don't let your clever brain overrule your gut

Planning for the unpredictable.

Previously… I think about my siblings. Tricia the tornado, on her way to me. Jenna, in Vancouver, half missing and half found, and James, in Toronto, forever the age he was when Jenna disappeared.

Chapter 3 - don't let your clever brain overrule your gut

October 2 2029 Ontario

By evening, there are seven comments on my post.

My sister Tricia hasn’t arrived yet. The drive is usually a couple hours, and it’s been six or seven. She didn’t let me know exactly when she left, so I have no way of knowing how long she’s been on the road.

I remember when she left to live in New Zealand for a year. The night before, she’s digging through her drawers to choose clothing she hasn’t worn in five years, while I’m doing her laundry and trying to do whatever it takes to just get her things into her luggage. Tricia lives in the last minute – no other time exists for her. So I am trying not to think about her and whether she’d filled the gas tank before the announcement or whether she thought to bring the cats’ litter boxes or what the conversation with my dad was like.

The first two comments on the blog post are from anonymous users, both calling me a crazy excitable cunt. Probably the same person. I quickly turn off anonymous comments. I’ve always just deleted the hate comments and left anon turned on in case someone wanted to contribute without an account, but the need to preserve my energy overrules my higher-self desire for inclusivity.

Bettysunshine, who I know through feminist circles is Bette Brownlee, writes: “It only took thirty minutes for it to get dangerous here in Portland. Some guy started shooting from his apartment window. Cops stormed and killed him immediately. They left him there. No coroner’s van, no body bag. I think they took his guns and that’s it. I want to come there but I don’t know if it’s possible.”

I replied, “Do whatever it takes. I have room for you.”

I thought about the Canadian/US border, about all the guns the US citizens have, about safety. I wrote more, so much more, to Bette, but deleted it all. I decided my refrain would be, Just Get Here. If they could figure out that part, I’d do the rest.

Somewhereonlyweknow left a comment. “Where are you and how do I get to you?”

“PM me,” I type back. How am I going to vet these people? And where am I going to put them all? If just those two come, plus Tricia, my mom and me, that’s all the bedrooms. What about Jenna, in BC? And James, in Toronto? What if either of them want to come to their family home? Will it be safer here in the country than the cities?

There are more comments, and I whip off quick replies. I edit the blog post to say, If you are trying to come to me, PM me your driver’s licence. Women only for now, and only if you are NOT SAFE where you are.

“Katherine?” My mom’s shaky voice sinks my heart.

“Come in,” I say, closing my laptop.

She opens the door and steps into the room. “What’s going on?”

My mom always comes to me to help decipher the world. It became so confusing so fast when technology became primary. She grew up before every waking moment was recorded and posted. She introduced us to technology early, wanting us to become adept and prepared for the changing world. Then she watched helplessly as that world spiralled into something unrecognizable to her generation. She’d tried to keep up, but slowly became less connected as the rest of us became more.

“You saw the news?” I ask.

“That’s not real, though, right? It’s a hack, fake news?” She sits gingerly on the edge of my bed, looking at my laptop and my phone at my fingertips.

“Mom, it’s real. I –” My throat constricts and I can’t meet her eyes. “They’re saying there’s nothing we can do to fix it. It’s the... the runaway greenhouse effect, the feedback loops.”

“But there’s always something, they can’t just give up? What are they doing to do?”

“I think they are saying they aren’t going to do anything,” I whisper, each word falling out of my mouth. Why do I feel so ashamed?

“There’ll be riots,” she says, raising her voice in contrast to my quiet. “People are going to kill each other!”

I think of Bette in Portland. Already there are people dying from this. “We need to do everything we can to stay here and stay safe, okay? Tricia is on her way. There may be others, too.”

“She is? Oh, thank goodness. What about Jenna and James?”

“Not sure about them, Mom,” I say, clenching my fists. Jenna’s unreachable and I’m afraid James will harm more than help. I can’t say that to my mom, but I won’t be the one to invite him. His childlike volatility could make a survival scenario even more dangerous.

I know I’m making choices that will impact my family for the rest of our lives. However long that may be.

“What should I do?” she asks.

I put my hand on hers. “As long as we have power, we need to make the most of it. We need supplies, but the grocery stores will be overrun. Can you go to the farms, Mary’s, the Hardy’s, and the food co-op? Get everything that we can preserve. Go to the Busy Bee apiary, get as much honey and beeswax as you can. Take the emergency cash but only use it if they aren’t taking cards. From what I’m reading, most things are still running – for now.”

My mom nods, glad, as I knew she would be, to have been given tasks.

“Please be careful,” I say. “If things get ugly, leave as soon as you can.”

“Ugly?” she says, one hand on her stomach. She has such beautiful hands. Long, thin fingers, tapered nails, raised veins, delicate and blue. It’s where you can see her age most of all, in her hands.

“Trust your gut, okay? If your gut tells you to get away, then hurry.” It’s the advice she instilled in all of us, our entire lives. Trust our guts. Our second brains. Don’t let your clever brains talk you out of trusting your gut, she’d say.

She gathers the reusable bags at the bottom of the stairs, and I hear her in the kitchen pulling out the emergency money. I meet her by the front door and hug her. I don’t place my hands gently on her back the way I usually do. Instead, I wrap my arms around her entirely and squeeze as hard as I dare.

“I love you,” I say.

“I love you, too, kid.”

I open the door for her and we both step outside. She gets into her electric SUV. A couple cars drive by the house, and she waits and then pulls out.

Everything looks so exceptionally normal.

“Heya, Katherine!”

It’s Molly D, our neighbour. She’s holding her small Pomeranian in her arms. He’s happily settled and stares at me.

“How... are you?” I ask, shaking my head at the absurdity. Will there be time to get used to it, this new abnormal? Or will the fall be too fast?

“I’m getting out of here,” she says. “My ex-husband has a hunt camp in Temiskaming. He told me to come.”

“That’s smart,” I say.

“This is going to sound ridiculous but... could you water my plants?”

I blink. “Uh, when are you coming back?”

She shakes her head, readjusts the dog. “I mean, I might not.”

“Can we use your solar set-up to charge stuff, if the grid goes down?”

Molly D shrugs. “Go for it. Keep the plants watered and don’t make a mess. There’s blueberries and other stuff in the back garden. Help yourself.”

“Thank you,” I say, feeling like I’m not a part of my own body. “Um, and good luck.”

Molly D starts crying. “This fucking sucks,” she says. “Listen, look out for Claudette. She doesn’t have anybody.” My face must have betrayed my ignorance, because Molly D says, “Neighbour across the way, moved in about a year ago?”

“We’ve never met,” I say, dumbly.

“Well, go meet her.” Molly D waves her pom’s paw at me. “Say bye bye Katherine.”

I wave to the dog, and Molly, and they go back into her house.