The VPA is all set up now. The building is made stable, the cell and mailbox in place, there’s even some seating and a warm wood stove to keep the Volunteers toes warm when they break from their rounds. It should all be good, but this is the end of the world. That’s not going to happen.

I do my own rounds. Day after day, night after night and the streets are bleak and empty. Just like to many hearts and minds of the citizens.  On the rare occasion we see someone on the street we approach with caution. Even someone we know may have turned on society and gone off the deep end. It’s difficult when we see this happen. The people we knew are no longer that which we remember. They often never will be again.

In some cases like my brother there is no hope at all. He was so far gone. So many of the public never saw this and I find them lucky for that. He had become not just insane, but cruel as well. The darkness had taken him from us long before any bullet ever had.

We miss the brother we remember, we fear the brother we last saw. The stranger.