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15 years, 3 months, and 11 days after the apocalypse.
Or 15.3.11 AA
Good morning! I hope if you are reading this that you are doing well. I was given a promotion yesterday and I felt that I should commemorate it with a touch of journal writing.
It has taken me nearly since the apocalypse to gather this much paper! And I was saving it for just such an occasion. We are finally here now and so I will not dwell on those dark years, especially not in this celebratory journal.
My name is Gunther Bivingston and I received my Masters of Accounting from a little college back East. After that, I worked for the big five until the apocalypse shut down my industry.
Apparently, most people don’t worry about their taxes in times like those. Irresponsible, I know, but it was the reality.
Previous to the second big bang, as I have begun calling it, I was so focused on advancing my career that, I left very little time for developing interpersonal relationships. So I have decided to take this forced reset on the economy, society, and population density as an opportunity to rethink my life and to make some friends.
Admittedly, there are fewer friends to go around, but I never much liked large groups of people anyway.
Thus, after all the apocalypse business, I had been wandering errantly for a few years, when I happened upon a group of survivors. They were banding together to find food and to ward off the vicious marauders that appeared promptly after the government fell.
In hindsight, I can say that I did not agree with all of my new companions’ methods, but they gave me companionship in the “storming” phase of our new society (see Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development… in whatever book(s) survived the fires).
After a few years of trying to quietly improve the moral—and morality—of the group, the leader was… I will say removed, and a new leader stepped in to fill the power vacuum.
General Bexx is his name, and what a great man he is!
He is strong-willed, but upstanding, intense but approachable, and has a great head of silver hair to top it all off—literally.
And so we started to build a community in truth! We looked for a place where the topsoil wasn’t completely blown away, and we began to set down roots, so to speak. We built cabins and shacks that we renovated and expanded as our community grew. He developed a rule of law, though the application was admittedly spotty.
And that brings us to last week when I was sitting in the great hall minding my own business. I was finishing hand-binding this very journal on my break from the dunghills when who should stop by a small, unimportant table? But the assistant to General Bexx’s second assistant herself! What an incredible honor! She asked if I would meet with the record keeper, at my earliest convenience, and of course, I obliged her immediately.
I am now the official assistant to the record keeper, tasked with writing down the pithy statements that General Bexx declares in times of need. It does feel a little like being in charge of a quote book, or a social media page, but I’ve also decided to take upon myself the noble duty of recording the laws that General Bexx is inspired to create, so as to have more equal application in the future.
What a day! Well, there is a meeting in agriculture tomorrow, so I had better get to bed!
Talk to you soon,
– Gunther
15.3.19 AA
WOW! It has been crazy busy the last week or so!
I learned that General Bexx had not been expecting me in all his meetings, but had expected that I would spend time with the scriptwriters and pull quotations I feel would make good posters and slogans… but after some discussion, he “reluctantly agree[d] that maybe it might be worth it to try [me on in the codifying capacity]… at least for a couple of weeks.”
So with that vote of confidence, right from the general’s second assistants mouth—off the record—I began my work. And we are now into the 3rd week and no one seems to even notice me in the meetings anymore, so I think we are bunker-ed in and ready to make an impact!
This past week we were discussing agricultural issues and how we can use our limited fields and labor to the utmost. There was a lot of discussion of what types of crops we should plant so that we don’t strip the soil of its nutrients as well. The final word from the General- and the first law I have been able to codify is the following:
“Let every citizen of NDC (New Day Community) give a minimum of 6 hours volunteer service in the fields per day unless they are assigned to another duty by the council.”
And there it goes! I posted the law around the community, and though there was some grumbling from the home builders, everyone else seemed to take it well.
As an interesting side note, a ragtag group of battle-hardened youths turned up at the community yesterday asking for sanctuary.
They are remarkably well put together for having been living in a post-apocalyptic world without any parents, schools, or anything to support them.
I am certain they will fit in great here.
15.4.2 AA
Well, everything is not only sunflowers and squash here in NDC. Those youths I mentioned are stirring things up quite a bit.
