The rain came down. It will be turning to snow soon. Then the world would grow even quieter. Maxine was alone with her thoughts this morning. It was a small thing to have, but she appreciated the time away from Benji and Dillion, her two sons, who were out hunting. She thought of their father, not a great man but a provider. In the old world she may have divorced him, may have had affairs. But in this world she slowly watched him get sick from diabetes, with no medicine to help him. He suffered at the end. Benji and Dillion took it all in stride, helping each other learn the skills necessary to survive. They knew nothing else, and so wanted for nothing else. Never had they had a chance to throw a tantrum at a toy store, or over ice cream. They didn’t know what any of that was. Instead their sibling squabbles were over who got to skin the rabbit, or fetch the water pail. Maxine envied them at times. Their freedom from the old world. Their freedom from consumerism. She was proud of them. She laid back against a homemade chair they had fashioned for her and listened to the rain. She would make it through this winter, and if it was her last so be it. Her sons would be fine, she knew. And in the end that was all that mattered.