Jacqueline Druga: Protocol One

August 1 – One Hour Post Event

Eventually, striking a match would become a luxury. Something so simple, so accessible, could be the gold of tomorrow. I hated the thought of lighting that match. I prolonged it. I held high hopes that it would be the last and only one I had to use. But I had to light it… just in case.

Just in case.

In case every bit of planning was for naught. Just in case everything we learned and were told ended up wrong. That match, that single match would start it all.

Granted, there were ten thousand matches in storage. What a ridiculous amount. I scoffed at that. But in the dark, it seemed miniscule. How long really would ten thousand matches last? Long enough until we found another way? I supposed that rationing them from the get go was what needed to be done.

Rationing was a word I would have to learn to use.

It started with a match.

Yet, I hesitated in lighting it.

In that moment, maybe a few seconds or a minute into it, I thought about life up to that moment. My mind raced.

Every single thing I had around me, every person was an asset, whether they seemed like it or not.

It had come, it really had come.

No amount of planning prepares you for the instant that the world ends.

Especially, if you aren’t paying attention.

I was one of those individuals who had what they called an External Locus of Control. Meaning, I firmly believed that things happened and there was nothing I could do about it.

I viewed everything that way.

Taking life as it came.

I never made a grocery list, never preplanned my meals, or even shopped early for Christmas.

If it happens, it happens.

In the weeks and years ahead, perhaps that attitude would suffice, but sitting in the dark, praying that it was all planned correctly, was not one of those moments.

Steps had been taken that brought me to the dark point. Everything up to that moment had been thought out for me.

It was time that I took the reins and started thinking for myself.

The knowledge had to be in my head somewhere, it had to be.

Would I draw upon it?

Everything was a mystery.

The clock just reset.

The new time began with the striking of that match.

Finally, I ignited it.

A Reflection

How many times did I hear the same thing until it got to the point that I stopped listening?

Did I ever pay attention?

Eventually, I’d find out if I absorbed it all or passively let it go in one ear and out the other.

“Anna, are you listening?”

“Yes, Gil, I am.”

“So you heard what I said?”

“Yes, Gil, I did.”

“Tell me.”

Pause.

Sometimes, I could fake it. But Gil called me out.

Gil.

One would think by the way he dictated my life that we were still married. Gil Jenner was not an ex-husband I hated. He was simply a former spouse from a marriage that didn’t make the cut. No hard feelings, we just didn’t click.

I met Gil when I was a starry eyed teenager. He was my brother’s friend that was joining the service between his junior and senior year of high school. I remember thinking this was his summer vacation and he was giving it up to go to boot camp. Well, that was dumb. I told him that too. He had this ideal that everything he did in his life, he wanted to do for the greater good. Kind of a tall order for a teenager. Then again, I was only fifteen years old so I didn’t ‘get it’. Eventually we married. We married young, had a child young and divorced young.

Gil was in law school at the time and still in the service.

Everyone told me I was nuts giving up on a man who would one day be a lawyer. But I looked at it as giving him a better chance in life. He was struggling, I cut him a break on support and was quite content supporting our son Jackson off of what I made waiting tables.

I knew Gil would succeed, he always did.

When he set his mind to do something, he achieved it.

Except us. I don’t think anyone tried harder than Gil to make a marriage work. Hand raised, I take full blame. I didn’t want to make it work. I just… didn’t feel it. Maybe it was the fact that I gave up too soon.

I was guilty of really having no aspiration. I just wanted to live life, be happy, make enough money to pay the bills and raise Jackson.

Gil went on to be a Jag Officer, then he hit the lottery. I mean, he actually hit the lottery. He gave me enough money to stop working, which I didn’t. Then he followed his dream. He went from local Congressman, to State Senator on a unstoppable locomotive. I firmly believe that had the world not hit the wall, Gil would have been elected President of the United States come November.

He was ahead in the polls, the most likable and honest man and through every campaign stop he smiled. Despite the fact that he knew. He knew it was coming.

Gil was always ready.

When we lived in Montana he was always prepping me for the eruption of Yellowstone.

Did you get this? Did you get that?

Giving me a list and when I asked why, he would say in a very offhanded way, “Oh, yeah, well, just in case the Caldera blows.”

Same thing with California. He was waiting for it to fall into the ocean.

International news brought back the good old days of preparing for nuclear war.

“Quick, Anna, tell me, how many roentgens of radiation can the body absorb before becoming ill?”

“Um…”

“Quick.”

“I don’t know. A thousand?”

“A thousand? A thousand? Really. You like your hair? Because the amount of knowledge you have absorbed is going to pale into comparison to the amount of radiation you will absorb. Gees.”

“Oh my God, Gil. Who cares?” I’d reply with a laugh.

The busier he got, the worst he got with text messages.

At least those I could ignore.

After we broke up, I thought it would stop. It didn’t. At first I thought he did so out of habit, then that it was because of our son. But even Jackson grew older it still didn’t stop.

The excuse of ‘I can’t afford to buy extra batteries this week’, didn’t wash. Gil paid for it.

He was an excessive ‘be prepared’ person. Not a radical prepper, the needs were always in conjunction with the threat.

He’d give me the list and I went out and got it..I never really asked the reason for it. He would spew forth tips; I would nod my head or simply text ‘K’.

But he always, always told me why I was doing something.

Not this time.

This time was different.

Gil never said ‘why’… that alone should have triggered more worry in me than it did.

June 27 – Five Weeks Before Event

Seriously? Why do I answer the phone? I thought, as I jotted down the address. “Gil, I think the UPS guy thinks I have a crush on him. I’ve been there an awful lot.”

“Maybe you should go out on a date. No wait, don’t. Don’t start any relationships.” He said.

“Oh, this must be a big one.”

“Anna…”

“Nuclear war? No wait. It has to be…”

“Anna, enough, please! I can’t tell you anything. This is a ‘just in case’.”

“Gil, you had me laundering cardboard like it’s drug money. Seriously. I shipped cardboard to someone in Wisconsin. The aluminum foil I shipped to Florida.”