i dreamed that society as we know it was collapsing. it was announced on co-op radio. "gather your things, gather some food, go to the woods," they said. we were happy we'd just gassed up the car the day before. we were happy that leon wouldn't have to go back to work. the kids were excited about camping. we gathered our tent, our propane stove, our candle lanterns. it took me ages to put all the food together, leon was getting frustrated with how long it was taking me, "hurry up, if we don't hurry, traffic will be awful." i opened the freezer and was very impressed to see it was fully stocked with all kinds of camping-friendly foods. for some reason we didn't think that the collapse of society would last more than a week or two, that we'd be able to come home and start fresh. we called [info]aibrean_owl and told her and her family to meet us in the wilderness. we drove and drove, and got to this place right on the beach. we had to cut through some people's properties and backyards to get to the water. there were big, slipperly logs to cross and the kids kept slipping and tumbling into spikey underbrush. at one point we had to cross a log that housed a nest of giant bees. they were as big as my hand. the kids and i were terrified of them but leon kept shouting from up ahead, "it's okay! don't be scared! they are only bees!"

we finally made it down to this pebbly beach and i could see [info]aibrean_owl and her family were there already. she was in the water, swimming, her daughter was splashing in the shallows, her older son and husband and baby boy were in a dingy paddling around, having a great time. we said hello and tried to set up camp. i started cooking up chickpea burgers. the sky clouded over and then a big boat, like a war canoe, came up onto shore, filled with young partiers. they offered us magic mushrooms in trade for some of our food. leon was into it but i felt that going on a hallucinogenic trip while society was collapsing was a recipe for paranoid disaster. i gave them all a burger so that my husband could get high. after we ate it seemed that a fight broke out amongst the partiers. two women, each with babies in slings, started screaming at each other about where they were going to set up their tent. one of them slapped the other one. i tried to intervene, i was worried about the babies being in the middle of the violence and got my face scratched for my efforts. [info]aibrean_owl and i then got mad ourselves, joined forces, and started throwing all the partiers things back in their canoe, yelling that if they couldn't get along they weren't welcome in our retreat. i was mad that leon was too fucked up to help us bully them off our shore. i kept kicking wet pebbles at him every time i walked by. when the partiers saw we were serious, and were about to push their huge canoe away from shore with all their stuff in it, and none of them on it, they started yelling, "uncle! uncle! okay we give up!" and they climbed in their canoe and paddled away.