BLAST FROM THE PAST

New visitors to the chronicles from the future may first wish to visit the past, by reading the earlier hologramletters. (see the older listings on the right, go to the bottom and click the link to the earlier hologramletters)

NOTE The following is an adaptation from the soon to be released book ‘Letters From 2030’. To register interest on its release, or to order a copy email Bob Williamson via this link.

Awaiting a transmission or two while his communications system held up was something he looked forward to each day. Hoping that just one more person would be added to the number he was now exchanging messages with, this made the day a little more bearable. After a couple of hours of replaying transmissions over and over, which helped with the boredom and the perpetual loneliness, a new message came in. It was from Victor in the U.S., an old friend from years ago and someone he had lost touch with before everything fell apart.


Bob,

Oh my God, am I glad to have found you. Things have really gone to hell in a handbag, haven't they? How are you doing? Where are you? I know, a lot of questions, but being in almost complete solitude is enough to drive one batty. Getting to that, I guess I better let you know, I lost my wife Patricia and our son Alex a couple of years ago. With no hospitals in service and no medical doctors to be found, getting ill is almost a death sentence now, and in their case, it was. It's amazing what we take for granted. When we had the doctors to go to, we would complain about the cost and how they were going to stick us with needles. And now, I would have given anything to have had a skilled physician at their bedside, to prick them with needles and poke them repeatedly, to make them healthy again. I lost them and I still deal with it daily.

He looked at Victor’s memory screen as he spoke of Alex and Patricia and saw them again playing happily in the fields behind their summer cabin….. What price now would we pay to return to those safe and happy days? What price should we have paid? …….he mused

I have to admit Bob; I didn't heed your warnings. Yes I read your book and supported what you were doing those many years ago; I even put in some solar powered lights and tried to cut back on the amount of unnecessary driving I was doing. I really did try to reduce my footprint on the global climate. Hell, I even printed out and signed some of those letters to the U.S. Congress. But like a lot of other people, I just didn't give it much thought other than how much of a nuisance “being green” was having on my everyday life. I watched the television series and the movies they made about the result of climate change and thought, “That'll suck, glad I won't be around for that shit!” Yeah, I thought I would get in the last laugh.

You know it never really hit me, even though it was repeatedly being said that, “our children would pay the price”. I just never thought I would have to live though all this and I definitely never paused to think about what my family would have to endure, were they still here. As the waters rose and the overcrowding started to happen, from the millions of people who lost their homes to the oceans new boundaries, I started to think back to all that you said. To everything that was said by thousands of others and that is when I really began to worry about climate change and its impact. Yes, sad but true, you did try to warn us all. Of course the overcrowding caused the diseases to run rampant and then there were the virus mutations. That’s what got Patricia and Alex, a mutated form of the West Nile Virus, it wiped out over one quarter billion people in the states before all was said and done, at least that's the estimate they are giving us. Flooding and stagnant pools of water became the breeding grounds for mosquitoes, hundreds of thousands, if not millions that started infecting everyone.

As the population started to decrease some of us thought it wise to get out while the getting out was good. About fifty others and I started out on a pilgrimage of sorts, to find a less crowded and definitely healthier environment. We left the city on one full tank of gas that, I don’t like to admit, we stole. The cities became a looters paradise, people simply became monsters. Yeah, I know all too well that you watch the movies and see people banning together to survive and that's what you would expect, don’t get me wrong I witnessed this. I also witnessed cruelty and barbarity unlike anything I had ever seen. Sometimes I find myself thanking God that my child didn’t have to finish living his life in this new world. I know that sounds harsh but you’ll do anything to protect your children and you would never want to see them in a position where they have to struggle just to survive.

Our small group started out hoping to find a less densely populated town or city to inhabit. I figured that once the gas ran out we could cover about one mile per hour and several miles per day on foot, and we did. We camped along the way, hunted, the living off the earth kind of thing that our ancestors did. Believe you me though, I was never much of a hunter but luckily we had a couple of guys that went on yearly hunting trips. They taught us all how to hunt or trap, fish, skin and prepare our wild game. It sort of feels good when you get to the point where you can provide for yourself, knowing you won’t have to go hungry just because the local grocery is closed down. Don’t get me wrong though, if the arches at the local McDonald’s were still lighting up, I’d be in line. Food has always been one of my weaknesses.

It only took us about six weeks to find a town that wasn’t overrun with people and that had a nearby “natural” water source. Not that we would find a working faucet in a building anyway. After things fell apart and people stopped showing up for work, the water systems that we all relied on, simply stopped working. With no people around to maintain them they eventually just shutdown on their own. We setup shop in a local office building and started going through the town looking for anything that could supply power. We picked up gas generators and solar power lawn accent lights, anything and everything that could be used to help us have power for lights and occasional transmissions. It was hard but I did convince the group to hold off on using the gas generators for a time when we would really need them. I used the fact that the gas powered generators were just one of many reasons why we were in the situation that we are now. Honestly that didn’t go over to well, but the possible emergency need did.

That brings me to the fact of your book; I found another copy of it in the local library here and began to reread it. Yes, I did read it the first time through, honest. I began sharing your knowledge with everyone here in a hope to help the people understand what caused this and what our responsibilities in the future will have to be. I'll be the first to say it, knowing it’s too late; we should have been paying attention to the climate problems long ago. Mankind can be arrogant and self righteous beyond logic, that's for sure. Your book provides a wealth of knowledge and I only hoped that I could help this group understand it and imprint on them the importance of the material. We need to pass it on to our children and their children so that mankind does not repeat the same mistake twice, if there is to be a second chance. From what I’ve seen and know though, mankind is becoming the endangered species.

I have to go now but in my next transmission I’ll tell you all about what happened with the group and how I came to be on my own. Hopefully I’ll be on full solar power by my next transmission to you. I've found some documents in the archives that I'm using to build a solar power tower of sorts. I've never really been any good at the mechanics of things, but I think I can follow these plans and work things out.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Your friend,
Victor.


“Tomorrow, my friend; I will reach out to you tomorrow. Patricia and Alex have never left you and your memories will ensure they never do.”