Routine

The television was talking about the world that would come after this one.

"It means a situation in which human dignity becomes a luxury."

"Modern people who have lived in the abundance of civilization will, facing an ice age, feel a far greater deprivation than those who never had it. And it will not end in anomie — individuals clawing at individuals as society comes apart."

"What are you saying, exactly?"

"Values will change, and new norms will emerge. The old ghosts of ideology may even come back. The solidarity that struggle demands will produce collisions between groups."

"A resource war is easy enough to imagine. Communities will turn fiercely insular — a world in which plunder becomes a more rational choice than trade."

"You're being too pessimistic. Hasn't humanity's spiritual culture advanced just as far? There will be hope."

"It's the opposite. The abundance we've enjoyed will, in the face of catastrophe, only reveal how impoverished ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠our spirits have become — and how thoroughly our patience has run out."

"In other words, civilization let humanity flourish. It also made human beings weak. I'm not talking about physical capability. The strength of mind it takes to keep one's dignity has atrophied."

The anchor listening to the panelist wore an expression that said he couldn't agree — but he didn't argue.

I knew exactly what the panelist meant. North Africa's Sahel. The tragedies of the Kurds and the Palestinians. Dignity could be thrown away at any moment, if survival required it.

Dark memories pressed in, but for the sake of a dignity I still claimed as my own, I forced myself to bed. At times like this, I felt ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all over again why they had drilled sleep into us in the service.

The next morning, my body woke on its own, without an alarm.

Faint light was seeping into the trailer. I sat up and, out of habit, switched on the coffee machine. Savoring the grind of the beans and the rich aroma filling the space, I began the private ritual I had not skipped for a single day in fifteen years.

No matter what comes, I keep this routine.

It had been my father's teaching as well.

Habits make a life.

Someone had put it this way: what separates human beings from animals is not rational thought itself, but the habits that thought produces. The madder the world became, the more firmly I resolved to enjoy, for as long as I possibly could, the abundance of civilization and the dignity of remaining human.

I took a sip of hot coffee, switched on the wall-mounted television, and spread out the mat. Time for the morning workout I had kept my entire life.

I started with stretching, then moved to the pull-up bar bolted hard into the trailer ceiling. Thirty-five pull-ups. A hundred push-ups. Fifty dips off the sofa. Then pistol squats, twenty on each leg, sitting and standing on one foot.

My breath came hard. I didn't stop. It was a kind of equipment check — the equipment being a sound mind. As I poured with sweat, the news carried the caster's dispassionate voice.

It'll be colder here.

Yellowknife, where I was, sat in Canada's Northwest Territories — a northern backwater, as remote as they came.

Using the news as background noise, I wrung out my abs with a final L-sit — and realized there were still gaps in my preparations.

I need to buy more.

Disposable dust masks wouldn't cut it. I needed to stock industrial respirators with replaceable filters, and goggles that could cover the whole face.

I showered, pulled a winter parka on over a thick flannel shirt, climbed down from the W990's cab, and crossed through the accordion passageway into the trailer. The moment I opened the outer door, the cold from outside rushed in. My breath froze white in the air. It was a cold that seemed to flay the skin.

Damn. It's only the start of December.

But something was different from usual. Because of the words volcanic winter lodged in my head, the cold in the air seemed to go beyond mere chill — a clammy, clinging quality that greedily sucked the warmth out of anything still living.

The sky was all ash-gray. The sun was somewhere beyond that thick curtain of cloud, but its presence was faint. A landscape as if someone had turned the world's saturation down a notch.

The air inside the prefab at the depot sat even stiller and colder than the air outside. I climbed into the Sorento. When I turned the key, the cold engine made a sound like something struggling out of sleep. I ran the heater at full and warmed my hands, sorting through the day's work in my head.

First, respirators and goggles. And I may need more generator fuel. No telling how long the solar panels will keep doing their job. Groceries too — fresh food, one more pass.

I ran down the list the way you check items in a game. Last shopping run at the ragged edge of civilization. A bad feeling settled over me — that today might be the last chance I would get.

"Hey, Chan! Still among the living, I see!"

Dave's cheerful voice pulled a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠snort of laughter out of me.

"What's going on, this early?"

"Haha — money, what else? Listen, a hell of a job just came in. Emergency materials run out to the Fort McMurray oil sands. Hazard pay on top — three times the usual rate. Now that you're running your own truck, even a single load would pay out nicely."

For a moment, I wavered. Triple wages. A chance to recoup, in one stroke, the fortune I had poured out yesterday. I shook my head. Right now, what I needed to buy was time.

"Dave, I'm sorry. I'm sitting this one out for a while."

"What? Sitting it out? You? Don't mess with me, pal."

The laughter had gone out of his voice.

"Is it the news? This isn't like you."

"Yeah. It's the news."

I looked at the ash-gray sky beyond the window and spoke quietly.

"Something… just doesn't feel right."

He must have heard the weight in it. Dave was silent for a moment. I was the one who always joked. Hearing me talk seriously about a feeling would have sounded, to him, like a louder warning than anything on the news.

"Chan, you talking like that is making me nervous too. All right. Take care of yourself. You call me if anything happens."

