the first woman reaches out

Katherine's plan is in motion - then immediately stalled

Previously… Prime Minister Kline has made the dreaded announcement. The climate damage, according to all possible models, is irreversible. Katherine has an impromptu meeting with her neighbour Claudette, who’s helped herself to departed neighbour Molly D’s belongings.

Chapter 7

“Katherine, I’m sorry to be writing you like this. I don’t think I’ve ever commented on your blog before. It was a huge help to me when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in my early forties. I really wished I’d written something to you then, so this wouldn’t be so out of the blue. I live in Windsor ON with my husband. He’d started to change, I guess you’d say, around 2020 (didn’t we all? The craziest time I’ve ever lived through, until now I guess). We went from watching and making fun of doomsday preppers to having our own storeroom. Around the US insurrection in 2021, he bought guns. I told him not to dare bring them into our house. We were NEVER that type. He agreed at first and then I found them a few months later. They weren’t even properly stored. Anyway, he’d always been a bit of a drinker, loved his beer and I could hold my own, but I literally had to stop drinking just to be of sound mind when he’d start losing his. The yelling, I cannot even tell you. Outrageous, deluded shit. The change was slow and then so so fast. Before I know it, he barely leaves the house, drinks from dawn to black-out every other day, and constantly, and I meant CONSTANTLY watches NewsMax and youtube agitators. He has all these ideas that I can’t begin to describe, and if I try to challenge them or show him opposing evidence, it’s a bot, it’s a psyop, it’s paid actors. Nothing is real to him. Not even me. I’ve seen him looking at me a few times, when he’s drinking. And the look in his eyes is just... so eerie. It gives me fucking chills. I thought things had plateaued, but when the PM made that announcement, his entire online circle just exploded, and now he’s... I’m scared to write it. I don’t think I can. That’s why I’m writing to you, god I’m sorry, I just didn’t know what else to do. None of this is your problem, and I completely understand if you read this and just bin it, or think I’m crazy, or at the least pretty fucking cheeky. But the other day on your blog, you asked... “Are you safe?” I’m not safe, Katherine. I’m fucking terrified. I don’t have anywhere else to go. Can I come there? Please? I’m sorry. - Nicole

My fingertips land on the corners of the laptop screen and I unthinkingly bring it to a close. I’ve contained Nicole, there in the safety of the laptop, where somehow she can’t come to harm. I know why I feel that way, where that magical thinking comes from: unlike most of my peers and certainly the generations that came after me, I’ve always had a strong sense that the world that I access through a screen is not the same as the one I personally inhabit. It’s that sense of removal that allows people to troll mercilessly, under the guise of ‘it’s just a joke, no one takes it seriously’ – while the person of the receiving end of the troll has had their life turned upside down.

There was even a global campaign, I saw it in at least six or seven languages all in the same distinct branding, about how ‘the internet is Real Life’. Meaning, the people you’re talking to, mocking, harassing, doxxing, swatting, are all real people with real lives. Kind of like, this isn’t a fucking video game and the people you hurt through a screen are hurt in reality.

The response to this very earnest plea for dignity for all was a pithy and irreverent, ‘Prove It’, and every ad that existed in the real world was subject to this demand, either in permanent marker, spray paint, or stickers slapped on top of the ad, or in response to people in the social media comment sections begging for their humanity to be seen. “Prove it,” was the simple and terrifyingly unanswerable reply. The backlash sparked something in those who witnessed it, because in an age where every celebrity and public figure had terabytes of porn made of them, where presidents could be made to incite war with a few keystrokes into a machine learning programs, where people were proclaimed missing or dead on popular news sites just because it drove engagement, nothing was real. Nothing could be proven. Everything was suspect, especially individuals. You couldn’t prove your humanity, because we had developed too many tools to make things up.

The ‘internet is real life’ public service campaign went the way of ‘this is your brain on drugs’, overly earnest and obviously desperate pleas made by people who did not understand their audience. And long after the ads slipped off the internet, the catchphrase Prove It remains, a quick and deflating dismissal used to silence anyone trying to say anything true.

