Zen and the Art of the Apocalypse - Parts 1 & 2

 

October 15

6pm

 

I suppose I was about as prepared for this day as the average survivalist, though I would never consider myself truly one of their number. More like, “prepared”. I know they come in different shapes and forms, from the tinfoil-hat crowd, to the Nazi-anarchists, to the bunker-in-the-back-yard crowd. I, on the other hand, simply tried to be aware of what was going on in the world. I also have had a love of the outdoors since I was a kid. Over the years, I have spent time honing my ability to survive in the wilderness. I have also tried to stay fit, and even invested some time in martial arts and hand gun training. None of these pursuits were ever remotely close to “obsession” and that is—I believe—the key to separating out the “survivalist” from the “prepared.” But most importantly, I had a plan.

Having a plan, even a bad one, trumps no-plan any day. My father impressed upon me this ethic, and on the day the lights went out, I had a plan. Thanks, Pop.

Pop had been Army Supply Corps, or some such, for 20 years before retiring and working for the state. He ran some office for the Oregon Department of Transportation, somewhere in the capitol. He retired a second time last year from the state and then settled at the coast. He had divorced my mother when I was young, but remained in the picture during long absences while he was either deployed or on assignments to distant places; he even did one stint at the Pentagon. We would spend days in the wild during his many visits over the years, where he taught me to be a Boy Scout in everything I did. When mom died, he retired immediately. We had a couple of rocky years there in our relationship, as he was no longer “vacation dad”; instead the poor bastard was stuck with a teenager who had a sudden chip on his shoulder. But through dumb luck, wisdom on his part, innate wisdom on mine (not as likely), or some combination of all of these, he managed to get me interested in Tae Kwon Do. It was the right thing at the right time for me, and I’m sure I was less of an asshole as a result. Well, probably.

When mom died, I was at school; my high school principle came and pulled me out of class personally. A police officer was waiting at the school office and drove me to the hospital to see her, still on life support in the ICU. The doctor said it was a berry aneurysm, and said it must have come on fairly suddenly, without a lot of suffering by the time a passing motorist had discovered her. She had been slumped over the steering wheel, parked on the shoulder of the road on her way to work at her accounting firm. I grieved her loss hard for the next year, but it took a decade to grieve the loss of my childhood that also died with her. It was as if the universe had amputated what was left of my childhood: had excised 3 years of my life, stitched the edge of “age 15” to the edge of “adult,” and just walked away. The universe had walked away, leaving me missing 3 years of being a child: 3 years that would have meant more time without the cares and concerns that go with what comes with adulthood later. Not fair.

 

On “That Day,” I was at work. When the lights went out, the exam room went black: black as your darkest cave, with the barest hint of light, only if you knew where to look. I did know where to look, so I moved to the exam room door and opened it to allow some faint light into the small space.

“Just a sec, Carol; the lights should come back on any second.”

“No problem.”

I could hear groans coming from the direction of the nursing station, where several nurses and medical assistants were no doubt sitting patiently as well, waiting for everything to come back on.

“Mandy,” a voice called out, “did you remember to pay the power bill this month?” This brought some healthy laughter for a moment.

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but that little bit of intuition in the back of my brain somewhere was telling me an obvious clue was waiting to be discovered. I waited. The power is off…I know from 3 prior experiences of power outages in the past 7 years, the generator had kicked ON in only a few seconds on two occasions, but once it took a few seconds more. Each of those outages were during severe winter storms, and today had been a mild, autumn day. The 3 story medical building I worked in was winding down for the day and this would definitely piss a bunch of folks off: both patients and staff. All of our charting, from the medical records to writing orders to, well, you name it, came from a centralized computer system.

“Carol, I’m sorry, but I don’t know how long this is going to take. I think you’re right about that left ear; it did look infected when I was looking in there. I’m not sure when the power will be back on, but we have a couple options. I haven’t had a prescription pad for years, but I can put pen to paper, old-school, and write a prescription out and sign it and I know the folks across the hall will honor it under the circumstances. Either that or I’ll have you wait out by the front door in the hopes the power will come on, and if it doesn’t, you can come back tomorrow.”

She joined me in the doorway. She was 50, dressed for success, but also as nice as the day is long. She looked out the distant window down the hall at the waning light outside and I allowed my gaze to join hers for a moment while she thought it through.

“Huh,” I said. “No lights out there either.” There was that tickle in the back of my brain again.

She smiled and turned to me. “Let’s rock-it old school.”

I had to laugh at that. “Ha-ha, fair enough. No allergies, right? This is for amoxicillin, 500 mg pills and you’ll take 2, twice a day, until they’re all gone, which will be 10 days, all told. I can’t really write for a pain prescription without an official script, but go ahead and try the ibuprofen just like you’ve been doing but 3 caps every 8 hours this time.”

“Got it.”

“And Carol?”

“Huh?”

“I don’t want to hear you crossed out amoxicillin and wrote for a thousand tablets of morphine.”

She snorted. “How is it you’re still single?” she said with a wink.

I struck a regal pose and waved my hands down my entire body; “Because this is a temple, and only the worthy may gaze upon it. Now get home, and let me know Monday if this hasn’t sorted out by then.”

She snorted again and smiled; I walked her past the nursing station and opened the door to the main lobby. I made sure she was navigating in the right direction, when it hit me.

I walked back to the “nurses den”. “Hey guys, any of you all seen an emergency exit light on this whole time?”

Ed, one of the older medical assistants, walked up. “Now that you mention it, no.”

“That’s weird, I thought they were all on back-up batteries.” Now to the room, at large, “What’s it been, 5-10 minutes now? You guys can wait for admin, but that was my last patient anyway, so I’m going to grab my laptop and do this from home, assuming I’ve got power. Anybody need anything before I go?”

A chorus of “No’s”, my only answer, I walked to my office and shoved my laptop in my daypack that I carried to work and hung my lab coat and stethoscope on the hook behind the door. I grunted as I caught myself starting to switch the device off to power it down, and then remembered nature had already done that for me. And there was that tingling again. What was I missing?

I took the stairs and exited the employee door that dumped us off at the edge of the employee parking lot. Dusk was nearly complete, and without the ambient light, the heavy cloud cover was bringing darkness a lot more quickly tonight.

Strange, how quiet it is, I thought. Man, when the power goes out, things sure get quiet. Halfway to my car, I noticed several people scattered around the parking lot standing by various cars looking lost. With amusement, I thought, wow, the power goes out, and without the street lights, the average medical professional can’t even find their own damn car. Maybe I should hit the “unlock” button on my key fob and when my car beeps and lights up, those folks will get a reminder of how one can find their car in the dark. I hit the button. Nothing. Of course, I hit the button half a dozen more times and, just for equal measure, I hit the other two buttons on the fob. Nothing happened. Great, now the battery in my key fob is...