"You too. Be careful, Dave."

When I hung up, a heavy silence settled into the cab. I put my foot down and felt a different urgency from yesterday's. Time was genuinely running out.

I ran the last shopping list through my head and pointed the Sorento toward the industrial safety outfitter on the edge of town — the kind of place that sold gear for construction sites and factories. Far more specialized, and far better stocked, than a Walmart.

Inside, the shop was a world of gray and yellow and fluorescent orange. Safety boots, work clothes, tools of every kind. I went straight to the respiratory protection aisle.

"Welcome. What can I get for you?"

I didn't hesitate.

"Two 3M 7500-series respirators. And ten sets each of P100 particulate filters and organic-vapor cartridges."

The clerk's eyes went round.

"And goggles. Anti-fog coating, a model that seals completely to the face. Five of those."

I worked the rest of the shop and loaded the cart with seven red twenty-liter jerry cans for fuel storage and five twenty-liter collapsible water bladders.

Beside the register, knives were laid out in a glass case. One of them caught my eye and held it. A Cold Steel tanto. I didn't hesitate.

"That Cold Steel Recon Tanto. Two of them, please."

It was the model Gary Schroen had carried on the CIA's first operation into Afghanistan, which was how it had gotten ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠famous. It wasn't a high-end piece, but the meaning attached to it was different. That was why I picked it.

I paid for what I needed and drove to a bank machine — a different branch from yesterday — slotted the card, and repeated the same operation. After several attempts, I had another three thousand dollars in cash.

Cash against my chest, I headed for a different gun shop in town. I had cleaned out the old man's inventory yesterday; I needed to open a new hole. Fortunately, they still had 12-gauge buckshot on the shelf.

"A thousand rounds."

The clerk looked startled, but he didn't argue. He brought the heavy boxes out of the back without a word. Then something else occurred to me.

"How much 12-gauge rock salt do you have?"

"In stock?"

"Yes."

"About three hundred rounds?"

"I'll take all of it."

"Ah. Yes, sir."

I thought I was finished. On the way back to the garage, something important I had forgotten surfaced again. I pulled over at a roadside convenience store.

"Marlboro Reds and Lights, mixed. Twenty cartons."

The young clerk behind the counter looked at me as if I had lost my mind. Then the radio, at that exact moment, ran a piece on the logistics breakdown, and he nodded.

"Ah. So that's what this is about?"

"That's right."

I paid in silence and walked out.

The truth was, I had quit smoking years ago. Not for my health. That vicious nicotine smell kept dragging up the memory of Helmand dust mixed into it, driven deep into the lungs.

I had been there on deployment with the Foreign Legion's GCP. In that barren country, cigarettes were not an ordinary vice. They were the most reliable substitute for cash, the lubricant that opened a conversation with a wary Pashtun tribal elder. Sometimes they were an effective bribe for the location of a Taliban cell.

On an operation in Mali, in the Sahel, what opened a Boko Haram operative's mouth was a chocolate bar from a U.S. MRE and a single pack of Marlboro Reds. I knew too well that in places where civilization had collapsed — where law and order had vanished — the things that worked on primitive appetite could be weapons more powerful than bullets. And nicotine, that addiction of civilization, remained effective even on a battlefield.

If I get the chance, I should buy more.

I looked at the cartons stacked on the passenger seat. As the world began to run in reverse, I too was pulling old, harmful habits — and the memories that came with them — back to the surface.

By the time I had returned to the garage and moved everything out of the Sorento into the trailer, the world outside had already gone pitch black.

I decided on a simple dinner. Shin Ramyun, a tray of microwave rice, and well-fermented kimchi — all from the Korean grocery. The sharp, homesick smell of ramyeon filled the trailer. Steaming noodles, white rice, kimchi. The taste of home, the kind that blows days of tension and fatigue out of you in a single stroke.

And then, as a matter of course, I switched on the television. Onscreen, a cluster of panelists was locked in a grim debate. It looked like a special on the effects of the Lakagígar eruption. I had turned it on just as the host, wearing an expression of frank disbelief, was putting a question back to one of the guests.

"Is that true? You're saying the high-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere will become uninhabitable?"

A white-haired man who looked like a climatologist nodded heavily.

"Unfortunately, yes. The sulfate aerosol layer that has formed in the stratosphere is weakening the Arctic Oscillation to an extreme degree. That means the jet-stream barrier that used to lock the Arctic's cold air in place has collapsed."

"A powerful Polar Vortex will pour down into the mid-latitudes as it stands. The Canadian North, Siberia, Northern Europe as we know them are no longer simply zones of severe cold. They are becoming permanent extreme-low-temperature zones."

"Permanent? You mean winter never ends?"

"It's possible. According to the simulations, within the next few months the daily average temperature in northern Canada will almost certainly fall to between minus forty and minus fifty degrees Celsius — and in severe cases, lower still."

"In an environment like that, maintaining basic infrastructure is out of the question. Human survival itself becomes impossible. We should no longer be worrying about climate change. We should be worrying about climate refugees."

I set down my chopsticks. The satisfaction that had filled my mouth was gone without a trace. Anxiety pressed down on my solar plexus.

Instinct was shouting.