text: Troy had considered himself pretty prepared for the solar event, already owning a hunting cabin in endless woods far from any habitation, at a time when cities were radically unsafe. Rural real estate might as well be priceless. His wife, Amarie, had wanted to sell it, but her safety was worth more to him than becoming a millionaire. He was one of six bilingual people who understood the factory processes of a thriving industry, and they really might break a million one day regardless if there was a quick recovery. When they left their house, city life was getting grim without power or water. Fires raged with no water to put them out, and they had slowly escaped the crowded streets at the expense of rioters breaking every window and the windshield of their truck. The technologies that had been destroyed by the event comprised an endless list from satellites to transformers to computers, and it would be some time before enough replacements were manufactured to restore previous conditions. “I’ll brew us some acorn coffee,” Amarie said as they stirred from sleep one morning. That crushed acorn concoction she made kept him alive. It was earthy and somewhat reminiscent of coffee. She brewed it with their much distilled rain water water from their constantly breaking roof system in a French press, serving it in their finest cups. She couldn’t stand to leave the fine china behind for looters, so they were using it. The rumor was that the government was going to come down hard on the looters and rioters after this was over. He drank his acorn coffee and his eye was drawn to their supply of canned goods. They were going to need every calorie for winter, and they wouldn’t have enough. There was a strict government mandate of no more than three cans of the limited remaining food for sale per day per person, but that was almost a joke. Stores were frequently looted out of business, and the few heavily fortified ones just couldn’t get any in stock. He was going to have to successfully hunt so many deer that they could make enough pemmican and deer jerky to get through the months of scarcity. His survival guide had clear instructions, thankfully, although he’d found it lacking in some other practical concerns that had come up. He had 400 bullets and no possible way to get more. They were barely sustaining healthy body weight, having found several staple calorie sources in the woods and creek, which they had reluctantly eaten in abundance. He hoped civilization would be civil enough for them to return before they had to endure two winters out here. There were 1,500 seeds in the variety vegetable garden envelope he had paid $1,500 for... and been lucky to get even at that price. The prices of goods there had been a run on were pretty much arbitrarily made up, at the moment. Unfortunately, neither one of them had ever gardened anything, before, and their attempt at a fall crop had produced about 5,000 calories in his best estimation at the expense of untold calories burned in the effort. Troy told himself the vitamins had been worth it, but was hoping warmer temperatures and prayers would make him a better gardener in the spring. It had killed the sportsman in his soul, but this was a survival situation, and he had used some of their seeds to make a deer lure in the woods. Today, he was going to hunt. He measured his breath with a bulky eight point buck thirty-five yards away, taking his best shot. The sound rang loud even through his ear protection, and he could hear the deer scream. It didn’t fall. Instead, the buck went down on it’s knees for a moment, then got up and charged him. He was in a tree moments later, watching in disbelief as the wounded, fierce animal butted the trunk three times before he gathered his wits about him enough to shoot again. He realized that the meat from the deer was unusable. The deer was almost certainly diseased to be behaving so erratically, which meant the whole local herd might be unsafe for consumption. The safest thing to do was to go further out to hunt from another herd, which would mean bringing Amarie to help make preserved meats wherever they were and haul it back. This was going to be an expedition, and likely they would need to hunt all the meat for winter at once to conserve the calories expended hiking so far. Amarie was unenthused. “Can’t we just have a lean winter?” “Not at 630 calories a day. Our muscles would atrophy. Your heart is a muscle. Even if we fasted at first to slow down our metabolisms, we would still lose at least two pounds a week. You can’t lose that much weight. You’re already on the thin side of healthy, now.” “It’s not like we’d be able to hunt up enough to not lose weight in one trip.” “Maybe not, but this season the hunting is good, next season I’d better have learned how to trap and I just won’t be able to provide enough to sustain us.” “We don’t have camping gear.” “God help me, Amarie, I promise you that I will keep you safe and alive until we can return to the city which will hopefully be rebuilt from the smoking what the hell we fled, but I need your help on this one. I just can’t carry it all back by myself. I’d have to return and then go back out, and that would extend the duration of this trip by weeks.” “Weeks? How far do we have to go?” “Far. Deer roam. I don’t know exactly how far, so this’ll have to be a “better safe than sorry” distance.” “I’m sorry. I just can’t do it. Someone needs to tend to the garden. We may be able to get something more out of it.” Troy chewed on it for a while, and decided he’d asked too much of her. She kicked butt as an architect, but he’d never once been able to talk her into going hiking, hunting, or fishing with him. He left the next day traveling lighter than he’d like, but he had a compass and basic equipment to process deer and cook pemmican and jerky over a cooking fire. All he had for shelter was the waterproof tarp that had previously covered the Ford Mustang First-Gen in his garage that had been $250 in parts from perfection. He had sturdy, warm clothes and was very glad of that fact. His other gear was minimal. He kissed Amarie goodbye and walked into the woods. She looked in that direction for a while, although she couldn’t see him, listening to the sounds of his quiet steps vanishing into the distance fairly quickly. She worried about him, but it wasn’t until the second week had passed that she grew gravely concerned. He’d told her he’d be back, by now. She was beside herself for the next week, knowing that there was absolutely nothing she could do. Her imagination ran wild with thoughts that he might be lost or injured far from the woods she knew. She went to sleep one night thinking that she might take the truck to the city with the dim hope of getting someone in authority to organize a search party, although she wouldn’t have the gas to get back and didn’t know if she could find any. She woke up next to him the next morning. The reason he was late was that he had staggered back under the weight of enough food to get them through the colder months, walking the distance five times as he went back and forth between loads. They had a quiet winter while most of the world was in chaos, drinking acorn coffee and playing cards by the light of the fire at night. They turned on the government issued radio one bright spring morning to find that peace was being restored in leaps and bounds. Three months later, they had some real coffee, and never went back to the cabin as long as they lived. There was no way they ever would have sold it, though.