Pilliars in the Fall Read Online Free PDF

forget about the America part too. We weren’t at the bottom yet, but it sure seemed like we were trying damn hard to get there.
    People no longer stole to steal, they stole to eat. Enemies became friends and friends took the opportunity to exact vengeance on enemies. There were stories of useless stupidity like a guy killing his long time friend to get to his friend's wife. Stuff that people figured was acceptable to do now that everything else in life sucked, so why not? Kids were no longer precious attempts at the future, but used instead as urchins and thieves. Society's rules had changed. Laws were ignored more than ever and morals right along with them. With all that happening, it was said that we still had it relatively good here in our little town.
    It took longer than in the big cities, but we finally got our very own desperate people digging through trash cans to find food. With the bad weather coming, it was only going to get worse. Dirty faces looked at you longingly or with contempt. The bad off hadn’t bought new clothes in the last year, the worse off wore layers of ragged clothing to protect their starving bodies from the freezing temperatures at night.
    New beggars who once turned their nose up at the homeless were now uneasy people, unsure of how to act or what to do with themselves. Small packs of angry youths that just looked they were ready to mob and destroy their surroundings in a riot at the drop of a hat waited... for nothing. The turmoil from the bigger towns made its way out in TV and radio broadcasts for those who could still watch and hear such things. Those images imprinted themselves into people's minds before their power got cut or their landlord kicked them out. People already on the edge took what they saw others doing and followed suit, focusing their anger and helplessness on anyone who would listen or not defend themselves.
    This was how the majority of people lived now and I was thankful when we finally pulled up to Clint’s driveway, way outside of town and away from the insanity. I jumped out to open the gate and he pulled the truck and trailer through. Clint and his wife Kathy had lived on this land for more than thirty years, and for the last week I had been residing on and off again in the back bedroom. It was the same bedroom that I had slept on the floor of as a little kid countless times during sleepovers with Blake. Now instead of getting pizza and video games ready, Kathy was working hard to prepare the house for Blake and Danielle’s arrival.
    Clint had done his own preparing long before this last week. He, as did I, felt that a little extra work now could pay off greatly later. To that end Clint and Kathy always had plenty of firewood, a sizable garden, and enough food in the cupboards to keep from going hungry. Clint was also a do-it-yourself type of guy whether it came to building a garage, working on cars, putting together a generator to power their house, or his real passion of tinkering with guns. He was an expert in the field of amateur gunsmithing and rarely had to have someone else help with a project. His skills were those that came from years and years of experience and it showed. While not classically or even formally trained, he was like the farmer that grew up and grew old working on the farm and never had to take a class to be told how to do it.
    The issue that was currently weighing heavy on Clint’s mind was that we were late into the year, which meant our normal heavy winter weather was coming soon. Firewood he had stored, but the last of the propane companies in our area had closed up shop, leaving him without a refilled tank. This wouldn’t be such a big issue if the line power was reliable out where he lived.  A few years back when we lost power from a wind or snow storm, it would take the crews a few days to a week to get it restored, and that was before the cutbacks and layoffs. If we got hit with a decent storm and a tree fell on a line now, there