Wildwood Manor (chapter two)
No one's sure when exactly it started to happen, but it wasn't a sudden change. Of course it wasn't. We were the proverbial frog in the pot. Stick us into the boiling pot and we'd hop out again, aghast; let us sit in cold water while it slowly heated and we would sit there, simmering contentedly. A failing economy, the increased threats of global warming, of pandemics, of terrorism. The end of the first decade of the new millennium, instead of heralding a new era of peace and prosperity, seemed to be the crescendo of events, causing a downward spiral that was picking up speed with each news broadcast. Increasing threats of terrorism made it more and more difficult to cross the borders. When the influenza supremica, the "superflu" broke out in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />China, the United Nations collapsed. The US closed our borders, but it was too late: panic ensued, as military quarantines were overrun. The cities around the nation were vacated, looted…fires started, and the firemen; too sick or too scared, or already gone, left them to burn. Amid terror and disorder, the President suspended the democracy and instated martial law. Relentlessly soaring prices for food, housing, gas, and clean water forced several generations into one home, extending families. We became, almost overnight, a rural community. Laws from our new Chancellor trickled down, as the cities vacated, rights were suspended. The right to bear arms: gone. Free speech: gone. Religious freedom: gone. Church attendance (the new United States Church of Hope) was mandatory, homosexuality was forbidden, and marriage was required. These changes were to protect us, to help us recover from the massive collapse of the global economy and to swaddle us from repeating the past. America had once been a great nation, but she was prideful, and lustful, and selfish. Full of soft ideals and no practicality. We were being taught, as a nation, to scorn our parents and grandparents, whose generations forced us into the emergency situations we were in today. The new national policy is to protect yourself, care for your family, and honor and obey the government. Brotherly love, helping others: these things are dangerous. Have we not learned our lesson? By sending troops and medical supplies to China to assist with the first outbreak of flu-and a soldier's small, seemingly innocent gesture of comfort for the afflicted, resulted in the break of quarantine. Human kindness has no place in this modern world, so full of dangers. Trust no one but the government. Love no one, let no one close. Form no attachments. Slowly, slowly we lost everything, and most of us still can't really fathom what is gone.
Amid these happenings, over and above and around the changing scope of the nation, some people prepared for the worst. Eccentrics, those connected closely to the government, who could see the changes taking place that would eventually turn sinister, these people began preparing. Maybe the most important of these, on the east coast, was Ariana Ford. She inherited millions early on, and, with foresight verging on prescience, began preparing. "The great benefit, and ultimate downfall, of America before the pandemic," Ariana once told me, "was that everyone minded their own business: no one paid any attention to what their neighbor, or the government, was doing." Using this natural reluctance for Americans to pay attention, Ariana began enlarging her ancestral home in unconventional ways, stockpiling supplies, and hiring on staff that she could trust. She was seen by her employees initially as a little odd, but she paid well and treated them better, and so this oddity was overlooked.
This is where I am, now, in that spreading, amazing home. Over the years Wildwood Manor has become home to the resistance, home to freedom. I write this in our library, Ariana's personal culmination of achievement. Some didn't think it was necessary, at first, until the Chancellor started ordering the burning of most books, and banned all other non-government sponsored media. The room is underground, as is most of the labyrinth that is Wildwood, but equipped with a special air-lock and conditioning system to keep dampness and aging from the books. One of our chore rotations consist of scanning all the books into the large computer database, but the books are kept after scanned. While some are comfortable accessing their information electronically, some of us still need the comforting touch of the pages, the smell of the past wafting off the page. Even I, unused to a past that contained pleasures such as this, smile at the touch of paper. It is precious now in the outside world and not to be wasted on frivolous things that can be accessed just as easily on an electronic database. When I first came here, I was sick with withdrawal from their water, homesick and frightened, grief stricken from the loss of my family. And Ariana herself took me here, unused as I was to the bustle of the busy community, to reacclimatize with society at my own pace. I could read, a skill slowly being forgotten in a patriarchal, rural society, and so I dove into the printed words, marveling at the smell and the touch of so much paper all at once. I heard, later, that a few months after I relocated at Wildwood the Chancellor passed an edict, banning reading to be taught past a fifth grade level, and women to be taught at all. Ignorance is the best weapon for them, ignorance and fear.
Amid these happenings, over and above and around the changing scope of the nation, some people prepared for the worst. Eccentrics, those connected closely to the government, who could see the changes taking place that would eventually turn sinister, these people began preparing. Maybe the most important of these, on the east coast, was Ariana Ford. She inherited millions early on, and, with foresight verging on prescience, began preparing. "The great benefit, and ultimate downfall, of America before the pandemic," Ariana once told me, "was that everyone minded their own business: no one paid any attention to what their neighbor, or the government, was doing." Using this natural reluctance for Americans to pay attention, Ariana began enlarging her ancestral home in unconventional ways, stockpiling supplies, and hiring on staff that she could trust. She was seen by her employees initially as a little odd, but she paid well and treated them better, and so this oddity was overlooked.
This is where I am, now, in that spreading, amazing home. Over the years Wildwood Manor has become home to the resistance, home to freedom. I write this in our library, Ariana's personal culmination of achievement. Some didn't think it was necessary, at first, until the Chancellor started ordering the burning of most books, and banned all other non-government sponsored media. The room is underground, as is most of the labyrinth that is Wildwood, but equipped with a special air-lock and conditioning system to keep dampness and aging from the books. One of our chore rotations consist of scanning all the books into the large computer database, but the books are kept after scanned. While some are comfortable accessing their information electronically, some of us still need the comforting touch of the pages, the smell of the past wafting off the page. Even I, unused to a past that contained pleasures such as this, smile at the touch of paper. It is precious now in the outside world and not to be wasted on frivolous things that can be accessed just as easily on an electronic database. When I first came here, I was sick with withdrawal from their water, homesick and frightened, grief stricken from the loss of my family. And Ariana herself took me here, unused as I was to the bustle of the busy community, to reacclimatize with society at my own pace. I could read, a skill slowly being forgotten in a patriarchal, rural society, and so I dove into the printed words, marveling at the smell and the touch of so much paper all at once. I heard, later, that a few months after I relocated at Wildwood the Chancellor passed an edict, banning reading to be taught past a fifth grade level, and women to be taught at all. Ignorance is the best weapon for them, ignorance and fear.