Three years after the Crash.

I swear as the edge slices my finger, the rusty metal tape recoils into the trusty old tape measure. It’s a pity I’d not the foresight to buy new tools before the Crash. There are a lot of things I should have done back then; things that would have helped in turning this ten by ten, barren patch of the backyard into a garden. Now the Ms is carrying our third kidlet I got a lot of mouths to feed. If the Ms and I were given the choice, at least one of us would be using contraception. Before the Crash I could’ve picked up a box of condoms from the local shop, but shops are just a memory now.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the little ruggers, but this isn’t the kind of world any sane person would choose to bring a child into.It’s been three years since the Crash of ‘48 and I need more than the government rations to feed this lot.

I used to worry about the future, but I never saw this coming. By ’48 the government had pretty much sold everyone out, paid off by a few filthy rich people, while the rest of us stumbled from one low paying job to another. We were part of the world then, TV to tell us what to do, what to say, what to think.

We were on the right side of the Great Dividing Range in ’48. They reckon ten million Aussies died in the wave and God knows what happened to the rest of the world.. The tsunami took out pretty much everyone within twenty klicks of the coast..

We were lucky. Three years before the tsunami, he Ms and I did okay. We had a diesel four-by and we followed what work we could. There was just the two of us then in that old Toyota. We scraped together enough credit to buy this rundown old caravanwhen our first was born. We must’ve done a hundred thousand K chasing work all over the country.

Then the Crash happened and, well, nothing really prepares you for an apocalypse does it. My last job was retail, which basically meant filling online orders in a warehouse out west. Packing and sending whatever crap the media told people they had to have.

Then boom, the world fell apart and suddenly, packing shit didn’t seem so important.

Makes me laugh now. We saved every credit we had for that van and look, six years later, you can have any house you want east of the Divide. Not everyone’s got the stomach to live in a place people died in, but hey, it’s good to have somewhere to lay down your roots.

Apart from that, the van isn’t big enough for us and the growing number of kidlets. I’ve been learning how to grow things, from books I found in some of the empty houses along the way and I reckon I’ve got this worked out.

I’m a bit of a jack of all trades, but I didn’t do much gardening in the caravan. This place has a shed with some rusty old tools in it. They’ll have to do.

 Despite the rusty tools, there’s a lot of good things about this place. It’s got solar panels on the roof, a rainwater tank and judging by the fact it’s still got all the windows, I guess the wave mustn’t have made it this far in.

Pretty much everyone who survived east of the Great Divide, found they couldn’t survive without electricity and petrol. The people who owned this place probably left with everyone else years ago, to go to the government shelters in places like Bathurst and Dubbo. They wouldn’t be back.

Of course the Ms was most excited about the solar hot water.

Yeah it’ll take some work, but after spending the last three years siphoning diesel tanks and doing farm work for food, it’d be good to stop and catch our breath.

We’ve already met a couple of the locals, seems there’s about a hundred people live around the area. Greenies and Alt Lifestylers mostly. Dave and Daz up the road a bit reckon most of them are nubies like us, but people look after each other here in Helensburgh.

Yes, this could be home.