Showgirls

"12:16. What a typical afternoon. Just waking up in -- oh god, is this my room? Yes, bed. My bed. Score one for the now sober beaver. Okay, girl so you made your way home, and with your old aunties heart shaped locket in tow right there on the dresser in front of the mirror left behind by mother and father - god rest their souls.

"No time to mourn. It's been ten years since the plague took my parents -- and the whole damn community's -- breathe away. And the riots that followed after the public hanging of all those poor democratic leaders. Just a shame the mess that was left after the civil war broke out and nearly half the young men and women of this one fine nation all killing one another -- and for what! For what! Damn bipartisan election make people lose their minds. Oh well, that's two wins, one more win today and I'll let Hammer fricassee us a fat doe for supper before work tonight. He's had his eye on that sweet meat for a minute now. But I told him, we need her to have us a couple more litters and harvest some more of her fine angora wool before we have her for Sunday dinner (and thank the lord we have anything to eat!)

"The days and the weeks have gone by since, well, the world damn near ended. My whole world ended, yet somehow I live. Still get up. Still bathe, though goodness knows the water won't last forever. Not now. Things will never be the same. Still there is no time to reminisce, only time to survive.

"We still go to work nearly daily, still bump and grind, though now it's all anyone can talk about - how the Mississippi River split the continent not but six months ago, and waters raged through as if to swallow up the land. Which seems so funny to me, since I always expected it would be California and the whole West Coast.

Missy finishes rolling a fresh, hand rolled stogie and light it. Enjoying the sound of the crackle of the fire to the tobacco leaf, the look of the fire and the creation of the cherry at the end of stogie, and the aroma of the sweet dried leafy flower inside. Ahh, life's simple little pleasures. She closes her eyes breathes a deep puff of its smoke, holds it and lets go. She looks back at the pages of the sticker covered journey she still keeps, full of laughter and tears. She returns to her memoir.

"Wish you could of seen it, the sky was spectacular. But damn, somebody's got to polish those stripper poles! And feed the livestock - these girls have got to eat ;-)

"See, politics be damned. In a lawless society, ethics and ethos are everything. Ultimately, we all share very specific inalienable needs and desires. Sex reigns supreme, as it turns out, with or without borders. Everything else is up for barter or trade, and don't get me started on finding ingenious ways to ward off thieves and thugs.

"I've got my girls and they've got me. We let the men passing through come and go as they please. They drink up the whiskey and the hooch that we started brewing a couple of years ago, watch a little show, and then in turn they bring us whatever we ask for.

"Some parts of the world are still willing to trade with us, though the value of the dollar is, in fact, less than that of a soft unused corn cob. China and Russia, mostly. Though, I'm sure all they really want is the land and any resources they can plunder from it.

"Until next time, journal... until next time.

<3 Missy Martin