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"The Mirror Poles"
[0 A.E. to 5 A.E.]
The first year After,
everyone was too busy
trying to stay alive
to worry about roads.
In crowded places,
the streets were choked
with vehicles, stranded
wherever the gas ran out.
People streamed over
the land at first, but then
they huddled in hideouts,
reluctant even to peek out.
Many places had no one left
to plant or harvest crops.
The fields and roadsides
grew wild. In the ruined cities,
yards grew without the touch
of lawnmowers or shears.
The populations of deer
and rabbits exploded, but
they couldn't eat everything.
Within months, the grass
and weeds over knee-high in
what had been shortgrass prairies,
and overhead in the tallgrass range.
By the second year After, trees
seeded themselves where once
tall forests had grown, and soon
abandoned lots were waist-deep
in willows, maples, and birches.
The cities were a loss, but
the highways still connected
what small towns had survived.
As people began to come out
of the shock, they searched
for open roads and dragged
abandoned cars to the sides
to free up the clogged ones.
They found grass growing
in the cracks and saplings
nibbling at the edges of
roads and sidewalks.
The world was full of ruins,
with far fewer people and
active settlements left.
Many were new, built on
the fringes of the lost cities
beyond the Grunge's reach.
This made it difficult for
people to find each other.
Already the old road signs
were weathering away,
and the names on them
weren't always current.
So people began to devise
new ways to communicate,
using whatever they had.
The first to appear were
short town poles that marked
the way to a live commune.
Among the first was Brokentown,
outside the remains of Brockton
in Massachusetts, which covered
a post with a mosaic of glass
and topped it with a mirror ball.
In Louisiana, Basket Top grew up
near the former Bastrop, and raised
a cluster of telephone poles tipped
with basketball hoops and decorations
as colorful as modern totem poles.
Many communities turned to things
that were reflective for greater visibility,
which gave rise to the name "mirror poles."
Beyond the wreck of Spartanburg in
South Carolina, the people of Spoonburg
topped a flagpole with a whirligig made
from dozens of stainless steel spoons.
Next to the bones of Jefferson City
in Missouri there grew a steel tree
with domes and tentacles of chrome
for the new commune of Jellyfish.
Other places drew on their own heritage
to create even more unusual landmarks.
The Blackfeet Reservation in Montana,
which had escaped direct damage, put up
a pair of statues representing warriors on
horseback made from car parts. Hubcaps
and fenders of gleaming chrome made
them visible from a great distance.
Each mirror pole was unique,
so that travelers could identify
the settlement that stood below it.
In time, though, people wished
for more and faster communication.
The old methods of telephone and
radio worked only in a few areas
that had maintained more technology.
Sending a runner or even a rider
took time -- sometimes too much time.
So people began to raise signal poles.
One of the first went up in Crowsnest,
outside the edge of Crowley in Louisiana,
to communicate with the people of Buzzard
not far from the old town of Broussard.
Signal poles didn't need to be unique;
they just needed a way to climb up high
and send a message to the next tower.
In most places, people used mirrors,
but some used semaphore flags, and
a few even tried smoke signals or fires.
It was a slow process, trying to reclaim
what had been lost, but people persisted.
High over the devastated landscape,
the mirror poles glimmered with hope.
* * *
Notes:
Consider a timeline from Aftermath: Population Zero. While the scenarios are not identical, many of the same processes apply.
(10–12 months A.H.)
Spring rains wash away the radioactive particles from the surface and carry it further into the ground, cleaning plants and objects. Meanwhile, new plants and trees remove the artificial CO2 from the atmosphere as the new plants and flowers sprout in ruined cities and clean up greenhouses faster than in the human time. Without hunting seasons, animals breed undisturbed. Some species in areas with no natural predators, like the white tail deer, see population booms and expand their distribution to new areas, including former cities. Moss starts to grow over roads. Large carnivores are human shy, but without the lights or noise made by humans they would penetrate urban areas from the nearby hills or reserves and hunt the domesticated animals. Also the houses may make wonderful dens, which means that animals like pumas and tigers would have population explosions. Depending on the area many common species, such as the White tailed deer would have population decreases due to loss of maintained food supply (e.g. lawns, golf courses, gardens) and increased predation.
(3 to 15 years A.H.)
With no maintenance and the ice of multiple winters, roads appear degraded and cracked. Moss covers their surfaces, and grass grows in the cracks. New trees grow in home gardens. Vehicles and other metallic structures begin to succumb to corrosion that strips away paint and protective coatings, resulting in rust that eats through metal. Many of the 1 billion automobiles will soon degrade into hollow husks.
This map of America shows major biotopes.
