take care of me. Keep me safe from the evils of the world. I’m so happy.”

Sarah held her locket tightly as she fell asleep. She felt warm and calm. The world around her was dying, but as her own life ended, Sarah didn’t care. She was happy.

A week later, her neighbors were able to return. When Lily checked on Sarah, she found her nearly frozen body in her bed. Like Jim, there was no time for a real funeral. Her friends Lily and Bob were given Sarah’s ashes in a box. They tucked her locket into the box and Bob managed to dig a small hole in the frozen ground next to Jim. They placed a wooden marker above her grave that said simply, “Sarah Williams, 1947 – 2021.”

Lily and Bob stood silently by their friends’ graves. The quiet was disturbed when Bob started coughing uncontrollably. When he got it under control Lily said, “That’s it, Bob! Your cough is not getting better. We’re driving up to San Antonio tomorrow to see a doctor.”

Bob scowled, and between coughs he said, “I ain’t going to the doctor. I just have a cold. You heard what that government man said on the radio. The pandemic is over. We got nothing to worry about now.” He stormed off to the car, still trying to stifle his coughs.

Lily looked down at Sarah’s grave. “I swear, Sarah, it just doesn’t end lately. Every time I think it can’t get worse, it does. I told Bob I think it might be the end of the world, but he just gets mad. I mean, the end has to start somewhere.” Lily cleared some leaves from the graves. “At least you can rest easy now,” she said. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll all be seeing you soon.” The sun poked out from behind a cloud as Lily walked to the car. The sunlight shone right down on her, but for some reason, Lily felt no warmth.