Survival Part 1

EARTHQUAKE

An earthquake of global impact strikes our planet. The infrastructure is now demolished. The grocery stores once filled with customers have been ransacked with nothing left in them but a few mice feces. The country store has now become a meeting place for many of the survivors, but now things were about to change even more for a little family living in America after the "Great Quake."

"It's getting stranger by the minute." Zed spoke to his daughter after they had mingled with the survivors at Grocery Mart.

"I know what you mean dad. People are asking me weird questions like, 'How much do you weigh?' And then whether or not I have local family in the area. They look very sinister when asking me their questions."

"I had the same questions put to me," Zed replied. "I answered this guy, 'why do you want to know?' He replied, 'We're planning a feast and we want to know who to invite.' There was laughter in the room coming from his friends after he made his remark.

I suspect they're cannibals, I've heard of cannibalism happening in the large cities but now I tend to wonder if they're coming to our neck of the woods. I think we better head home before things get violent."

As they prepared to leave for home, Zed found what looked like to be a small pepper plant in a container left on the side of the old store's parking lot. It looked half dead. They decided to take it home and hoped they could revive it.

They took out of their travel bags their golf shoes. Their spiked golf shoes came in handy for the trip home. There were no pathways through the woods and the fallen trees and brush had made it nearly impossible to travel. Their spiked shoes enabled them to quickly move on the fallen trees and brush.

"It's starting to rain," said Zed. "We better hurry home and get our buckets out to catch the rain water."

Even though they hurried,  Zed and his daughter Penny carefully made it home. It was an hazardous trip traveling to and fro from home to town. One slip on a fallen log could break a leg or cause significant injury.

HOME SWEET HOME 

"Hi! Mom." Spoke Penny. "Daddy found a plant."

"That's good new, honey, but did you find more buckets?"

"No!" Spoke Jed. "But I did find some two liter bottles. We could cut the tops off and use them to collect water. Why don't you two ladies prepare them while I plant my pepper plant. This rain ought to do my plant some good."

Jed prepared a hole in the ground the size of a bucket.

If only I had a post hole digger that would sure help, Zed thought to himself. Zed hit a huge rock and nearly broke his homemade shovel handle that he made from a branch of wood.

He used an old PVC pipe and placed it in the hole. He put dead grass and leaves around the PVC and filled the pipe with soil as he slowly removed it from the planting hole. He then planted his pepper.

Zed was not in the habit of talking to himself or to plants, but he spoke to the little pepper plant. "Someday when you grow up and produce fruit we are going to save your seeds and grow more peppers. We could also sell your seeds. You might not know it little pepper, but you could become very profitable to many hungry survivors like ourselves. So grow little pepper. Please grow."