I drove past some people wilting in the sun today and I thought, “This isn’t going to last much longer, is it?” I was thinking of the vinyl-sided houses and fire hydrants and sidewalks I was driving past. The Walgreens with its lighted sign advertising 99 cent eggs. And then I thought of everything behind it, the networks, the chicken farms that housed thousands of chickens so that you don’t have to, and the pharmaceutical companies creating things so your cholesterol goes down, or you don’t have to be depressed, or so you can focus, or so that you don’t have to deal with the embarrassment of no longer being able to do it. All we do seemed so fragile in the face of one-hundred degree heat.

Will we begin a backward lurch as the things at the top level begin to fail? Will people die off, and move northward, focusing on survival instead of excess? Will we become more self-sufficient, own our own chickens again, take care of our depressions by our own wills, whittle sticks for fun? And then will the skies cool again with our reduction of emissions and the process towards the complex, modern society begin again?