Not Us

We remember. It started with the news broadcasts, the front page of the papers. We ignored it.

We never thought it could happen to us. Scaremongering, we called it. We carried on. We sipped our coffees from our takeaway cups. We bought our plastic-wrapped, exotic fruits and vegetables. We cozied up to our coal fires and oil heaters on cold nights. We took long hot showers and scrubbed ourselves with colorful scented gels until we glowed.

The oceans are so big, we won’t cause that much damage, we told ourselves. The problem is thousands of miles away. Hundreds of years away.

We remember when the scientists said the problem was escalating much faster than originally anticipated. We looked to our government leaders for advice, a plan, hope. They did not help. They did not know how to. Governments are not designed to save the world. We knew we wouldn’t need them for much longer. Deep down they knew they were too late to help. We knew we ignored everything for too long. We dismissed the signs, the warnings, the preventative measures. The world was heating up. The ice was melting.

Tick, tock. Drip, drop.

We never thought this could happen in our lifetime. Not to us. Medicine, science, and technologies were all so advanced. We always expected an immediate solution to our tiny problems. But for all our advancements, we crossed paths with a new threat, one that was dormant for millions of years. But it thawed out, defrosted. Bacteria.  

We were told not to worry, that this strain was so old — much less complex than the ones today — that it was too primitive for our bodies. But it seeped into the warmed waters, where the fish breathed and consumed it. Then the polar animals ate the fish. And when those animals died, their carcasses became food for the fish. This cycle continued long enough for the bacteria to multiply and mutate. It was incubated in the animals’ bodies. All the while our global fishing industries thrived. Supply and demand.

We remember the news reports that summer. A disease was spreading across Europe. Vomiting, diarrhea, fever; quickly followed by an ascending spike in mortality rates. People blamed the change in weather, the intense seasons brought the storms, the humidity, the rising temperatures — all perfect breeding conditions for germs. The death count climbed for months. By the time the true cause was discovered, the evolving bacteria had already mutated with such rapidity it had bypassed modern bacteria’s resilience. No antibiotic worked. This sickness was devouring Europe, and the rest of the world, at a devastating rate.

We remember how swiftly sanctions were put in place. All seafood produce across the continent was incinerated. All livestock fed on a diet that included fish pieces, incinerated. All fruits and vegetables fertilized with seaweeds, incinerated.    

When there is no known cure for an infection so malignant, emergency quarantines are executed. Sanctions are put in place. A sense of order must be maintained.

Air travel throughout Europe was banned. Inter-continental travel became highly restricted. Towns and cities were sectioned off and forced into seclusion. The food supply became so limited, ration books were introduced.

But we never thought this could happen to us. Not us.

Some people escaped from the overcrowded cities to try and get to the countryside, to old family homes, to places of green, where there was a chance to become self-sufficient, to not have to rely on rations — or looting. Many who stayed in the cities died. Condensed populations died out faster. We remember the news footage, images of bodies scattered on the roads leading out of these ghost towns. Their final and failed attempts to escape.

For smaller towns, the imposed quarantines took immediate effect, turning them into safe zones. Havens. We remember hearing about forts being erected, with armed guards — just protective locals — preventing anyone from entering. A stranger could be infectious. Some travelers seeking refuge who showed any signs of illness were shot on sight and set alight from afar. Compassion became a weakness, a threat to the tribe.

We remember when the radio stations announced that the population of Europe had dropped by fifty-seven percent. Other continents faced the same crisis, but what did it matter? We weren’t leaving our homes or town boundaries by then. Whoever was left working in any form of faithful journalism kept us up to date on mass migrations, mortality rates, and potential cures. But reports became infrequent.

We knew it was our fault. We knew all along. We knew it was going to happen at some point in the far-off future. We just never thought this could happen to us.

We had to learn fast. How to sow and harvest, how to rear livestock, how to make home remedies. Trade bans between towns meant that people in more remote areas had no access to basic medicine. Local pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals soon ran out of supplies — raided for the black market. With the lack of food and medicine, people’s strength started to decline. The old were good at dying. They did it quickly. Even healthy people were killed off by unfortunate freak accidents or mild infections — broken bones, toothaches, common cold and flu. More women died in childbirth, as did more babies, then pregnancy rates plummeted within the first few years. We were reduced to living in a Darwinian hell; survival of the fittest.

We remember the winter that lasted eight months. We never experienced anything like it before. We weren’t equipped to deal with that kind of weather, ever. The frost set in early and destroyed any crops that were yet to be harvested. Then the snow came. Knee-deep, waist-deep. We had nowhere to go anyway, but now we were confined to our homes. Any old people left were moved into larger houses belonging to nearby neighbors. Sometimes isolation can be the biggest killer. Some lone habitants refused to leave their dwellings. They said they had enough supplies. They probably just wanted to die in their own beds. We couldn’t blame them.

After three months of below-freezing temperatures, people got restless and hunger soon set in. Rations were dwindling and we didn’t have enough supplies to last another three months. Those of us who could hunt did so. We didn’t want to take our chances with fish and carnivorous birds. Still, there was no way of knowing if any animal was safe to eat anymore. We set traps for rabbits around their warrens. Smoked them out of hibernation. We couldn’t eat our chickens because they gave us eggs. Most of us even brought them into our houses to keep them warm for the winter. One dead chicken meant a food shortage. What was a bit of chicken shit on the kitchen floor now and again?

Spring normally brings hope, new life. And it did in its own way that year. Chicks, lambs, and calves came along, which meant meat rations could increase for a little while. We learned to forage for nourishing herbs and weeds to eat — nettles, dandelions, ramsons. But that harsh winter had left behind its share of destruction. Many people who stayed alone in their homes died, as expected. Depending on the condition of the corpse, and the house, it was oftentimes easier to burn the whole place to the ground. Either way, supplies were taken, wooden furniture, tools, clean clothes and blankets, if they could be found.

After that bleak winter, Europe’s population was reduced to less than a third of what it once was, before all this. The communities that avoided the disease owed their survival to a successful quarantine. We knew there was no going back to the way things used to be. Out of fear and for the sake of our existence, we maintained our districts, towns, and tribes. We bred our animals for meat, milk, eggs, and clothing. We had more land to share amongst our small communities and we farmed communally. We mastered our skills and passed them on to the few young people left. They had to learn quickly, how to hunt and skin, to grow and harvest, to tell the edible from the poisonous plants apart, to mend broken bones, to heal ailments, to birth new human life into the world.

But there still is always a fear that lingers in the back of our minds, like an itch that can’t be scratched. What next? Are we prepared? How will we cope? Eventually, there will be none of us left who remember the old way. We take each season as it comes, and each season brings with it more extreme temperatures, winds, rain, and drought. More challenges that threaten to break our spirits and our communities. But each passing day brings experience, discoveries, and possibilities.

But still, we wonder, what next? We have to survive. But what will come next? Tomorrow. Next winter. Next year. We have to question; we need to prepare. Because we never thought this could ever happen to us.