Restoration

by J. F. Krause

  Our newest meme was started by Kevin evidently. It was all recorded on film, but the whole thing came down to a few sentences from his toast to me at our wedding reception: “At first I thought I was going to die, and then, I was afraid I was going to be alone. After a few of us found each other, I realized there were some other survivors. And, of course, being a natural born worrier, I was afraid I would live my life without ever finding someone I could love who would love me back. Then I got to know you, Bobby, and I began to hope that you might be the one. Bobby, hope has grown into reality. I love you, Bobby Caldwell; we’re in this together, right along with everyone else.”

  All over the place, I’ve been hearing the phrase ‘We’re in this together!’ It’s the new toast in bars and has largely, at least temporarily, replaced ‘To Bobby!’ ‘To Bobby’ as a toast has always made my toes curl up in embarrassment. ‘Together’ is so much more comfortable. I hope it lasts. Kevin’s a little embarrassed, though. It takes awhile to sink in that even without paparazzi, we live in a fish bowl.

  Another conundrum has erupted surrounding the election. A number of candidates slandered and libeled their opponents during the campaign. The worst slanderers lost, but many of the candidates engaged in questionable campaign practices to some extent. The voters have made themselves heard pretty clearly that they don’t want to endure another mud slinging campaign. Some communities let it be known that they would be reconsidering their membership in the Coalition unless something was done to put a stop to dishonesty and outright lies in campaigns.

  Fortunately, Avery Wells was prepared to address the problem at the first meeting after the swearing in of the new Representative. Avery, along with two-thirds of the full complement of 25 Representatives wasn’t up for election this year so he, Samantha Enderle, and several other holdovers immediately moved to address the problem as soon as the swearing-in of their newly elected and re-elected colleagues had been taken care of. I enjoyed it tremendously.

  Avery started right in. “Mr. Executive Director, while we’re on the business item concerning the past election, I have some motions related to campaign issues that I’d like to make. May I proceed?”

  “You may proceed, but keep in mind that our special rules permit you to only make two motions before you must concede the floor. Is that acceptable or do you wish to use one of your motions to overturn that particular special rule?” So far, we were pretty straightforward since we have a previously agreed to list of special rules that we’ve followed almost from the first session of this body.

  “I’m completely satisfied, Sir. May I begin?”

  “Yes, you may.”

  “I’d like to move that any and all broadcasting outlets, whether by internet, radio, television, or any other broadcasting device or medium delivering broadcasts, including newspapers that can be received by more than one Coalition Community, may only broadcast political and campaign information that they can substantiate or verify as factual and free of conjecture, and should they mistakenly broadcast misinformation, that they must make full corrections for all information to an extent that is equal to twice the coverage of the misinformation being corrected.”

  “Is there a second?”

  Samantha Enderle immediately seconded the motion.

  “The motion has been made and seconded. April, would you read the motion please?”

  April, who is my secretary, always takes notes for me, but not for the Representative body as a whole. When I need to repeat a motion before we discuss it, she always reads the motion exactly as it was made. We have previously agreed that I can have her read the motion on my behalf so this wasn’t out of the ordinary.

  “Avery, would you like to speak in support of the motion?”

  “Yes, Bobby, I would. As we all know, during the last election, some candidates said things that were entirely untrue about their opponents. This did a lot of damage to, not only the other candidates’ reputations, but also to the election process itself. Sometimes the offending statements were outright lies, and, at other times, the offending statements were pure speculation as to the intentions or thoughts of the opposing candidates. This is wrong and leads not only to confusion, but, ultimately, to distrust of government in general. The airwaves belong to everyone and should not be involved in deception and disruption. Hopefully, this motion will lead to more transparency, honesty, and pragmatism.”

  “Would someone like to speak in opposition to the motion?”

  After a pause of several seconds no one spoke up, so I repeated the invitation to speak against the motion, and again no one responded so I called the question and asked April to repeat the reading of the motion. It passed unanimously. I immediately appointed a procedural committee of the motion maker and the second as well as three others volunteers to draft a document procedure for carrying out the motion. These types of committees usually ended up meeting once or twice and then handing what they had over to me to finish and bring back to the main body for review and approval. With Avery Wells as the motion maker, though, I would probably have nothing to do other than putting it on the agenda in a couple of weeks.

  Avery raised his hand again, and I called on him for his next motion.

  “I move that all campaign promises made by winning political candidates be presented for discussion and consideration by this chamber by those making such promises and that those discussions commence within sixty days of the election.”

  Again, Samantha seconded the motion, and I asked April to read it for the body. “Are there any questions before we begin discussions?”

  One of the new Representatives quickly raised her hand. “I’m not completely familiar with ‘Robert’s Rules’ so please bear with me. “What do you mean that we have to consider campaign promises? What constitutes a campaign promise?”

  All questions go through the chair, and I didn’t feel it appropriate to answer a question about one of the motions so I looked over at Avery, who was conveniently nodding his head. “Avery, would you answer that question, please?”

  “I’d be happy to. A ‘campaign promise’ is a statement made by the winning candidate that they will do something if elected to office. Since that particular candidate won the election, we may surmise that the voters liked what they were saying and want it to be, at least, considered by the Representatives.”

