The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide to Disillusionment

Refugees

We are the stories we tell about ourselves. We need to remember our stories to understand who we are.

– The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide, Vol. 1, excerpt from line 176

Sleepy Hollow was a mess. Unlike territories further upriver, Westchester was close enough to the chaotic boroughs of New York City that over the previous months it had become flooded with cars, tents, and makeshift lean-tos. There had been evidence of violence here as well. Some cars had been burned out, there was dried blood along the roads and the highways. It took a day for Bryan Fisher to locate the Barneses, a family Julia knew from the past, but luckily, he found them. The Barneses, an older couple who were both retired math professors from Vassar College, were eager to help. Bryan spent some time explaining what was happening up at the Tish estate. Barbara and Gordon fed the kids and Bryan and made them cocoa. Bryan asked about the conditions in the area.

"It's been mayhem, but thanks to a few cool heads, things are beginning to calm down," Gordon explained.

"Some people here took a hard line, protecting their property by any means necessary, but the influx of people eventually became too much," Barbara elaborated. "The rest of us had to make the hardened few see reason. There's no holding on to what's been lost. The only way forward is interdependence."

"How did the rest of you make them see reason?" Bryan asked.

"By any means necessary," Gordon said, flatly. "By our numbers, and in some cases, by force."

"It became clear," Barbara jumped in, "that those of us who kept the refugees from their land were flooding the rest of the area with people, who were just doing what any of us would do if we were escaping that ruin down south. It was intolerable that we should not all share the burden."

"Do you hear much about the city?" Bryan asked.

"We hear about little else. It's awful what happens to a city when the trucks stop coming," Barbara said.

"The trucks?" Bryan asked.

"Yes. There was an effort for a while to bring in supplies and food by helicopter and boat, but the roads are becoming impassable for tractor-trailers, and the money is worthless. There were millions of people with very little to eat. Trucks stopped arriving around June. Our government is in dissolution, what with the currency being devalued, and there's no way to get food into the city," Gordon explained. "The army and FEMA could only do so much with the entire coastline underwater. As I understand it, everything in the city is now controlled by gangs and militias. It's a terrible situation."

"Do you have room for the kids?"

"Of course we do," said Barbara. "We had some people staying here, but they moved on a week ago. We have a guest room upstairs. Will you be staying?"

"Only the night, if you don't mind," Bryan said. "I have to get back upriver to check on my husband and the rest of the community. I hope..."

"I'm afraid we can only offer you the sofa down here," Gordon said. "It's a pull-out."

"That's fine," Bryan said. "You are very generous."

Bryan stayed the night, making sure Maimonides and Avra were safe, and then he headed back to the boat.

Bryan knew very little about boats. Piloting the yacht had not been hard down the river, but when it came time to disembark, he had taken the boat as close to the shore as he dared, within sight of the Mario Cuomo Tappan Zee bridge, and dropped anchor. He then loaded the kids into the skiff and, not being able to get the outboard motor working, rowed them to shore. If he had only continued a little further, he would have found docks along a protected spit of land. He had been understandably distressed, but his hastiness cost him. The skiff he dragged onto shore was gone when he returned, and the yacht had drifted downriver, into the strong central currents of the Hudson. It was too far for him to swim.