Callousness

It is early morning. The sun is just over the horizon, but that is not what has awoken me. I hear it clearly... something I have not heard in a while: a combustion engine. The reason I have not heard this for some time is not because of its rarity, but because of the dangers its use brings to the user.

Getting up from a makeshift encampment I have made for myself in an oversized culvert, I quickly grab my only companion, an m1a, and dive into the scrub brush overlooking the road I hear the vehicles traveling.

Logic would tell one that if it so dangerous to operate a vehicle, then these people must be dangerous themselves to be able to combat the desperation that leads the remnants of humanity to risk body and soul for the resources of others. This is why my heart is now racing, and I am acutely aware of it.

My attitudes have changed drastically over recent years. I no longer obtain the respect for the notion of humanity that I once did. In fact, events that have transpired since have ultimately led me, and the rest of those who have survived, to despise that which has brought us to ruin. No longer are there those who tell us that simple solutions are always around the corner for problems that are ultimately insolvable in the sense that the status quo can never be maintained. Solutions always try to maintain that which may not be maintainable. Such was the situation of the past decade. If ever there was a lost decade, this was it.

Energy... water... food... materiel all these things increased in labour cost and decreased in availability. Eventually it degraded into every man for himself as it became obvious there just wasn't enough to go around. And when that happens, what supply was available to further production of new supply, goes to zero. It is, and was, the endgame.

Everyone with two eyes saw it coming, but there was always "someone else" who was working to solve it. Obviously there wasn’t.

The vehicles now come into sight, and I see the band of sc** that occupy them. Years ago I may have
noticed that thought was prejudiced of me. How could I know the character of these people?

The answer was in the question. People. Like a plague, they stripped the land and sea of the resources for their entire existence. The comparisons are frequently made to lower organisms, and shrugged off and they always are, for the comparison is not quite one to one. People are worse. They hate. Bacteria do not hate. It was hatred that led to the scorched earth. As those who had not burned that which others had, rightfully or not. Huge stretches of the earth were consumed in flames that were not combated, as the infrastructure could not support fire control.

That was how I lost my home. Home... I remember it fondly. How foolish I was that I thought it would provide me with the independence I had sought my entire life. I recall all the effort, all the planning and labour that went into the place, only to have it burnt to cinders... by people. People such as the ones I saw before me.

They had stopped at the burnt ruins of a rural house. In the past, it may have contained a family, desperately trying to pay a mortgage that they commuted to multiple jobs they often detested... consuming resources for the sake of future consumption resources.

Upon reflection, nothing epitomizes human existence more than doing something for the sake of doing it again. You breathe so that you may breathe again. You drink so that you may drink again. You eat so that you may eat again. You consume... so that you may consume again. And at the end of it all, when your life is at an end, you stand before the mountain of destruction that you have created just to support the years of your life. You look at the heap of animal corpses, whose flesh you have consumed, the plant material, whose fruits you have either eaten, or more often than not, wasted. You gaze upon the span of natural resources, alive and inert, which you have exploited, because that was the way humanity existed. It was your existence. You knew no other. Your very survival was dependent upon it.

And then it was gone. For so many people it had vanished. And this was the inevitable result. I once again focus on those before me. They are not my fellow human beings. They are competitors. They can be nothing else. Should I reveal my existence, my fate is sealed. It was anyway, but my 'humanity' drives me to live one more day... so that I may live again to enjoy misery.

The day could transpire as it has like any average day: foraging among that which wasn’t burned for anything edible and trying desperately to hide from the 'groups'. The groups do not confer independence. They offer survival, but at a cost. No camaraderie exists among them. They are like wolves, with clear hierarchy, and openly exploitative. It is only the differing strata of tolerance and submissiveness among h*** sapiens that allows for their continuation.

I have often thought of what a properly motivated group could accomplish, if large enough, and secure enough in its resource potential. I let myself daydream of how this day could have been in an alternate world... a world where the exponential function was not the defining mathematical equation of existence. Where people, the hairless ape, realize their position as a living organism on a living planet. Where the activities of one day do not transpire just so they may happen again. Could there be fields of biodiesel yielding crops or hydroponic algae grown for the same purpose? Could there be farms of wind and sun? Could the might of waves and tides be harnessed? Could soil be replenished? Could water be treated as the precious substance it has been? Could human beings cease to expand the dead end species that it will be? Could they finally overcome its absurd notions of self superiority in favor of something which
truly is?

The answer is it could. But not by humans. Humans could have evolved. They could have taken a hand in that process- something no other species has had the opportunity to do. But delusion of importance and self righteousness is always the fly in the ointment. It was my conclusion during the lost decade that no plan of sustainability is in fact sustainable with the human race. The human body, of which the brain is a part of, dictate the same existence that it has had for its entirety.

The lost opportunities and immediate suffering weigh heavily upon my fractured and abused soul, whose scars have formed a callousness I shall never shed. I do not look forward to the rest of my day- my birthday- as it will be like any other day. If this party before me discovers my existence, as it just may, then I will most likely die. And upon my death I will reflect on a life wasted. On opportunities wasted. On a species... wasted.

My eyes close... I want to sleep... will I wake up?