Post Nuclear 1 - The Joseph Campaign

Gordon sat on a freezing cold winter's day wearing a thick sheepskin coat over a zip up housecoat, with a woolly jumper and a cotton jumper underneath, on the top deck of a freezing cold double decker bus. The bus was no longer used for public transport but was called Clifton Community Centre. There was not much public transport anymore. The world had survived what President Ronald Reagan had once called 'a limited scale nuclear conflict.' There was a desperate shortage of fuel and anyone could get a job anywhere, although the wages were so low everybody would have been better off on the dole, if there still was any dole. There were no commuters. People lived within walking distance of where they worked.

Gordon and Johnny were employed as librarians, running something that was the nearest thing anyone had to a library. There were boxes of old books on the seats and under the seats all the way along the top floor of the bus. A cardboard sign written in marker pen asked people either to give a £1 donation or exchange another book.
"No one's come here today," said Johnny. "Are there too many of these libraries?"
"How do you mean, too many?"
"There's one on every street corner. There used to just be one library and two second hand bookshops in the middle of the town."
"We had 4 people yesterday."
"Not many people. Hours between each one. Do you ever think you're wasting your time, Gordon? We could just sit downstairs and the books would look after themselves. People would just put the money in the box or give another book, or maybe they'd steal them. Who would notice anyway? Our founders thought that if a man does not work he should not eat. That's what it says in the Bible. I suppose it's better than sitting in the house all day. Not that you could really find anywhere to sit in our house. It's full of bunkbeds. So it's better for people to have somewhere to go. Anyone can get a job and be paid virtually nothing to do virtually nothing."
"I think we do a very important job," said Gordon. "The war destroyed all the city libraries."
"Billions of people died in a nuclear war and you're worried about libraries?"
"The libraries in Sheffield City Centre contained all our historical records. I used to go there with the local history group and photograph books that were hundreds of years old. We need to know who we are and where we come from. What sort of jobs did people do here? What did our grandparents do? What inventions were made by our ancestors? Sheffield invented steel and stainless steel. The metal working town."
"Our founders said we should forget about the past and focus on the future."
"I don't always agree with them." Johnny looked shocked.
"Gordon? You don't always agree with our founders? Don't say that too loudly. You might get into trouble if you get heard by the wrong people." 

Johnny took his phone and started reading the New World News. It could hardly be called a newspaper. Ideological propaganda from a world where religion and politics mixed and the Children of the Latter Day Christ controlled everything. There was always an interesting speech from President Daniel Moses. Johnny played the short 2 minute video.
"This year we have achieved our target of lowering carbon dioxide emissions to 20% of 1990 levels," said an excited Messiah. "For the first time the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is falling. Within a hundred years we will be able to repair the damage done by the industrial revolution and then by the nuclear war. Scientists are no longer worried about global warming."
"Do we produce any carbon dioxide?" asked Gordon.
"We manufacture things," said Johnny.
"I used to work in a clothing shop. Some of the clothes I repaired were 40 years old. We don't manufacture much."
"People still eat."
"Johnny, before the war people used to eat four times what they eat now. Everything is so strictly rationed."
"Our founders said we only need 500 calories a day."
"That's not what the old books say from before the war. It was 2,000 calories a day for men and 1,800 calories for women. Some people were overweight because they ate more than that."
"Look Gordon, our founders did an excellent job of rebuilding the world after a nuclear holocaust. What do you expect it to be like?" Johnny continued quietly looking at his phone, reading a story about how people in second hand shops were working hard to restore old clothes so that people wouldn't feel cold in winter and advice about how many layers to wear. The University of Derbyshire had won an award for being one of the top ten universities in the country. The University of Derbyshire was a portacabin where university lectures were recorded on video and multiple choice papers were posted online. Of course, universities were now free. No one would ever earn enough money to pay back a student loan. A woman came up the stairs carrying a worn looking hard backed book.
"Hello Suzie," said Gordon.
"Hello Gordon. I like coming to your library because you always go to great lengths to sort your books into order. No one else does that."
"I put the non-fiction books in a separate box and I read them myself first. That's the history of the world."
"Have you got any new ones I haven't read?" Gordon picked up one of the boxes and took out a glossy hard backed book.
"A children's book about aeroplanes from the 1970s. I love holding something in my hand that's more than a hundred years old."