They’ve brought news that an evil empire has conquered the west coast and has somehow managed to become extremely technologically advanced. Apparently, it wants to control the whole continent—even though all that remains is almost exclusively bare rock, desert, or radioactive. I find it hard to believe, but the idea of a faceless, evil empire stealing this little piece of heaven we’ve toiled to create here is a real fear. The youth’s leader, Jahania is tremendously charismatic and quite pretty in a fierce ‘I could kill you with a spoon’ sort of way.
The General is concerned at the news but has asked them to go through him directly with their requests for assistance. I think it is wise to have someone with a little more maturity to temper their youthful, fiery dispositions.
Jumping in head-long is not always the wisest solution after all.
I asked the general about whether these six youths could be considered citizens since they have had essentially no vetting period and are not old enough to vote. He said that “If you’re old enough to shoot a gun [or a crossbow as the case may be] then you’re old enough to be a citizen of NDC, in these dire times.” So I am now trying to figure out which of the young people in the community should be retroactively eligible for our last vote about the commemorative statue placement, and further, to discern if the elderly who can barely lift their dinner utensils should, therefore, be retroactively excluded from the vote as well.
Laws are difficult to tie down with all the constantly changing variables, but I am committed to seeing it all through.
15.4.3 AA
The youths must be extremely convincing because the General has now offered all the able-bodied men and women we can spare to train with these youths to fight the immense evil empire.
…
I do not know how it happened. I was in the meeting when Jahania and the boy, who she seems to be in love with, but is afraid to admit it to herself, told the General what they had seen when their little town was ransacked by the empire and he just promised them all of our resources, just like that!
I admit that the faraway looks and the pained expressions were compelling, and they are incredibly articulate for teenagers who grew up in a town without a book, after an apocalypse. That being said, if I were the General, I probably might have given them tentative permission to train some of our citizens, on a volunteer basis, but all of our able-bodied people and all of our available resources? For as long as they deem to be necessary? Unheard of!
Regardless, I have to go and learn how to take down a technologically advanced, evil empire with medieval weapons.
I will be sure to let you know how it goes.
15.5.7 AA
I can officially add “proficiency with a pike and minor explosives” to my résumé!
I never thought I could do it, but Jahania, Vinsint, the twins—Eternity and Fraternity, Lukkas, and Ibreel are excellent teachers!
Each of them has advanced knowledge of varied weapons and technologies that they acquired through sundry means in their journeys. Using those skills they have been able to help us organize the defenses and coordinate the logistics of building bunkers that we can hide in when the Evil Empire (or EE as I like to abbreviate) will inevitably attack. The story goes that the entire empire is trying to destroy Jahania and her 5 friends because they would not bow down to their tyrannical rule.
They have even admitted that if they had not come here, the EE probably would have never bothered the NDC. Even still, we are so very happy they did, because now we can help stop the EE from destroying our new friends!
The Six, as everyone calls them, say that after only a month of training, we are ready to take on the EE! I would not have thought that it could be possible, but if they say I am ready, I must be!
The entire community except for the General and a few other important leaders will be heading out in a week.
15.5.10 AA
I was with the Six when NDC was destroyed.
Oh, the horror!
The Six were impatient and had wanted to leave at once when they had heard of rumblings amidst the EE’s ranks. The problem was that the General got cold feet about sending all of the NDC to battle without anyone to defend the town. So he ordered us all to wait for the next council meeting to decide what we should do.
Against the general’s wishes, a handful of us agreed to leave with the Six in the night. Well, the next morning when we looked back at the NDC from on top of a rise, we saw the black hover-jets destroy the settlement.
I only hope that they were able to make it to the bunkers in time.
Well, I am going to hide this book in a hollowed out tree, to hopefully find one day if we are able to end the tyranny of the EE.
I never thought I would find the companionship I was searching for with six young people, especially not in the far off insurmountable odds we find ourselves in now. If anyone could save the world, it would be these six youths.
In closing, I wanted to share some of the ‘’pithy statements’ that the Six have said over the last month and a half that struck me as worth remembering in this precious journal.
“We are all strong enough to destroy evil empires.”
“One man’s arrow can fell the mightiest nation”
“Put your back into it! Because when the fight is over we don’t want to go back into it!”
“You’re a true friend, [to the cause] Gunther.”
– Gunther Bivingston