We truly did ruin the internet. Actually, we’ve quite literally ruined the world.

And undoubtedly, there are people thumbing the words Prove It into every comment section discussing this very topic, the words flying swiftly in response to every scientist, senator, and single mom trying to discuss a matter of existence or extinction.

Despite my drive toward authenticity, my dedication to trying to do the kind thing as much and as often as possible (with as little accompanying attention is possible), the first thought that spilled into my thoughts after reading Nicole’s message was, Prove it. How can I know for sure if what’s she’s saying is true? What’s to stop some creep or disruptor or criminal from reading my blog and reaching out, gaining access to me and my family?

I need a system, and fast. Nicole’s response is not the first, it’s simply the most urgent, the most in need of a plan.

“Tricia!” I shout, straight into the air like we used to do as kids.

“What?” I hear her shout back from her bedroom.

“Come here!”

“Can you kids not text each other like normal people!” our mom shouts from the lower level of the house.

“Sorry, Mom!” we both call back. I get a sickening rush of nostalgia, not just from the throwback to our childhood, but from the realization that even when civilization is on the brink of collapse, there will still be moments that make me smile. I tell myself to remember that.

Tricia opens the door to the bedroom and Penelope sweeps in behind her as if she’d been waiting for the opportunity. She hops on the bed and I push her off, then again, then she hops onto the windowsill and, as if pouting, stares longingly at the bed.

“What’s up?” Tricia asks, pushing my laptop aside so she can sit on my bed.

“So, you know I blogged about telling people to come here, women, so we can, I don’t know, like create a feminist utopia at the end of the world?”

Tricia nods very seriously though with her wide eyes and sky-high brows lets me know she would very much like to say something sarcastic.

“Someone wants to come. Urgently. It’s a high-risk situation, according to her.”

“According to her,” Tricia repeats, and I can see she’s thinking it too. Prove it.

“What do we do? How can we keep ourselves safe? How do we decide who gets to come?”

“You’re serious about this? You’re going to fill Mom’s house with randos and try to save everybody?”

“I thought I might give it a try.”

She sighs and gestures at my computer. “Well, open it up and let’s make a couple lists. We need to decide what criteria gets priority, what the red flags look like, we need to talk about how we are going to get women here physically, and where the fuck we’re going to put them.”

“What should I tell Nicole?”

We work on a message to send her, trying to create something that is both personal but bits of which could also be copy-and-pasted to other requests.

Nicole, thank you for writing to me. I am so sorry for what you are going through, an awful experience at any time, but now? I can’t imagine. I am so glad you reached out. I will say we are still working on how to make this whole thing work. So please give me some time to figure out how I can accommodate you safely. I am working on it right now and will message you back as soon as I have something solid to share. I am asking everyone who wants to come to send a recent photo of their driver’s licence with EXIF data intact – is there a safe way for you to do so? In the meantime, do what you can to surreptitiously gather your important items and documents. Who knows what will be needed in this new time, but just in case. Start thinking about how you can make your way here. I will write back with some questions soon and then we can make a plan.

In solidarity, Katherine.

“Should I send it?” I ask as Tricia gives it a final read.

“Can you say something other than surreptitiously?” she says.

“Like, sneakily?”

She shakes her head. “You know, I don’t think you need an adverb. She’s not stupid, she’s leaving a potentially violent situation. She knows she has to be careful.

“Okay, I’ll take it out.” I make the edits, get a final nod from my sister, and hit send.

“As much as your plan absolutely terrifies me,” Tricia says, smoothing her hand over the bed covers. “It feels really good to actually be doing something. To be helpful.”

“I know,” I say. “I think that’s why I have to do it. I don’t want to die wishing I’d done more.”

Like always, my cancer hangs in the air between us, a spectre that threatens to destroy everything – living inside me and waiting for just the wrong moment.