At lunchtime everyone made their way downstairs. The lower deck of the bus was crowded with people from shops and offices from up to a mile away who had come for their 235 calorie cheeseburger. The exact nutritional content of the burgers had been precisely calculated. They contained a hamburger that tasted like ham as it contained precise quantities of pork, beef and chicken and a slice of cheese. Each burger contained exactly the right amount of iron, calcium and protein. Vitamins would be provided by the 165 calorie vegetable broth that came with the 108 calorie bread cake at dinner time. Both meals left you feeling ravenously hungry afterwards but no one complained. It was more important that nobody became ill with hunger and that nobody died. A big tray of hamburgers came out of the oven. The man and woman standing behind the counter opened a huge bag of presliced bread cakes and inserted the burgers and slices of cheese. The crowd of people looked on in silent anticipation. They waited for Johnny to say grace.
"Dear God, thank you for this food. You have given us today our daily bread. Now bless our glorious Messiah Daniel Moses as he goes about his business this afternoon. Amen." Everyone took a burger in one hand and a mug of tea in the other and sat down at one of the tables. The tea had milk in it but was all made from the same insipid, tasteless brand of tea bags. This was the first time they had eaten that day. Breakfast was unheard of in the new world order.

That afternoon Gordon sat reading New World News on his mobile phone. There was an interesting story about a project called the Joseph Campaign. The Joseph Campaign would store several years worth of tinned food in a warehouse in case there was a poor harvest, so that people would still have something to eat. They could live on this food for a year or maybe two until they had a good harvest again. There was a Joseph Campaign warehouse in a village near Barnsley. They were advertising for staff there. Gordon applied for the job. He could not travel from Clifton in Rotherham to the village of Birdwell every day. There was very little public transport and nobody had a car. Gordon would apply for a transfer. He anticipated that he would have no difficulty finding a 3 tier bunk bed in a community house in Birdwell for him, his wife and their four children. Of course, he would have to discuss it with his wife as if it was just a thought that had entered his head.

In the evening Anna sat with their 4 children at a large table. The children had finished school. They had come to the bus for tea which would not be ready for at least an hour.
"Mam, I'm hungry," said 10 year old Tommy.
"Then you'll have more of an appetite for your soup," said Anna.
"When will tea be?" asked 7 year old Sam.
"Same time it always is. At 6 o' clock." Gordon sat down beside them.
"Anna, I'm thinking about taking a job with the Joseph Campaign. Have you heard of it?"
"That new warehouse in Barnsley where they're storing all the tins of food in case there's a bad harvest? Good idea."
"I want to do something a bit more worthwhile than just selling books."
"Do we have to move to Barnsley?" asked 11 year old Nicky.
"It isn't in Barnsley, it's in a little village 5 miles away from Barnsley. Birdwell. A lovely place."
"You can rent a bunk bed anywhere," said 12 year old Ruth. "Some of my friends families move around all the time."
"Sounds like we should go there, then," said Anna. Gordon's mobile phone beeped. He picked it up and looked at the message.
"That's good, then. I've already applied for the job. They've asked me to go there to have a look around tomorrow."

There was a big sign outside an office in the High Street that said 'Taxi, Car and Van Hire.' At 8.30 AM the next morning, Gordon tried the door to see if they were open yet. A middle aged man came to meet him.
"Good morning."
"Hello, are you open?"
"We certainly are, Sir."
"I've applied for a job, the Joseph Campaign, at the new Warehouse in Birdwell. They asked me to go there and have a look around, this morning."
"I know where that is, Sir, I will take you straight there." The man led him outside to a black cab taxi. They drove off onto the dual carriageway.
"I can't believe it," said Gordon. "The roads are completely deserted. There's not another car in sight. When we were kids the roads were full of cars. There were traffic jams on this road."
"I sometimes see a goods lorry or a tractor or a coach but rarely another car."
"A coach? Do people still have holidays?"
"There's a coach that travels from Sheffield to the coast at Sunderland. I take people to Sheffield Coach Station. It's not difficult to find a room in a hotel there. People watch the weather forecast and travel to Sunderland if the weather is going to be hot and sunny for a few days. The tourist trade is coming back again." They drove out of Rotherham and Sheffield onto the country roads that led to Birdwell. The roads were still completely empty. It took half an hour to get there, the taxi doing 60 or 70 most of the time, taking no notice of speed limits but the driver slowing down to observe them when he could see a sharp bend in the road or a pedestrian. The taxi pulled up outside the warehouse.
"That'll be £25 for bringing you here, Sir, £25 for taking you home again and £25 for every hour I have to wait here for you to return."
"Aren't you going to drive away and pick up your next fare?"
"I doubt I would have one, Sir."
"The money's no problem. I've got hundreds on my card. I'm a family man. I pay £150 a month for our bunk bed. I pay £1 a day for each of 6 family members to have food in the community centre. That's £330 gone. My wife works part-time for £30 a week. What do we do with the other £60 a month? I take our old clothes to the tailor's shop to have them repaired. I put £1 in the washing machine for our laundry 3 times a week. I bought a second hand mobile phone when the one that I had broke down. There's nothing to spend our money on."

