In The Tenth Year Of The Pandemonium

The Fourth Dream

In the year before the century change, they set the cats among the pigeons.

We were so innocent.

We pitied the poor Chinese, welded into their high apartment buildings.  We saw video of them calling out their windows for food and help.

We saw the Chinese in Italy dying at an unholy rate.

A man from China flew to the Northwest, here, and became ill.

They are closing schools now.  There are about a tenth of the schools that used to exist.

Birth is rare and treacherous.  Still men and women do make love and a few children come to birth.  Some of them die a few days into life.

A healthy child is a rare sight.  Their play is carefully watched.

We don't have professional sports now.  Too many were dying on the field.  It became too horrifying.  Most colleges and high schools have given up the tradition of team sports also.  Living teen children are too precious.  We hope some of them survive their early adulthood.  A whole generation is weak and fewer than their parents' generation, or indeed their grandparents' generation.  Boomers are stronger than their grand children.  There are very few great grandchildren.

Goods and services are impossible.  Groceries and pharmacies are only open for eight hours on weekdays.  Most have self checkout.  No one wants to be at the check stand.  Amazon is still standing.  Most goods are handled by online shopping.  Then we wait for the arrival of a shipment to our houses. 

Official shopping is done with gov. supplemental funds. It is never enough.

Few of us  have actual jobs.  But they need some of us.  We know how things work.

We didn't know it but, WWIII was waged against us.  We thought it would take place in the usual way between tanks, guns and jets.  There was a lot of Kabuki about Russia, Ukraine and China in the year 2023. But we didn't understand that we were their enemy and that they, the invisible and visible magi were our actual destroyers until it was too obvious to shy away from. The virus, but more, the vaccine, was the means of waging that war. For several years early on people believed and lined up for the shots.  Around 2024 even the loudest proponents became silent.  That was a relief anyhow.

Still, they needed goods and services, so there are farms, largely poorly run mechanical food factories.  There are also special dark farms run the old way, so that there are good things for them.  There are factories for their needs and department stores for them to shop in.  We don't have the money, even if they would let us in.  You must have a special invisible tattoo on your left cheek for the doors to open to you.  There is a reader at the door.

On the street level there are two types of people.  We are the survivors walking a tight rope for life.  Then there are the bees. Worker bees for the comfort of the powerful and elite.  Many of them were what we believed were illegals coming here on their own.  But they were brought here to take the place of natives.  They mind things for their owners and keep the streets nice to look at.  We don't drive cars.  They outlawed normal gas runners.  There are cars tucked everywhere, unusable.  We walk, and ride the rare and unreliable buses.  They drive fine strange vehicles.

All real houses of sincere worship were closed in 2025, for offensive language and racism.  They house third world migrants in them now, also in the hotels and some of the closed high schools and larger buildings of all types.

There are home meetings.  It's hard to get an invitation to one because of the danger of betrayal.  

We make our own music.  We use everything up.  We make our own food at home.  We plant gardens and hope that they escape notice.  We keep chickens.  

We mend clothing. There are tons of used stuff.  Everywhere you look there are the material possessions of the dead.  We look funny in our second hand outfits.  We try to stay away from medical care.  Too many of us go into a  hospital, but never come out.  We think euthanasia is the main treatment there.

In 2026 President Harris signed a directive making medical care the business of the government.  You don't want to end up in a hospital unless there is no other choice.  Better to die in peace at home if you have to.  

There are no more funerals.  They outlawed them. Each town has its own crematorium.  We are not sure what they do with the ashes.  When a family member dies and is processed, the family receives a document officially acknowledging the death.

They tell us we are happy.  But we are very weary. Everything is changed after the great Reorg.  We try to tell the children how life was.  You can't blame them for thinking it has always been like this.  There is not much in the way of history taught, just stories about how much better it is now.  We try to keep our children out of the govco schools.  For one thing, the schools are literally not safe for a child.  We teach them basics at home.

We have a black underground economy.  We have our own currency.  They destroy anything they find having to do with our means of buying and selling.  But we just start up a printing shop somewhere else and issue new bills, dated when they were made.  Old ones lose value quickly.  There is a lot of barter where it makes sense.

We know we will probably not be able to keep this up forever.

Forever.  We know who we are waiting for and we see the signs.  Against all odds, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is in the the hands of the Israelis.  They made a new temple and started the sacrifices again.  There is no peace there.  A strange malignant figure is being spoken of.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

December of the year 2030.