After the Truth (Book Two)

Five

Today is exactly fifteen years since Evelyn and I landed in Montreal. As the deaths from the Plague pass two billion something happened today that made me think back that past in Canada. Never, in a dozen lifetimes would I imagine what the future held.

Many of those left alive are telling stories of the past. It is a natural psychological reaction. People want to remember better, simpler times.

For me, my trigger back to the past was news I received early this morning. It made me snap back to that day Evelyn and I stood in Martin Bradmore's home. When we lied to his widow, Patricia, and his two daughters. Straight faced, I told them we knew the cause of her husband's death but could not let her know until some fictitious due process had been followed.

Lying was so cheap in those days. Or so we thought.

Earlier this evening I stood in another house, much grander, and fifteen years and two billion lives later. I was waiting in the drawing room of the official residence of the leader of his nation. The rules of my journal constrain me from going into any more detail than that.

I had been requested to attend, something that does not normally happen. As I have said before, a country may help shelter me, but the leaders of that country keep me at arm's length. I only arrived in this country four days ago, and yet here I am, at the center of government.

Although far from my first meeting with a head of state, it was unique, both in the context we are currently living through and also my reactions. Fifteen years of frustration and anger boiled over.

I wonder how history will judge what we discussed?

I was aimlessly staring out the window at the cold winter air when two men entered the drawing room.

'Joshua, thank you for coming,' the first man, the head of state, said as he shook my hand.

He did not smile and, like me, looked tired beyond his years. It is a common look. The thousand-yard stare has been replaced by the two-billion-lives stare. No one has been untouched by the high price we have paid during this unprecedented decline of of the human race. A growing question is being asked: Are we looking at our own extinction?

'May we call you Joshua?' the head of state said.

I said him it wasn't a problem.

They introduced themselves, but I will not write their names. The man with the head of state was his closest advisor.

It has become my routine when I arrive in new country that I learn some of the history. I knew the pair of men had been good friends in their younger days at university, where they realized compatible political beliefs and ambition in each other.

The head of state asked me to take a seat on one of a pair of couches by a large fireplace. I was pleased for the warmth as the winter journey to the residence had been a cold one. Despite being driven in an official government car, the heater was not working. Two billion lost lives is a lack of people to maintain the what was once the basic infrastructure of everyday life.

I was asked if I would like a drink. I drink too much these days and did not hesitate to accept his offer of a whiskey. I took a long sip of the warm harsh liquid as the two men sat on the couch opposite.

'Is your accommodation suitable?' the advisor asked. His tone and seeming opinion of my presence was cold.

My accommodation is, quite simply, stunning. It is a large farmhouse, on the isolated shore of a giant lake. I am aware of my continued separation from everyone else, but I have come to accept this. I like the isolation now. I am uncomfortable meeting new people, and I fear how I would react if I ever had to live in a large city again.