For several years I wandered. I did odd jobs, I built things. I was hired muscle. I did a few things I wouldn’t tell my kids about.  I became something. When the new economy finally emerged, I was ready. I’d become one of many great heroes to walk the land.

I tried to warn them, of course. But they had this glassed over rebellious look in their eyes. Some new drug. I saw the embers floating on the wind. The husks of warehouses were evidence of the future all around. No fire safeties were still in place. I left quickly.

I knew my old party life was over was when they threw another “underground” party in one of the now countless abandoned buildings downtown. But buildings were on fire nearby, and no fire department was coming. No one was coming.   But that didn’t stop them. They danced among the flames.

Back in the twenties, a million dollars was an awful lot of money. There was a million dollar hotel, theater and pharmacy.  I wonder if the developers had any idea what the world had in store for them.

Maybe in the 2020’s a million dollars will mean something completely different.

I remember as a kid, my dad pointing to the little text on a dollar bill that said something like “For all debts, public and private.” I never really understood that until suddenly our country was selling all those debts to private interests.  We were bought and sold. Sold cheap. 

Coffins? Picture a seven foot by four by four plastic box. One end has a door on it with a keypad lock. Stacked in a big warehouse. Foam pad they say they clean between uses. Daily or monthly.  Wifi, communal shower, armed security,  internet cafe and coffee bar.  Posh. Cheap. 

Bars were perfect places to conduct biz. Everyone still had their smart phones. They were loud and dark, and generally ignored by cops.  We would put up these little gps pings to various dark networks.  They stay open late if you were homeless. Day rates were cheaper with the coffins. 

After the big economic crash this other funny thing happened in an area nobody but gamers anticipated. Bars stopped being a place to get a drink. They became places  where all these unemployed people could get good dishonest work. There’s been a big upswing in those kind of jobs, thankfully. 

Before the crash came, there was this whole group of people that would obsessively buy every damn thing they saw on TV. I came across this house once, the fat burbites long dead from the plague.  They had all these vacuum sealed warm clothes in plastic cubes. Best scav ever. 

The roads at night are dangerous places, always. Sure, you can push or pull what you need on wheels. But others have wheels, too. Beat up, fuel saving, Priuses have become the urban raider vehicles of choice. They are quiet, and can creep up on careless travelers all too easily.