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The Russell Around the World Expedition is due to leave next month, and I had promised to send them a copy of my journal. This week’s freight truck should get to Port Tracy in time for the CD to reach El Dorado before Captain Russell departs.
I started writing my thoughts and experiences in a diary during high school. Later, after the Event, Danny gave me the laptop I have used all these years to document our grand adventure. After we contacted the Inland Sea Community, and I heard about their effort to develop a historical record of the Event’s first generation of survivors, I knew my journal would help tell our stories.
Most of our generation are gone now, and soon we will join them. We managed to live through a species-ending Event that wiped out most of the population in a broad part of the United States. Other than the small pockets of survivors we encountered on our trek across the southwest, and the Inland Sea and Puget Sound Communities, we know of no other groups of survivors.
I have described our lives and experiences as we lived them, and our relationships and actions may shock some. We lived through the end of a familiar world, and it changed all of us. Those who were lucky and adapted were able to survive. But, those who could not, perished.
Our children and grandchildren will have to carry on this struggle to bring civilization back from the edge. I’m sure our world will never be restored, as we knew it, but I hope that our descendants will not have to relearn the elements of humanity, technology, and the civilization that reached for the stars.
