They had been in contact with the separatist libertarians for about three weeks before the event, over another matter,  so he wasn't surprised when a messenger showed up at their door in January with a little box.  It was a fairly plain box with his and her first names on it, apartment number and some kind of stamp looking sticker.  Seth always had a flair for the dramatic, plotting for years when he would have a chance to be overlord of the new commune.  Of course, he had been kind of proven right, you had to give it to him, and so with reluctance Jay and Felicia signed the lines indicating fealty to their new landlord. 

Seth and a few of Jay's cronies had long been wrapped up in all the separatist, leftist conspiracy movements-and had only started taking the Mayan prophecy seriously in 2010, after Seth was laid off and divorced, again.  Felicia had never accepted the invitations to their gaming parties, having no idea they were actually plotting out the new world order for their little farm project just east of Payson.  They had picked up the properties for a song after the huge fires about 6 years before, and spent the summers up on the Rim learning homesteading.  Jay hadn't gone in so long he hadn't realize that the old role playing of their earlier years had advanced to multilevel organized mini government.  Fortunately, they still socialized pretty regularly with the guys and Felicia had a way with food and charm that softened the otherwise fanatical hearts of the clan.  She was also skilled in the way of healing, many had already turned to her for the advice of healing a wounded shoulder or a bruised ego, so she had established herself before she knew there was a hierarchy being formed.  Jay had gone to highschool with half of them, and so it was just the continuum of brotherhood where little other family existed. 

The paper was unfolded and listed their names, each with two columns underneath.  A brief paragraph describing their general form and character, then columns listing with numbers and plus signs punctuating their approved attributes.  Below was a set of bulleted items about general and specific duties that would be expected, and their rank in the organization.  This seemed pretty non-libertarian come to think of it, but Jay and Felicia accepted this in turn for safe passage, protection and an established community.  Maybe in time the rules would ease up, once realities of the new state of Earth had sort of settled in.   Signatures of the three in charge, Seth and his brother and his nephew, scattered across the bottom of the page and a small personal note from Seth- see you in three days. 

The messenger accepted their signatures, and handed over a map, a compass, and some general directions.  List of what to pack for now, what must be left, which of the animals could come.  The cats were approved on a three month trial.  They would have to learn to be mostly outdoors, and good at mousing and scorpion hunting.  Seth's nephew would be there at 6 am to get them and their gear for the drive up to the Mogollan rim, then they'd be dropped off to hike in to the compound using the map as as guide, and meet with the group at a predestined location.  There were a lot of places one could get turned down the wrong canyon, but Jay had years of geocaching and once had been in the scouts.  Of course, there was no GPS anymore, with all the satellites obliterated.  And magnetic north was now magnetic south.  

As they spent the next two days sorting and packing and reminiscing, making love while there was still privacy and the comfort of their own linens, Jay and Felicia made plans to hope for better plans down the road.  Hard to know what one could look forward to, it had only been about 3 weeks since the solstice disaster, and a week since the citywide quarantine had been lifted.  Felicia packed her old field guides to native medicinal plants and found a recipe book for making herbal medicine, long forgotten with all the years of health food stores making it so easy.  Jay collected all their cell phones and laptops and PDAs, removing the lithium batteries as instructed, and stacking  up the shells of useless iPhones.  An old photo album was resurrected, it had been so long since they had committed anything to print, Felicia showed Jay pictures of her tumbling childhood by the Atlantic.  Her old house must have been swept away in the hurricanes, Long Island was now barely an atoll poking out during low tide.  Jay's collection of antique film cameras now might have some use again, although there was no room to pack them or film to use.  He saved some photo paper and a pinhole he had made from an old cigar box, leaving the rest behind.

"I hope they have fig trees where we are going.  I so love the fresh figs.  Do you think I should pack some pomegranate seeds from the bush outside?  What about lemons?"  she asked, Jay shaking his head while he refolded and repacked his rucksack.  Always wondering about making something tasty to eat, he was sure that a few weeks of canned food was going to be torture for her.  "Do you think they have managed to put in some decent ovens?  At least we could have some fresh bread....  agh! I am so fucking sick of tuna and ramen."  

"So am I, sweetie.  So am I." He lifted the bottle of Chilean Carmenere that had somehow been overlooked in the few weeks of panicked misery and uncorked it.  Chile hit by a massive tsunami, he had heard on his little ham radio that he had kept running on the batteries they had just bought at Costco for Christmas presents.  He poured the two glasses and raised one to her, taking the other to his lips.  "It's kind of ironic, really, that we spent all that time worrying about manmade global warming and no one realized there was a massive volcano underneath Europe.  Sorry about your mom, but it's not like anyone knew what hit them."  It was true.  The water rush from the heat melting the rest of the glaciers had pushed out the ashes to the sea, and by now there probably wasn't much to see but Millenium Wheel where London used to sit.  "All these years in the southwest, summer by ridiculous summer, each getting hotter and now we face an iceage for years."  Jay's habit of picking up discarded objects and making homespun technology had lead to accidentally tapping into an underground morse messaging system left in place after the Cold War.  Apparently it hadn't been forgotten by everyone.  He had remembered reading about it in the book of underground missile silos and the original design of Hoover Dam.   He had his own charms and skills to be exploited; when Seth wasn't envious of him, he admired him.

Felicia looked out the window of their apartment, facing the sunset over the western Arizona sky.  Some things would never change, although the air particulate tonight was especially beautiful.  Some lovely greens and purples from the gas leaks sprayed arcs across the horizon.  Jay put his arm around her, both sipping the wine and thinking of other, better Christmasses and New Years.  In the morning life would change again, a head off into high altitude and the inevitable infighting between Seth and Leo about the right to control one's destiny.  Ha, he thought to himself.  What a fucking laugh.