Works

Date:  Aug 4, 2100  edit: Aug 6

   

When packing my things, I found a locket with the name “River” scratched into the back of the tear shaped silver.  It appears to require another piece to open it and is clearly special to be the only trinket I’ve brought with me and although I don’t remember why, it makes me want to cry.  I put it on and tucked it under my shirt.  I am doubtful that I will find any answer about that before returning home.  

The ground is getting wetter here and I can see smoke in the distance which should be Kitchener GTA if I’ve assessed my location correctly.  That seems to be a large city, I wonder why it isn’t marked as a potential supply location.  

 

Date: Aug 5, 2100  edit: Aug 7

    

Kitchener GTA is no more.  It appears to have been a quarantine zone that didn’t end well.  From what I can see, anyone who survived the virus was either killed in the ensuing chaos or fled.  Sadly, I hope it was the former and they aren’t out infecting other settlements. 

On to London Marsh.

 

Date: Aug 8, 2100 

 

Upon arriving at London Marsh, I told them I had memory loss and was escorted to a quarantine room to await assessment from their doctor.  I can’t say I blame them after what must have happened to the GTA.  After some hours awaiting a test, I was cleared for human contact.  A couple of people asked me some questions to assess what I could remember and where I may have picked up the virus.  I directed them to the page that described the storm and my subsequent wreck on the shore above old Owen Sound and the mark on my map.  They are going to send a crew there to assess the threat.  

I was also told that there was some flooding due to that same storm and their supply of donor sperm was compromised, leaving them short of an adequate supply for this generation but that the London Marsh Corps will be sending a party to Traverse City in two days’ time with food supplies and enquiring about fertility supplies as well.  I will join them on that trip then find my way north from there.  

The two short entries I was coherent enough to log at the beginning of my illness were very bleak and it seemed a miracle I’d come out of it at all.  It appears that I was even worse for two more days before finally recovering enough to log again.  I wish I knew what I had done for myself in those missing days.  It might help someone else survive this virus as well.  While I hope that my memory returns to me with time, I don’t expect that those ones will.  

I have amended the dates in this log to reflect the lost days.  

 

Date: Aug 9, 2100

 

I slept well into midday and awoke to a hot meal.  Those simple comforts were much-needed and I am feeling much stronger this afternoon. 

I intend to spend the rest of the day learning whatever I can about the current state of the world.  I have more of an emotional sense about what has happened in this lifetime than actual memories but I hope that my research will help to bring some of it back to the surface.  

My episodic memory is most severely affected; I wonder if that is standard for this virus or if it affects different types of memory in different people.  I feel like I should know the answer to that but I just can’t quite reach it in my mind.  

Someone asked today what my role is in my colony and I couldn’t recall.  They did point out, however, that I managed to keep myself alive and was tasked with the fertility supply run, thus posited, that I must have a medical role.  This point brought on flashes of some particularly difficult medical procedures which suggests that he is correct in his assessment.  

​

Date: Aug 10, 2100

 

I dreamed of my family last night.  It was vague, but it may mean that some memory is returning.  The name on the back of the locket is my daughter’s - River.  I remember her little smile and the sound of her laughter.  In my dream, there was an older woman with her as well; I assume that must be my mother but my memories are still too hazy to tell for sure.  When I first awoke, I had an intense urge to be back home but that quickly faded along with the memories.  I don’t know if these people are still alive or not, but if they are I’m sure they’ve written me off for dead by now.  Four extra days in that shelter, ill, very off course...they would have expected me back home long since.  

I have spent my time here researching the virus and rapidly shifting land masses as well as the progress that London Marsh has made in rebuilding their city.

The dam here is nearly complete so they will have a good power source soon.  I wonder though, how long it can hold off the rising sea level.  The main goal once the power is running consistently is to have a radio message on full-time broadcast with contact details in hopes that others have rebuilt enough for radio contact as well.  Sending runners in a world that is changing so quickly is not as effective and can be quite dangerous when they discover that the settlement they were expecting to find is no longer functional.  Many return in severe condition and many more never return at all.  

I will be sure to make radio contact a priority when I return home.

The boat is huge!  I would call it a ship if it had sails. It is an impressive vehicle with a crew of eight  - four sets of oars - and space for up to twenty people.  With fuel being so scarce, most colonies have taken to classic style wooden boats and ships for large supply runs.  

There are only 3 passengers on this trip - myself, a cartographer and a local medic.  The crew are all LMC volunteers, including the Captain.  She told me that her mission with this vessel is to remap the waterways, establish trade routes, search for survivors in need of rescuing, and start to reconnect civilization.  Those are lofty goals but I get the sense that if anyone can do it, it’s the Captain.

 

Date: Aug 11, 2100

 

I knew that more oars would mean faster travel but I did not expect the swiftness with which we reached Michigan’s shores.  I also clearly underestimated the size of the cargo hold as we brought with us 6 four wheelers and trailers to pull the cargo.  We expect to reach Traverse City by nightfall. 

By the time we reached the city, we were all covered in dust from the droughted landscape.  The food shortages are obvious in the people of the city.  They have established protected gardens within the city but it’s too late in the season, the crops aren’t ready yet and they won’t get much before the first frosts hit.  The dryland farms they rely on dried up and the wetland farms flooded.  

They are very grateful for the bounty provided to them by the LMC and assure us that they do still have a safe and reliable surplus of fertility supplies including a variety of pre-flood donors to send along with the LMC and with myself.  They report increasing fertility in both their male and female populations of this generation so they haven’t needed to use those stores as extensively as expected.  What a welcome ray of hope that is for all of us.  

 

Date: Aug 12, 2100

 

Traverse City docks are becoming quite impressive. They have crafted many small, slim, armoured vessels to cross the narrows from Lake Michigan to Huron Bay and Lake Superior, and traverse the alligator infested shallows of Mississippi Bay.  I’m told the vehicles are modeled after something called a DUKW (Duck?) and have motorized wheels for short land travel as well!  

It is in one of these vessels that I will be returned home with the supplies.  Being able to cross through the shallows will make this trip much faster than it has been over the years.  

 

Date: Aug 13, 2100

 

I was greeted at the docks by my teary eyed daughter, River.  My heart soared with her embrace despite the memory loss.  The smell of her hair made me feel at home and brought a wave of memories.  I asked about my grandmother who’d raised me and River’s eyes welled with tears.  She had passed during the storm and left a tear-shaped locket to River.  I removed my locket from around my neck and clicked them together to form a heart and opened it to find a picture of a young woman.  River asked me what was wrong as I stared blankly at the image so I told her about my illness and journey.  

I did something right in raising that girl.  She checked me over thoroughly and assured me that we would get through my memory loss together.  The picture in the locket was my mother who died giving birth to me.  My grandmother had a natural immunity to the virus and raised me in my mother’s stead.  River says that I was not immune like my grandmother but did have a resistance which is why I took over the supply runs.

A young woman thanked me for helping her and her husband conceive without a donor.  It appears Michigan isn’t the only Colony seeing improvements on that front.  I don’t remember her, but I am so happy for her - for all of us.  

River is still young but she runs this Colony now as her great grandmother had.  After tending to me, she went about distributing and administering the fertility treatments, keeping the people in line like she was born for leadership.  

I can’t wait to get to know her again.