Gradually the weather got warmer, the days got longer. It's been a few months now which is early for Spring but as the weather permits and my stamina improves I've been exploring the resources I have available. At the top of my list is food. I can always boil and filter water if I have to, but this new body is constantly hungry. I'm a growing boy, and if I remember those years right I'm going to need even more as a teenager. Right now I look and feel about ten. Canned and other shelf stable food should last a few years before spoiling but I'd like to survive longer than that. Eventually I need to grow my own food.

Used bookstores and libraries have plenty to offer on the subject. Card catalogs have long since gone digital and are now useless but if you're ever in my situation you'll find gardening books around 635 in the Dewey Decimal system. Or you can wander the stacks until you find what you're looking for.

Days when the roads were clear of ice and the skies were clear of rain, I rode a new bike all over the post-apocalyptic city of Bellingham, WA with a backpack to load up on books, tools, food, and warm clothes. Hands bound up in large heavy work gloves to keep away blisters and the cold. A few houses had burned down, often several in a row. I suppose I should be grateful that way for the cold and damp. Most vehicles were neatly parked, but some were scattered across the streets making the whole scene look decidedly unkept.

Other days, I holed up next to a fire as much as possible, a pile of books for company and all the time in the world for planning. When I was young (the first time around) we had a garden in our back yard for a few years. I decided Food Plan A would be scouring the neighborhoods for yards with raised beds and maintaining a few gardens. The coming year could be all about trial and error to see what worked. Food Plan B involved planting extra seeds anywhere there was a patch of green. Lawns, parks, along the sides of roads, anywhere plants might take hold and thrive. A tiny apple seed I plant this year might give me an apple ten years from now. My efforts paid back with interest.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I read about edible plants, perennials that would come back year after year, hedge plants like the honey locust that were both sturdy and produced edible fruit. When the threat of ice and snow had faded, I had solid food plans in place, but I was running out of bottled water so I moved again to a farm a few miles away from the city center. They had a manual outdoor pump and a nearby creek for all the water I could ever hope for.

With long term survival plans in place, I spent the next months putting those plans into action. I planted little gardens everywhere, stockpiled books and supplies at the farmhouse. Eventually I'd grow into using an axe to chop firewood, but that could wait for a future year. The winter passed with no major issues and I was gaining my stride with plans for the coming year. In my second winter I finally had enough idle time to muse and speculate about what had happened to me and why, but then there was another change in the world.

I was riding past a park one morning about fifteen months since everyone disappeared. I'd been to the park many times and had planted seeds there just last year so I noticed the change right away. I pulled into the parking lot and sitting there was a brand new structure. A building of dull black stone had sprung into the middle of the grass, now rakishly overgrown.