Life as We Knew It

July 2. Laura takes Jonny to baseball camp and comes back excited about a gas station where she can buy five gallons for $75. Despite the temperature being near 100, Matt decides it’s time to start chopping firewood and sends Miranda to gather kindling. When she’s done that and other chores, he encourages her to visit Sammi and Megan. Sammi isn’t home, but there is still laundry on the line, so Miranda knows the family hasn’t left.

At Megan’s house, Mrs. Wayne looks ecstatic to see Miranda and sends her up to Megan’s room—asking her to talk some sense into her daughter. Miranda thinks Megan looks thinner, but more striking is the fact that she “glows” with happiness during a time when everyone else is miserable. Miranda catches Megan up on her life, but when it’s Megan’s turn to talk, all she speaks about is religion and salvation. She’s going to church every day—sometimes sneaking out at night to go pray with Reverend Marshall.

Megan brings up their friend Becky, whom Miranda has been dreaming of frequently. Megan says that she was so angry at God after Becky died, and it was Reverend Marshall who talked her out of this and made her see God’s plan. Reverend Marshall is now counseling her that the disasters are God’s will. Miranda protests that it can’t be God’s will for Megan to starve. Megan counters with prayers and says that true happiness comes from salvation. The two of them cannot find common ground with religion, so Miranda leaves Megan praying and goes home to collect more kindling.

July 3. With Jonny off at camp, Laura suggests that she, Matt, and Miranda cut back to two meals a day. Even Matt is shocked, but he quickly agrees. Miranda agrees mores slowly, while jealously picturing Jonny eating the fresh food from the farm attached to his baseball camp. She thinks ahead to the month she’ll be spending with Hal and Lisa. She imagines an idealized version of their town where supplies and electricity are still plentiful.

July 4-6. Miranda experiments with which meal to skip—breakfast leaves her too hungry to swim, but she feels guilty watching Laura eat only a half portion at lunch. She settles on eating brunch and dinner. She struggles with resentment toward Jonny, who is being well fed at camp, and with comparisons towards past Fourth of Julys when there were fireworks and parades and things to celebrate.

July 7. The electricity turns on for the first time in a week full of very hot days—they run around turning on the A/C and dishwasher and washing machine—but it only lasts for ten minutes. After finishing the laundry by hand and hanging it up to dry, it starts to rain and storm. Everyone’s tension is high, and when Matt stays out chopping wood despite the storm, Laura and he get in a yelling match when he returns. While they’re arguing the electricity comes back on for forty glorious minutes. Miranda ends her entry by debating which is better: no electricity, or unreliable electricity? Life as she’s living it, or no life at all?

July 9. Something feels different when Miranda wakes up. It feels slightly cooler than the hundred degree temps they’ve been having, and the sky is a strange gray—but not cloudy or foggy. Miranda asks Matt and Laura about it, and they tell her that the moon’s increased gravitational pull is still causing earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods—but now it’s caused volcanoes to erupt all over the world for the past few days. This has caused the sky’s strange gray color—it’s an ash cloud blocking out the sun, which means crops will die and major climate shift could occur.

When Miranda asks how long this could last, she’s terrified to hear that it’s a global problem that may not clear for more than a year. Laura tells her that up until this point they’ve been “playacting” at survival, and that now things are going to get serious and they can’t count on the garden. Laura says she’ll only eat one meal a day and, Matt and Miranda agree to cut back too—fasting one day a week and eating two meals three days a week and one meal the other three. They make a plan to start stockpiling water in case the well runs dry and to boil it before drinking from this point forward. Miranda decides to go swimming while it’s still warm, but finds herself shivering when she gets out of the water. She ends the entry by stating that the lists of the dead are about to get a lot longer.