The Oblivious

Chapter Seven: Expectations

        Meanwhile, inside the bunker, anxiety rose among the group.

        “How do we know that they’re not hurt or in trouble?” asked Harold.

        “One of them would have come back for help if they were,” answered Sara.

        “What if they both got hurt and can’t get back to us for help?  We don’t have another suit to go out there.”

        “Stop it Harold” said Sara.

        Harold was puzzled as to why his concern prompted an irritated reaction, “Stop what?”

        “Stop asking questions.”

        “But what if they really need us and we’re just sitting here doing nothing.”

        “And ‘what if’ they’re perfectly safe and you’re causing everyone in here to panic for no reason?  They’re coming back.  If you’re really concerned for them, then pray to the one who has the power to actually help them.”

        Harold kept quiet.

        Sara was just a few months younger than Peter, making her the oldest one in the bunker, and she had experienced enough to know how fragile people’s spirits could be.  Sara looked down at her electronic ankle bracelet to remind herself of what could happen if people lost their heads.  Sara made the mistake of letting her fear control her in the past, and she wasn’t about to let that happen to anyone else.  Unlike the other kids, Sara wasn’t there because of her parents, and she didn’t grow up playing with Peter and Nathan.  Her past was very different from the rest of theirs.

~ A few months ago ~

         Sara met Uncle Harken while she was in prison.  The cabins were only a few miles from the facility, and Uncle Harken would drive up every Thursday and hand out sandwiches to the inmates.  At the prison, he was just known as “Mr. Harken.”  He noticed Sara, after a few weeks, because she never had any family come visit her.  He introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Mr. Harken and I brought you a sandwich.”

        “Thanks, that’s real nice of you, but I prefer the food in here.  But what charity are you with anyway?” asked Sara politely.

        “No charity.  I don’t live too far from here and I just come to enjoy the conversations.  I noticed you sitting by yourself, so I wanted to see if you’d like some company from an old man.”

        “You’re not that old.  You look a lot like my dad.”

        “Well I’d like to see that.  When’s the next time he’s coming to visit?”

        “I don’t think he’ll ever come to visit.”  She let out a sigh.  “It’s ironic because he’s the reason why I’m here, but he’s too ashamed see me.”

        “Well no man wants to see his daughter in prison.”

        “Who said this was a prison? Sara snapped.  “Why do you old people keep saying that?  The L.E.A.P program is not prison!”

        L.E.A.P. stood for “Labor Exchange and Alternative Payment.”  The tame acronym put a positive spin on a work internment camp.  It was a practical way for American citizens to pay back their debt.  It was well received by the public as it helped the country climb out of the toughest part of the recession.  It was during a time when gasoline rose to five dollars a gallon and then kept increasing.  Oil production steadily fell and the prices at the gas stations inflated.  The economy suffered severely.  The public thought that their hybrid and electric cars would have softened the blow, but they were oblivious to how much oil was used to produce everything else.  Manufacturing prices spiked; anything that had to do with plastics, rubbers, paints, chemicals, synthetic fabrics, and asphalt became more expensive.  Even the food in the grocery stores depended on oil:  oil based pesticides for the crops, oil powered tractors to harvest food, and the oil powered trucks driving hundreds of miles to deliver the food to the stores.  The cost-of-living revolved around the price of oil.  As a result, a flood of Americans filed for bankruptcy protection, so much so that the government could not protect everyone without crashing the economy.  The Federal Government came up with an alternative to bankruptcy protection.