How We Survive a Coronal Mass Ejection
by Casey Jo Graham Welmers
Ideally, in the event of an apocalypse level solar flare that destroys the electric grid, we would be in our local REI. We would calmly explain to the trusty green vested staff that because the power was never coming back, because anything harboring a battery or electrical circuitry was permanently and irreparably damaged, because even the manufacturing plants necessary to make more of these forever fried components would be obliterated, we would be taking a pair of bicycles. And backpacks and rugged clothes and nylon camping tents and water purifiers and freeze dried food. They would oblige, of course they would oblige. The staff at REI are the best.
There’s a Kroger next to the REI, so that would be our next stop on the Surviving The Solar Flare tour. It would be eerie inside, because there’s something inherently creepy about produce in dark spaces, especially produce in dark spaces in utter silence. Without soft jazz versions of alternative rocks songs, baby carrots and radicchio and jack fruit take on sinister airs. A smooth piano cover of “Black Hole Sun” (how apropos if only the Muzak was playing) easily eliminates fibrous disquietude. Most of the Kroger staff would have just up and left, because they don’t get paid enough to deal with mass extinction level events and because of the weird vibes from the vegetables in the dark. We’d grab items that are light and well preserved and calorically as dense as possible. Peanut butter would be a smart choice, but I would also nab a box of Pop Tarts. When we are wretched and half-starved and desperate for gas station confections, I will throw one of those nostalgia-wrapped-in-foil packages in your lap and remind you that you once said they were basically two large saltines cradling a slab of crappy jelly.
In Michigan, we tell you where we’re from by showing you on our hand. My dad lives near the top knuckle of the pinky finger. This is where I was born and where we would head next with our stolen bikes and food and gear. It’s about 242 miles from where we are, toward the bottom of the hand, across from the thumb and below the middle finger. It will be imperative that we escape the initial melee of the suburbs and be as close as possible to Lake Michigan and farm country. I’m not sure if we’d take the freeway or back roads. In either scenario, we’d encounter people in stalled cars desperately seeking a mode of transportation, so they might try to kill us and take our bikes. And our food. So maybe we’d wait a week or more until all the cars are abandoned and the freeway is a parking lot of metal carcasses yawning across the state. Then we’d go, probably under the cover of night. You might argue that we need guns, but I’m such a pacifist this will be a hard pill to swallow. We don’t own guns. We can stop back by REI and grab some bear mace instead. That should do the trick.
We make it there, right? To my dad’s house, a small blue Victorian with a red metal roof built in 1903. He’s 70 years old, but he’s a survivor. He’s already outlived a wife and a daughter and various near fatal motorcycle accidents, so he’s there and waiting for us. And my brother and his wife and kids, too. They also live far, but they survived a harrowing journey of their own. The four-year-old, because she is so stubborn, would without question be the last person standing on this precious blue planet if push came to shove, probably run off with the foxes or deer or possibly even black bears to live a full and vibrant life. We’d plant a garden, like we did when I was little, and I’d eat wax beans off the stalk when no one is looking because that’s what you do if you want to taste summer. I’m not sure what happens after that. We’ll look at the stars every night. They’ll be so easy to see, no light pollution anymore, fireflies in the belt of the midnight blue sky. We’ll wish on them with fervor and frequency, because what else can we depend on when all the lights have gone out?
BIO: Casey Jo Graham Welmers was named after a Grateful Dead song. She grew up in rural northern lower Michigan and holds a BA in English, Language and Literature from the University of Michigan. Her most recent work is published or forthcoming in Bending Genres, wildscape. literature journal and Jelly Squid. You can find her practicing written and healing arts from the Great Lakes state and at caseyjo.carrd.co