Gordon followed the Reception sign at the warehouse.
"Hello," he said to the young woman behind the desk. "Gordon Swift. I emailed you about wanting to work here. They said I should call in and have a look around."
"Yes. I'll call the manager." She picked up the phone. "Colin, someone to have a look around the warehouse. Saw our advert." An elderly man in a suit appeared.
"Hello. I'm Colin."
"I'm Gordon. I saw the advert." Colin led Gordon through a door into the warehouse. "I think what you're doing here is very interesting."
"What we're doing is carrying boxes up ladders." The warehouse was huge and seemed to go on forever. There were long shelves full of cardboard crates full of tinned meat and vegetables. Many of the other shelves were still empty. There were step ladders that led up to the top shelf which was eight feet off the ground. A young woman took a crate of tinned peas from her trolley and made her way to the top shelf where she put the crate next to the other boxes.
"I know you're only carrying boxes up ladders but you're doing it to save the world, to prevent a famine."
"The thing is Gordon, when you've been here all day and spent 8 and a half hours going up and down that ladder and pushing a trolley backwards and forwards, it makes absolutely no difference why you are doing it."
"It's like the 2 men who were laying bricks and someone asked them, 'What are you doing?' and one said, 'I'm laying brick' and the other said, 'I'm building a cathedral." Colin laughed.
"If he'd been a British brick layer they'd have asked him what kind of concrete blocks do you prefer? British builders are always talking about that. Or the brick layers would be asking how much everything cost. Did the cathedral really need to have triple glazed roof lights? It's a job, Gordon. It's no different to selling old books."
"How do you know I sell old books?"
"I saw it on your CV. How soon can you move here?"
"I'll have to sort out renting a bunk bed in a community house and I'll have to book some transport but I can probably sort that out by the end of the week."
"Start on Monday." Gordon returned to the taxi. He opened the door.
"£65 please, Sir," said the Taxi driver. Gordon pressed a few buttons on his watch and touched the driver's mobile phone with it.
"I start on Monday. Me and my whole family will have to find somewhere in Birdwell and we'll all have to come here."
"How many of you are there?"
"Six."
"I'll bring you in the 7 seater. That's £75."
"Great. That's what we'll do."

On Saturday the taxi driver arrived in the 7 seater. Anna had packed all of the family's belongings into 3 large suitcases. The bed linen and the bunk bed belonged to the landlord. Only a few things, like books, toys and clothes, belonged to the family themselves. The 3 suitcases fitted comfortably into the storage space at the back of the car. It was only a half hour drive to another town but to the children it was a great adventure. The children had spent the whole of their lives within walking distance of the school they attended and the hospital where they were born.
"I've never been in a car before," said Sam.
"You must have been in an ambulance when you were born," said Tommy.
"An ambulance is not the same as a car, is it?"
"We go on a bus every day," said Nicky.
 "Yes but it doesn't go anywhere. I said, I've never gone on a long journey in a car before."
"Yes," said Ruth. "Sam is right. It's very exciting. Is it very far?"
"It takes half an hour to get there," said Gordon.
"That's a long time in a car," said Tommy. "A car travels fast." The car set off. The children screamed with delight as it got to the dual carriageway and the speed got up to 70. They travelled at 70 most of the way to Birdwell.
"Isn't the countryside beautiful," said Ruth. "I never knew there was so much of it."
"Haven't you seen trees and fields before?" asked Nicky.
"Of course I have but only the small number of trees and fields that are within an hour's walk of Rotherham. Look at those open fields. They're miles long. Like nothing I've ever seen before." The taxi pulled up outside the house in Birdwell where the family would be living.
"Isn't it amazing," said Sam. "We get in at Clifton in Rotherham and come out at Birdwell. How can we travel such a long way?"
"Well, you see," said Nicky, "the taxi's got wheels on it and they go around and then we go on the road. That's how we travel such a long way."
"Shut up Nicky," said Tommy, "you've got no imagination. It's like going to a foreign country." Gordon decided to say something that would calm the children down and end the argument.
"To children who've never been more than a couple of miles from the hospital where they were born it must be like getting on a spaceship and going to another planet."