Chapter 2

Accept the things you cannot change.

It might sound cold and callus but it was the best coping mechanism I knew. I couldn't bring my wife and son back. I could wallow, despondent and crying myself to death. I could put that little .22 in my mouth and join them even faster, or I could accept it and move on. Put their memories in the deepest part of my heart and move on, survive. That was what I decided to do.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

My new watch told me it was just after 4:00 pm and that felt right. It was about that time before I had left. Lots of time to make a camp, probably not a lot of time to go explore. Besides, I didn't really want to leave all my stuff right away and I did want to settle in and take stock. Tomorrow I could see what was what.

The world was an interesting place with nothing man made. We had lots of trees in our neighborhood but you realize just how much space is taken up by buildings and streets. Especially now that those were all just grass. Most of the world had turned into lawn and it was much more open than you would realize. Front gardens were now just islands of plants, backyard flowers isolated and bordering nothing. The straight hedge which had gone along the property line four houses down looked odd and out of place.

The sunken patio of our neighbours behind us now didn't have patio stones, but was still flat and surrounded by bushes and plants. It didn't look like rain tonight and it was big enough to fit my tent. I don't know why but I didn't want to be out in the open, this would hide me well.

Obviously I didn't need to take stock of what I had; I put up the tent, blew up the mattress and settled away a bit. It took less time than I expected and sitting around moping wasn't going to do anyone any good. It was time for a walkabout to see what's what. The voice of a salty, crude chief mate from my younger sailing days rang in my head; "A sailor without a knife is like a whore without a cunt. Useless." This was the same neighbourhood I had lived in for years, but who knew what else had changed, or who else was here. I didn't want to draw attention but I didn't want to be undefended. The Kukri went on my left hip, the Ruger in its holster on my right, the Fairbairn on the inside of my forearm. A button-up shirt over my t-shirt would mostly hide them from a distance. I thought about taking one of the rifles but I wasn't quite ready to hunt yet.

I dragged the sled, which was pretty heavy but pulled easier than I thought it would, over across what had used to be our street and a couple of houses up to a massive bank of rose bushes and slid it inside. It was nearly invisible even up close and with all those thorns, pretty safe there. The tent was pretty well hidden but if someone found it and raided it I wouldn't lose everything. Actually most of the really important things were in the sled.

There were some community gardens a couple of blocks away which would be the 1^st stop to see if the veggie plants were still there. Then down south a block to the edge of the hill looking down on the rest of the city. This was partially to see if I could see anyone else, or signs of them, it was also partially to see just how different everything was!

Setting off, I surprised myself with how flighty I was. Yesterday the walk would have been without second thought. Now I was actively avoiding what had been major streets and instead walking through backyards, staying away from open areas. I don't know why I was on edge. Part of me felt like I should be actively trying to find other people, but overwhelmingly I was wary. I had one major road to cross; it's amazing, what was once a 4 lane road plus sidewalk and multi-story buildings on each side now felt like crossing a football field! A football field with small trees which had once been planted along the sidewalk and now, given room to grow, would undoubtedly one day turn into an avenue of branches. Now however it was just quiet and lonely.

The community gardens were still mostly there. The greenhouse and its contents had been replaced with grass but the beds, their edges soft and tumbled where little wood retaining walls once stood, were still present. Tomatoes, zucchini, squash, carrots by the looks of it, peppers, something that looked like it might end up being eggplants and loads of green beans. A couple of fruit trees as well. Here then was food for the rest of the summer and into the fall! At this point I really wished I had thought of packing a small light bag I could throw some of the veggies in. I would have to make do with my shirt as a makeshift sack and a leather satchel (once I learned how to make leather and got enough to make it) went as the 1^st thing on my new to-do list.

Off I trudged to the edge of what used to be prehistoric lake edge of Lake Ontario but now was just a 100 foot or so escarpment looking down towards what used to be the downtown. It was quiet up there on the ridge. And it seemed just as quiet everywhere else I could see. I stood as still as I could, leaning against a large tree and just watched and waited.

The views people had paid so much for to have from their back windows were just as good now. Different though. From this height the old streets were easy to see, though as things got closer to the office core it became more difficult, it was mostly open grassland with some trees where parks had once stood. The concrete jungle had turned to grass fields.

What was most interesting though was where man had dug deep. I had wondered about basements, all the houses were gone, replaced with flat ground despite almost all of them having basements. Looking down however where once there stood huge office towers with 3, 4, 5, in some cases 6 story undergrounds, some of them were now huge pits, like they were just too big to fill in. The same went for the subways and I guess what had once been the main sewer lines. Those were now apparent by the depressions in the earth where the tunnels had collapsed creating little valleys (though in the case of the subways, 40-50 foot wide, 20 foot deep valleys! A lot of the sewers were really just old creeks that the city had buried in the name of development. I suspect these would re-emerge soon.

What had been the dense office core, chock full of 40, 50, 70 storey buildings was now a pockmarked mess. It might be interesting to go down there, but it would be dangerous. One false step and no telling if you'd ever be able to get out. If you survived the fall! I suspect in a few years' time that whole region will fill up with water and become small, deep ponds, maybe only weeks or months if those creeks started to flow into them. They would probably eventually erode down to connect with the actual lake a few blocks to the south. That would be pretty. Right now though, it was a place to avoid.

I hadn't moved or made a sound in a couple of minutes. I saw no smoke, heard no noise other than a few birds. It was still and quiet. Maybe I was alone; the "others" big voice had talked about could be spread around the globe. As far as I could see, which, from my vantage point, was about 5 km's east and 30+ km's west as the lake curved around, was devoid of man-made anything.