How to Find Peace at the End of the World Read Online Free PDF

years. Good as time as any to start. I load the ten boxes, each with ten meals, into the back of the Beast.
    I should go for some fresh food. I make a note

Outside I stop to think back to my “list.” Computer. Food. What else? It’s hazy. I go back inside and grab a message pad and make a list:

Water
MRE’s
Fresh Food
Computer
Extra phones/Cameras
Laptops
Clothes
Gasoline
Axe
Guns/Ammo

I go back for the clothes, sheepish that I forgot something so basic. I grab the changes of underwear and some solid shirts and heavy coats and stuff them into my biggest bag.
    Some of the stuff feels unnecessary. Laptops? Phones? really? I check my phone and notice my signal is still somehow going through. Even the power at home is still on.  I should find a satellite phone or something. Something for satellite Internet. Internet! I pull out my phone and check the Internet by the Wi-Fi at my house. I check the websites, global websites, and find them mostly still up. Again, that unsettling feeling comes over me as I confirm  that nothing has been updated since early this morning or late last night. How is this possible?
    I decide, for the sake of sanity, not to think about it. I put it out of my mind. I was going somewhere, remember? Dallas. Amy.

I’ll have to pick up the stuff I don’t have on hand, of course. There’s a gun store on the highway feeder near my house. The fresh food I’ll get at Wally-world.

I’m about to get back into the Beast and pull out when I look down the street and notice a door half open. Was that open this morning? I try to make myself believe it was, but I’m not so sure. I grab the axe from the Beast, I have no idea why in particular, and go down the street to the end of the cul-de-sac, the farthest house in. I pull the axe back and with a swing knock the door the rest of the way open. Nothing. All that greets me is a newspaper still in its translucent plastic bag. I don’t really remember this neighbor. I want to say it was that older lady with curly hair, the one with liver spotted skin sun tanned into leather. The one that always wore much-too-short jogging shorts while mowing the lawn. I walk further inside, and despite what I know of the morning and the world as it is, I still feel like I’m intruding.

I walk further inside and my memory is vindicated. The older woman’s hallway is framed with pictures of her and some husband that I never saw. I never saw the children and grandchildren either. I’d always wondered about her story. I don’t feel like staying to find out more, though. I know it’s going to depress me. I simply make a quick orbit through her house. Pretty standard. I am struck by how normal and even familiar things are, now, in a stranger’s house while they are not here. She had not cleaned up and the signs of life, so common seeming, are still around: the crumpled pieces of clothing, the unwashed dishes, bathroom strung with curly, blond hairs. Maybe that last part aint so familiar. I’m in another person’s house, burglar like. I see her diamonds, her watch, and I could take it all Scott free but none of it holds my attention all that much. Time, I feel almost like time is the most precious commodity, now, yet there might be something just a bit more precious here. I linger like this.

Maybe I find it in her fridge. I find Tupper-ware containers. My eyes scan over things unidentifiable in their condensation covered coffins. Then my eyes double back.
    Whoah.
    I see a particularly large container lined with paper towels. Peeking out above the paper some really dank buds. Medical? Dealer grade? Does it matter? Not to me, not right now. I grab the container and a fudge pop from the freezer. Interested, I look in her pantry. There are cokes in her pantry, a 24 pack unopened and I take it. In the dusty recesses above, my eyes catch on something else, a row of things shiny and slippery like glass eyes. I locate the string to turn on the bare bulb and do so.