  I could see immediately that this was a far more complicated discussion than we would be able to deal with as a simple motion.

  “Are there any other questions? Seeing none, Avery, would you like to speak in favor of your motion?”

  “Yes, thank you. I realized that in the heat of a campaign, a lot of promises are made, but when people elect a Representative to this body, they have a right to expect that person to attempt to keep their promises or to at least attempt to keep their promises. The rest of us owe the voters that consideration as well. We don’t have to agree with the promise, but we need to respect their concerns enough to seriously consider them.”

  “Would someone like to speak in opposition to this motion?”

  “Yes, if I may?” It was the questioner, the just elected Representative from Lagos, Nigeria, a middle-aged woman named Jol Eze. Lagos is one of the larger communities in the Coalition. It is something like the communities that continue in New York City, only a bit more centralized, having several communities of about one to three thousand people each located within the same general area. “I don’t disagree with the concept since I believe we should listen carefully to our citizens, including the ones who didn’t vote for the prevailing candidates. I just question who will gather the data, the actual promises made. Are we inadvertently creating a bureaucracy here to oversee the promises of the candidates? As you said just now, ‘in the heat of a campaign, a lot of promises are made’. Shouldn’t we leave it to the voters to hold their candidates accountable for promises they made? I’m concerned that we are creating an oversight procedure that usurps the responsibility of the voters to be vigilant.”

>   All I could think was ‘this should be fun’: an actual debate, reasonable people, and reasonable ideas presented reasonably. The pros and cons lasted through exactly four people before the motion was tabled for sixty days while we considered all the ramifications. In the end, Avery, Samantha, and Jol were fast friends.

  I’ve been a little concerned about how complacent our Representatives are, but I don’t know what we should be doing either. That pretty much covers everything facing us. The Representatives don’t have much authority unless it involves a mutual concern for more than one community. The elections certainly fell into that category so it made sense for them to police their own elections and the campaigns. But I can see that, bit by bit, they are becoming more and more involved in actually governing. Still, just because they are willing to govern, it doesn’t necessarily mean they have any solutions to the problems we collectively face.

  ‘What should we be doing about the migration from our smaller scattered settlements to our larger communities?’ I don’t know. Every few weeks, another of our smallest communities disbands as the families with children decide to start over in a town with a better crèche and school system.

  ‘What should we do about marauders and raiders?’ I don’t know. Our numbers are so few that we really don’t have the personnel to chase the bad guys down. Or worse, to deal with them properly once we catch them. Right now, things are stable in both Lagos and Abuja, but the road between them can only be traversed by convoy. The same is largely true of Nairobi and Mombasa.

  ‘What should we do about money?’ I wish I knew. As it stands, we have a whole generation of young people growing up without money. Do we even need money anymore? Will we need it eventually? Right now, everyone gets food, clothing, housing, and pretty much everything we want, and all we ask is that they work at an approved job for four hours a day. No one seems to mind, except the occasional George, and life goes on pretty smoothly. But not having money just seems wrong. On the other hand, we all have work credits piling up and nothing to spend them on except trips, excursions, experiences, and self-improvement. So why have money?

  Happily, one of the newest self-fulfillment experiences is down in Filadefia, Paraguay where they offer a two or three-week course in surviving without electricity and fuel powered machinery. Mennonites actually use electricity and farm machinery, but they also know first hand how to get along very nicely living a very simple life. This little project is part of their missionary work and very clever of them, too.

  Morro Bay offers a weeklong commercial style fishing experience. It’s so popular that the fishing guild has a waiting list of people who want to do that for a living, at least for a while. Monterrey has reopened their ocean research facility and people come to spend a few weeks at a time working at the aquarium. Some want to stay, again, at least for awhile.

  July 29

  Chanelle and Jerry, along with hundreds of 11-13 year olds left last week for Shanghai, China where they’ll have six weeks of Mandarin immersion. We haven’t done this before, but the kids have proven they are mature enough to handle it through the springtime projects like planting blight resistant American chestnut trees and other native regional trees. All day long they will work and play while improving and strengthening their Mandarin speaking skills. They will also increase their fluency in reading and writing using the Chinese logographic script. Best yet, they’ll be surrounded by lots of native Chinese speaking kids of the same age.

  In January, several hundred English-learning kids of the same age will have the same type of experience in Melbourne, Australia. In addition to lots of Australian host children, there will be scores of native English speaking children invited to intermingle and help make this a true English immersion experience as well as great bonding experiences. We want to preserve cultural diversity, but we hope at the same time to weaken tribalism and provincialism.

  Jerry and Chanelle also have been improving their Spanish and have begun learning Hindi. Hopefully, they will get to attend something like this for those languages as well. Right now, I think we are still in the planning stages for something like this in Mexico City and in Mumbai.