Prairie types vary over the plains. Vegetation increases in size with water, so the dryer areas have shorter plants than the wetter areas. Shortgrass prairie in the west may be only ankle-high in arid parts, but averages 12-18 inches. Mixed grass prairie includes both short and tall grass species, so it varies greatly, but averages around 3 feet high. Really what happens here is that shorter species dominate in dryer places or times, while taller species dominate in wetter ones. Tallgrass prairie is voluminous, with an average of 6-8 feet high and the tallest species towering 10-12 feet. In many places it was necessary to ride on horseback just to see over the grass. Explore seed mixes for different types of prairie habitats.
The eastern woodlands begin where enough rain falls for trees to outcompete grasses. This habitat once covered most of eastern America. The moment humans stop disturbing the habitat, it goes into succession. Former yards and fields burst into grasses and weeds, then brush. Fast-growing, sun-loving trees (willows, maples, birches) spring up to form a young forest, followed by intermediate species, which are eventually replaced by the slow-growing shade-loving species (oak, beech, hickory) of a mature forest. See a list of trees by shade tolerance.
Mirror pole -- a whirligig or static sculpture made of reflective material such as chrome and fixed to the tallest available structure, such as a grain elevator or a flagpole, to assist traders in locating a commune. It has a lot of different names including town pole, totem pole, or signal pole.
Mirror Pole Mosaic with Silver Ball (Brokentown)
Brockton is a city in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States; the population is 95,708 as of 2019. Along with Plymouth, it is one of the two county seats of Plymouth County. It is the seventh largest city in Massachusetts and is sometimes referred to as the "City of Champions", due to the success of native boxers Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler, as well as its successful Brockton High School sports programs.
Town Poles with Basketball Hoops (Basket Top)
Bastrop is the largest city and the parish seat of Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 11,365 at the 2010 census, a decrease of 1,623 from the 12,988 tabulation of 2000. The population of Bastrop is 73 percent African American. It is the principal city of and is included in the Bastrop, Louisiana Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Monroe-Bastrop, Louisiana Combined Statistical Area.
Mirror Pole Whirligig of Stainless Steel Spoons (Spoonburg)
Spartanburg is a city in and the seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States, and the 12th-largest city by population in the state. The city of Spartanburg has a municipal population of 37,013, and Spartanburg County has an urban population of 180,786 as of the 2010 census.
Mirror Pole Jellyfish Tree (Jellyfish)
Jefferson City, officially the City of Jefferson and informally Jeff City, is the capital of the U.S. state of Missouri. It had a population of 43,079 at the 2010 census, ranking as the 15th most populous city in the state. It is also the county seat of Cole County and the principal city of the Jefferson City Metropolitan Statistical Area, the second-most-populous metropolitan area in Mid-Missouri and the fifth-largest in the state.
Montana Blackfeet Sculpture of Warriors on Horses
The Blackfeet Nation, officially named the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, is a federally recognized tribe of Siksikaitsitapi people with an Indian reservation in Montana. Tribal members primarily belong to the Piegan Blackfeet (Ampskapi Piikani) band of the larger Blackfoot Confederacy that spans Canada and the United States.
The Blackfeet Indian Reservation located east of Glacier National Park and borders the Canadian province of Alberta. Cut Bank Creek and Birch Creek form part of its eastern and southern borders. The reservation contains 3,000 square miles (7,800 km2), twice the size of the national park and larger than the state of Delaware. It is located in parts of Glacier and Pondera counties.
[---8<---]
The 2010 census reported a population of 10,405 living on the reservation lands. The population density is 3.47 people per square mile (1.34 people/km²).
The Blackfeet Nation has 16,500 enrolled members. The main community is Browning, Montana, which is the seat of tribal government. Other towns serve the tourist economy along the edge of the park: St. Mary and East Glacier Park Village, which has an Amtrak passenger station and the historic Glacier Park Lodge. Small communities include Babb, Kiowa, Blackfoot, Seville, Heart Butte, Starr School, and Glacier Homes.
Signal tower -- some communes have towers where people can send messages with mirrors, flags, smoke, or other methods. In a few areas with communes close together, such as the Pueblo Alliance, people have created chains of towers to relay messages over longer distances. In the Aftermath, these are more reliable than the fading remnants of Before technology. The mirrors in particular are almost as fast as the old telephones, if a little less convenient, and they work with any reflective material. Most towers favor chrome or stainless steel as more durable than glass. This has made Morse code increasingly popular.
Signal Pole with Crowsnest (Crowsnest)
Crowley (Local pronunciation: /ˈkræli/) is a city in, and the parish seat of, Acadia Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 13,265 at the 2010 census but 14,225 in 2000, a loss of nearly 1,000 people. It is 63.8 percent Non-Hispanic White.
Crowley is the principal city of the Crowley Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Acadia Parish. It is also part of the larger Lafayette–Acadiana Combined Statistical Area.
Broussard is a small city in Lafayette parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The population was 8,197 at the 2010 census.
Broussard is part of the Lafayette Metropolitan Statistical Area.