If we are all wiped out by the next coronavirus, or the ones sure to follow, and you are one of just a few left, what would that be like? Picture being left behind at "The Rapture" or Steven King's "The Stand" with a touch of "Deliverance" (without the banjoes), but not really. What's it like for those left behind?
Well, short term, I can tell you, it was an incredible eye-opener. And better yet, unlike the three examples above, it was a wonderful experience without any Twilight Zone 'twist of irony' at the end. And best of all, I didn't drown. Read the story of how it actually came about and stay to the end for the gist of it all.
It happened about 20 years ago when my son and daughter-in-law invited my wife and I (and reluctantly, our beautiful 100 pound chocolate lab) on a two-day canoe adventure on Georgia's Chattahoochee River as it runs through the beautiful, wild Chattahoochee National Forest. (FYI, this is the actual filming site of the movie Deliverance, so you know it is beautiful... and solemnly daunting).
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| Alix |
We had the wine and the dog. What could possibly go wrong?
After positioning one car at our anticipated arrival spot some miles downstream, we drove north and put in about 30 miles upriver, anticipating that first beautiful day with a plan for a nice, natural campsite, good meal and good company that evening.
It kinda worked that way... but as we assessed our load, we were the heaviest (wine weighs a lot) and our canoe sat mere inches above the waterline. Thinking dogs don't count if they aren't human, we were off, with us the forgotten last.
The river was a modest 1 or maybe 2 by Olympic standards, no problem for us tried and tested non swimming crews. (Well, I was non swimming, our dog didn't like the idea and my wife was comfortable in her thoughts that God will always take care of fools.)
About 15 minutes downstream, all 100 pounds of Alix changed position and we were in five feet of roughish water in about 2 seconds. I hit my head on a floating log, bobbing frantically as if 'we' (meaning me) were going to drown. When that didn't happen, I realized I had lost my glasses and gained a sizable lump on my forehead to show for it. My wife was safe and Alix was already on the shore vowing never again to get in a canoe. The wine was nowhere to be seen or felt as we searched mightily hoping against hope it would come to the surface.
In just those short minutes of a real time Tom Sawyer adventure, we were wet and wine-less. So, with Alix never at rest again, on we damply went and the fun commenced.
About half an hour later, out leading canoeists noticed more of our flotsam drifting past them downstream. After reversing course to fish us out once more, they put us first, kind of like Lewis and Clark putting the most 'bear delicious' people at the head, just in case.
As I recall, there were three more capsizes that day, us, us and us.
Just when we started to get the hang of it and began drying out, our group decided we had found our idyllic stop spot for the night.
Only one problem... we had to transverse a squeezed-in river passage with the water gushing through. I don't have to tell you, we didn't make it. Worse yet, we were standing in fast-moving waist-deep water as if God had flushed the toilet. With the help of the strongest in our group, we formed a human chain and crossed Niagara. Sopped again, we were eventually glad to be on dry land. Dog Alix was so ecstatic that she immediately pooped the biggest poop any of us had ever seen (to this very day) and backed as far away from the water's edge as she could. What a smart dog.
Aground at last and examining our campsite, we found no trace of humankind before us. Not a scrap of paper, remnants of a prior bonfire, old beer cans, etc... so we quickly stuck our flag in the ground and claimed it for the United States of America, hoping to name it after one of us. I visioned "Jerryland, USA" but the party invoked a little known paragraph in The Constitution: "No newly discovered land shall be in the name of someone who cannot swim, ergo, is a real 'pain' near water.
In the bright, fresh late summer morning, we breakfasted and made ready for a six hour canoe ride to our waiting car. It took three of us to get Alix back into that canoe again. The only human trace we left behind were her frantic claw marks in the ground. Maybe next group will believe a Tyrannosaurus Rex slept here.
It was a remarkably beautiful, dry peddle to our take-out point, recognized as just around the bend by the chatter of several families having fun on the river and beach.
Once ashore we were shocked to see our waiting car had been broken-into with everything inside gone and, as the piece de resistance, the battery too. Welcome back from Camelot. When two officers arrived to register our burgled pain, I swear that the officers could have stepped from any scene in Smokey and the Bandits. After a lot of "Yes Sirs" and "No Sirs" the heavyweight Jackie Gleason look-alike with a neatly pleated and remarkably unwrinkled uniform and hard-formed police stetson said, in effect, "Too bad suckers. Let that be a lesson to you." He stopped a passing pick-up truck and ordered the rough-looking driver with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and his menacing passenger to take two of us to the car we left 30 miles upriver.
Last we saw of the pick-up was a rocky spin of gravel and dust as the pair angrily sped down the gravel road with my son and friend hanging on for dear life in the truck bed. We hoped and prayed we would soon see them alive again and were rewarded when, about an hour later, our two came driving back.
Now here is the gist of this whole story: Thinking back from the moment we put in 36 hours before to our take out and broken-into car, we saw no evidence of any living soul, heard no sound other than Mother Nature's and our own screams, laughs, stories and lies. We didn't see electrical wires, planes overhead or anything related to humankind... no phones, no sinister sound of banjos or human noise... none, nada, zilch. It was just us... just us for two very rich days when the world kindly disappeared for us.
It was a magnificent trip with tales to tell and joys to go around. It was as if no outer world existed for us from start to finish. It was quite majestic for the short while. It was a reflective, rich time for us humans. You'll have to ask Alix for her thoughts though.
With 300 miles to home, we stopped at the first gas station that looked as if the bathrooms would rate at least 2 stars (Wrong. There are none of those.) There we peeled off our sand-infested clothes and threw the shoes away before getting into something clean and dry. We were in heaven again.
So that's what being the only people alive must feel like, even for just two days, with a realization that two days is not a lifetime. Isolation in the time of a coronavirus however, is not the same at all.
Added Related Bonus Feature: It takes two to tango but how many to repopulate the earth? The answer may surprise you.
Stay well friends.
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