Free Living With the Dead: This New Disease (Book 5) by Joshua Guess

short. I always say that, but I really mean it. Today is the
seventh day in a row of temperatures above fifty degrees in the
morning. Jessica made the call last night: today is the
sowing.

That's a big deal for us. Today (and we've been at it
for hours. Lunch break for the win!) we plant the first round of
crops. Well, the first serious round. These aren't clover seeds or
other wild-growth foods. We're putting the seedlings Jess has been
cultivating so carefully into the earth.

It's one of the few
times almost all of us are working together at the same time. It's
not exactly a peaceful, hand-holding lovefest. There are people
standing around the area with weapons. Guards patrol the repaired
walls of the annex. The occasional shout can be heard, sometimes with
the sharp hum of a bow firing, as zombies come too close.

One
of the biggest problems people have with the world is what should be
easiest: getting along. Planting crops is a microcosm for the larger
situation. We gather together to do as a unit what we can't
accomplish alone. As we crawl across the rows of plowed dirt, we work
next to people we may not know. May not like. There might even be
harsh words or silent glares.

So it goes with the work and
with our lives. Despite rough edges, bad feelings, or any other
factors, we come together. Idealized songs and stories about working
together, love, and happiness always seemed empty to me, and far more
so now. Not because the sentiment is empty, but because they always
seemed to ignore the hard parts. Making things work is,
well, work.  And
honestly, the effort is what makes the rewards truly satisfying.

We
aren't singing songs about togetherness. Instead, we're  living  them.

Monday,
March 26, 2012
Course
Correction
    Posted
by  Josh
Guess I've
spent what little free time I've had in the last several days (time
when I haven't been scrambling across the dirt in the cold, planting
food) at the clinic. I've put off my work with the captive New Breed
for the time being. There are too many people in need of medical
attention and too much agricultural work to justify spending any time
on the undead captives.

I've been trying to do what I can to
help out around the clinic. Most of my time has been spent with the
folks from the Louisville crew who have taken ill. One person can
basically take care of all of them--they aren't helpless. They've got
what looked like flu symptoms at first, but that has changed a
little. Their fevers have gone down, but they still have the body
aches and some difficulty breathing. Evans thinks it's pneumonia. I'm
not a doctor, but I tend to agree.

I spent a good portion of
the early hours at the clinic. I woke up halfway through the night
full of energy and decided to give whoever was on duty a break. The
night shift isn't so rough and it gave me a chance to do necessary
work that didn't occupy a lot of my brainpower.

Ha. You know
me. That shit never works.

I sat there with our ill guests,
and I was reminded of all the messages I've had from other survivors
since I started this blog. Most of my interactions with people
outside of New Haven are mundane: sharing information, planning trade
routes, status updates, that kind of thing. A good number of them
have been supportive of our efforts here. And then there are the ones
that just...aren't any of those things.

A few people have sent
me messages pointing out that I sometimes use entire posts examining
my motivations or those of my fellow citizens. They have a point, I
guess--I could have used that space and my limited time in a better
way, maybe. Like jotting down information that might be useful or
giving accounts of tactics that work. I can see the point of those
scattered critics. People can always do better.

But as I sat
there watching over people who were faceless contacts on an email
list a week before, I realized a few things. Examining what drives me
is important, as is looking at the direction we go as a community and
a society as