  All of this underscores the fact that our children are all survivors, too, and most of them are orphans. They’re resilient and independent and mature beyond their years. It’s very clear that Chanelle, Jerry, and Charlie love our little family, but it’s also very clear that they are increasingly self-sufficient. I don’t think it has much to do with Kevin’s and my parenting skills. I suspect it’s the experience of surviving and, also, the school system they’ve been exposed to. Chad and Dinah are probably going to be pretty independent as well, but right now, Dinah’s just a toddler, and Chad practices the piano every spare minute. We don’t stop him because he gets a broad educational experience at school where he still idolizes Charlie. Chad’s also a very good pianist so maybe that’s all part of his exceptional talent. Jane Spencer, his piano teacher, says he’s the best she’s ever taught and that we may need to plan on finding him a much more serious teacher in the next year or two.

  Charlie tried to hide his feelings, but we could tell that he was really distressed because he was being left out of so much that Jerry and Chanelle are able to do because he’s just a couple of years younger. So, we sent him to a soccer camp in Buenos Aires. Kevin took him down, and I’ll pick him up in a few weeks. While I think he wanted to be with his brother and sister, and I think he might have been a little jealous of their closeness even though they never intentionally leave him out, the soccer camp went a long way toward mollifying his hurt feelings. Of the three older children, Chanelle is the most athletically able, with Charlie a very close second, even though he’s just over two years younger. Poor Jerry has to settle for enthusiastic. He’s the brightest of the three and takes his lack of prowess in sports well. If Kevin and I were actually their parents, we would say that Jerry takes after me, sort of quiet, sort of tall, sort of thin, and not exceptionally talented in any sport. Chanelle is independent, sort of like both of us, exuberant like both of us, at least now and then, and graceful, like me when I was a kid. On her, it looks good, though. Charlie is just like Kevin. He even looks like him in a lot of ways. He’s a natural athlete and loves sports, and while he’s not too talkative, he can be pretty profound for one so young.

  I’ve only been to Buenos Aires once, but I fell in love with it. It reminds me of Paris a little, but with just a hint of earth. The community itself is only about a couple of thousand or more, but it’s slowly growing as some of the smaller settlements shut down. I think I can talk Kevin into coming with me when we pick Charlie up. I want to do a little sightseeing for once. Nothing bad is happening down there, and I think things are calm enough, generally, that I can get away for a few days. Jane and her two kids have offered to look after Chad and Dinah. Dinah loves everyone, and Chad adores his piano teacher.

  On the more general front, much of Africa, parts of Asia, and even areas of South and Central America have never gotten organized. That means there is no form of government, whether Coalition or one of the other groups. So far we get along with all the other governing groups, except, perhaps, for the Sunni Muslim Caliphate, or SMC. They started out as the largest group besides us, but because of their extreme restrictions on women and minorities, most of their settlements have shrunk in size, sometimes dramatically. The Sunni Homeland has been the primary beneficiary of the Caliphate defections.

  The Caliphate seems to be slowly disintegrating from within, but I suspect it will finally reach a critical, but smaller, mass when all the more moderate groups and individuals have fled and the only ones left are true believers. That’s sort of what happened in the Marseille SMC community in France after it started enforcing some of their stricter rules. Lots of women, younger people, and thoughtful men just walked away. Most resettled in the Sunni Homeland which is heavily represented in Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa, but some of them just moved across the city to the larger Coalition Com
munity in Marseille where they can practice their version of Islam or none at all, just like other people all over the Coalition. The SMC made the mistake of trying to carry over attitudes from pre Sickness days into post Sickness reality. Virtually every tie, whether political, family, or religious, was broken after The Sickness. People started again, and violence and hatred and revenge didn’t have much meaning anymore. (It isn’t helping their cause that word is finally getting out that they may have played a part in The Sickness.)

  We see it everywhere now. People don’t want to be told how to live their lives. If people don’t want to do something or don’t like a rule, they just get in a car and drive away. We value each other, but controlling people is really not in the cards anymore. As I see it, my biggest job as Executive Director is to remind the Representatives that we’re leading the people where they’re already going, or at least, where they’re willing to go. The SMC is discovering, or maybe they haven’t discovered it yet, that people didn’t survive the most traumatic event of their lives to watch other survivors being thrown off of a tall building or stoned because they broke some rule or other. By the way, as of now the Marseille SMC community seems to have dissolved. No one knows where the remaining members went, but we’re guessing they’re down in Libya. Their choices are getting fewer and fewer.

  August 19

  We video conference as a family every night or so. I don’t know how he did it, but Kevin managed to set us up so we can all see each other and talk for about half an hour. We do it from my office since Charlie is just finishing dinner with his team. He’s loving everything about his soccer camp experience. He calls it futball, now. His Spanish is improving, and he’s picking up the Argentine accent. My Spanish is only so-so, but even I can hear the difference. One of his coaches was a professional before The Sickness. So Charlie’s in soccer heaven. Three of his friends from SLO are also down there, but none of them are on the same team so they only get to see each other for limited times each day. All meals are taken together as teams with their coaches. He’s happy, so we’re happy. Chanelle and Jerry like showing off their improved Mandarin. Kevin and I speak so-so Spanish, a little Esperanto, and International Sign Language. Everything else is hit or miss. Again, they’re happy so we’re happy.