Days of Grace 2 - WfW 4th Part

We were given these Words for Wednesday:
    Annihilate          and / or       Business
     Zinfandel                              Panniers
     Lozenge                                Wooden
     Pacemaker                           Thunderstruck  
     Spokes                                  Podcast
    Invoice                                  Zesty
For this installment I used one more word: Panniers. If I keep up this speed, I'll write a book before using up all January's Words.
I had planned to let each chapter follow Mary and Allan alternately, But this did not happen, We stay with Mary and her troupe for one more installment.

The children fell asleep and we started talking in fits and starts. Ben asked me what that think positive-pep-talk had been all about. I answered truthfully that somewhere in the last weeks I read something about positive thoughts making for beautiful snowflakes. I think I was reading about the IgNobel Price and a Japanese professor with a name very much like 'Emote'. And as we're made mostly of water, I got the idea that positive thinking would aid our survival. But there's no way I can verify that now. And maybe it did not help. We all sat each engrossed in our own thoughts.
After a while I started talking again: "We have to think. How many did survive, do you think? Could people have survived in airplanes? Yes I'm thinking about Allan here too. And most importantly. Where do we go from here?"
"Not many." Pete said. "You'd have to be alert, quick of wits and very lucky too to pull off a survival. But then again pilots are normally endowed with exactly these traits. I bet we belong to a very exclusive club by now."
"Go?" Ben asked.
"We stay here," Jill said. "We're a nice, small group."
"No," I said. "There's at least two reasons why not. Let's begin with the practical one. I'm not that good at physics, meteorologic or other sciences, but haven't you all been wondering where the water has gone? No brooks, no sea, well almost empty?
As I see it, it has been burned off, evaporated. We all noticed the haziness of the Sunshine? The water is up there somewhere, I suspect, and as cooing sets in, it'll come back down as rain, warm rain. It will be the deluge all over again, and no time to build an ark. I read somewhere in one of my rabbits' hole internet searches - getting used to living without the internet, and without books is going to be hard - that the melting of the ice caps, even a total melting would not result in more than say 5 or 6 meters more water. Not enough to do more than swamp a very low percentage, albeit the most inhabited, of the continents. No, what was to be afraid of, was the expanding of the water, it could result in 20 to 30 or even more meters of water. They said it was a totally hypothetical situation, as the water in the oceans were split up in zones, and only the upper around 200 meters were heated up. But now, now all the waterbodies, or at least lots of the water, has evaporated. We are going to drown if we do not set out for some high ground and soon.
"Sound thinking," Pete said. "Minna, speak up, you're the scientist here."
"Yes," Minna said slowly, looking around on us all. "Mary's right. The water is up there, it will come down, and it will have a bigger volume at this higher temperature. We'll have to leave Joe's farm. But where to, and more importantly how?"
"How? Walking of course," Ben said.
"Well," Minna retorted, "how many of us are used to walking more than the distance from our car to the mall, and to our front door? And it's hot! We have to bring water, lots of water. We cannot count on finding any until the rain starts. And then what? We have mall children, we have the things we brought. And it seems these things are what we have to live from.
"`How will we even survive? Sally asked. "We have food, but not for long. We have to walk far, work hard and survive until .. Yes until when?
"Until we can harvest something edible, or find something, but I would not count too much on this happening," I said. "I don't know how quick the cooling will set in or how soon the cooling will bring us back to normal temperatures, but things should germinate and grow quickly once the rains begin."
"Are you sure," Minna said. "The soil will be infertile from the heating. How could anything grow?"
"I'm not sure of anything," I said, "but if we do not do anything we won't survive. I at least intend to die fighting. And as for fertilizer .. we all produce fertilizers on a daily basis. We've got to collect and compost our solid wastes, all of them, the liquid ones can be used as is. Don't tell me ever again re-enactment is not good for anything."
Linda began laughing, a laughter turning into hysterics and then to a wracking, sobbing cry.
I held her close,stroking her hair until her breathing turned normal again. Jill produces a bottle of some liquor, and poured a small glass for all of us.
"Let's propose a toast to our future," Jill said. "May we prosper and live long."
"I'm not coming with you," Linda said as she put down her glass. "No. Listen to me," she said as we began protesting. James is buried here, we lived our life here. I'd only hamper your travels, as I'm slow and old."
"You're younger than I," I protested. "We need you as a teacher, You know lots of thing from your youth on a farm, and from the re-enactment."
"It was a dairy farm. No more cows." Linda said soberly. "And my re-enactment days were mostly spent finding parkspace, selling tickets, showing people where the restrooms were hidden, in short, modern, practical, and now un-useful knowledge. Furthermore I have a health problem. And even though I remembered to bring my medicine, the glass of pills will be empty by tomorrow night. I won't last for more than a week. Only slowing you down more and more, lessening your chance of survival. I'll stay here by the waterfall, pray for you and fertilize this beautiful spot with my remains. Do please grant me this."
"I am out of arguments, but I still do not like it." I said.
"No," Ben said, "I don't like it either. But on the other hand, we can't force you, and we can't carry you."
"Thank you," Linda said.

We all drank to that. We slept for long, as the sunrise still kept its February schedule as far as we could discern.
"As for carrying, panniers might be a solution," Ben suggested next morning.
"Made of what?" Linda asked, "We have no tough cloths and weaving from skeins or whatever requires skills and time, neither of which we have. And no branches or reeds or suchlike either."
Lil'George spoke up. "What about those thingies the Native Americans and Inuit used for traveling, those long, tied-together poles?"
"Did I ever say that children nowadays do not learn anything useful in school? I take that back. Travois, they're called. Yes of course George, you hit it!" I said "Trees survived, we have rope and sheets. Let's not cut them. Cloth is worth a fortune for us now. and will be for years to come."
We set to work, slowly and with many breaks, the heat and lack of oxygen still made us slow, clumsy and easily tired. But by nightfall we had a workable travois for each of us. Ben was a good man to be around, a carpenter by trade, even many years of paperwork as a boss had not made him forget basic skills.
We sat by the former waterfall again as night fell, Once again discussing slowly.
"Where do we go?"
"Up," Lil'George said, and was met by laughter.
"You just made the first post-apocalyptic joke," his mother said warmly.
"Not stupid, he is," said Ben, "But where is up?"
"Well," said Minna. "The Sun still rises in the east. I suggest going west and a bit north. Away from the coastline."
"Away from the coat sounds right," Ben answered. "How far would you deem safe?"
"No idea," Minna answered, "I do not know how far up we can go, Or even how high up we need to go, your guess is as good as mine. I suggest we stay on this island. Crossing the straits, or what was the straits, still does not seem like a good idea. Also, we can't have lots of time. The rain could start falling anytime soon. It is a bit cooler tonight."

In the morning we all ate sparingly of what we had. Linda insisted on us taking almost all the food, only leaving her some tidbits and enough water to last her a week. We loaded the last of our goods on the travoises, hugged and hugged Linda and then we set out with our backs to the rising sun.

to be continued ...