Dear... paper,
This is some of the first paper ever produced here. Paper has been scarce for nearly seven years. We only had what was left of the paper that my mother had brought down with her, which wasn t much to be distributed to over sixty people. And even though there was enough paper that many households possessed it, my mother would never have allowed me to waste it when I was so young. She did keep an account of my thoughts, however, what I told her and what I expressed to her while she was keeping the log. I don t know where it is now, but I would like to find out.
It s been seven long, long years down here. The first year, though hazy in my memory, was the worst one. We were still all traumatized by the experience that had occurred and we knew not what to do with ourselves. Those of us who had once gone to work and school and play now had nothing to do but huddle in the feeble light of the cavern and pray that maybe, a far cry from then, we would be able to rise again to the surface.
My mother was thought to be insane when she was living aboveground. She had spent her entire fortune, one not to be laughed at, in preparation for what she called the final war . No one believed her and even the men hired to build the underground fortress laughed at her silly ideas. But even though they laughed she told them that if anything happened they could come and be sheltered by her. She said she had room for only one hundred people, and to come quickly, but they still laughed. But years later they held her to her word. They showed up at her doorstep and now live here, among the others.
Mother predicted the final war with an accuracy that was amazing. She had told people that there was no way humans could survive without trying to kill off the entire species in one fell swoop. She was right. The control of nuclear weapons fell into the wrong hands and before anybody knew it there was a missile in the air and aimed at everyone.
People flocked to our doorstep. Not nearly as much as mother wished, for she had the sincere hope that she would be able to populate the entire cavern. The first thing she told everyone when they were all gathered was, Breed. We are only a few people and we must populate the earth again.
I smile now when I think of all the secrets that mother held. She had so many of them and she kept them all so well concealed. In the first year everyone, even me, her own daughter, was kept in the one Great Room, which was dusty and crowded, even with only sixty people. We did have five babies, though, however the one, Eve, died soon after birth. I feel I can still hear the mother s wails.
Anyway, all the while we were crowded in this one room, mother was working on nearly seven caverns that had been under construction when the bombs hit! Now, we all knew about the food storage room, and we knew there was a door that she went into now and then past that, but we had no idea the surprise in store. Good thing that the construction workers, electricians and scientists had kept her at her word, or we would have been stuck in that room for far longer than a year!
But when that door opened, oh, when that door opened! She led us all in with the pretense of going over some new rations, which she did once too often if you ask me, and then threw the doors open wide! Lo and behold houses. Proper homes. It looked like the suburb my mother had shown me pictures of, where she grew up, except that each house had such a large yard.
The first thing she did was explain that there were to be no fewer than three people per household and that everyone had to grow a specific crop. She had a lottery that day to who would grow what and give them their means of growing it, teaching everyone, so that we had nearly thirty different crops growing! My mother is a genius.
Our home is deep, the remnants of an underground cavern of some sort. The light is all artificial but no one seems to mind. The ceiling is tall enough that unless you look straight up you really forget that there isn t a great expanse of blue sky above you. I have heard people cry before, though, mourning over the loss of the sky.
Oh, I have to stop writing! My hand is so cramped! All my love and until tomorrow (chores),
~Hope~
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