Bohemia Village Voice

Entry 180

Entry 180:– I thought I’d pick up writing this diary again; maybe it’ll help me to get back my sense of time. The days have long since blurred into one another, and I have no idea what year it is. It’s always cold, not matter how many layers you wear, it’s always grey, from murky sunrise to opaque sunset, and the rain is sporadic but it happens every day. We’re still making our way around the country, scrounging food when we can, avoiding people as best we can and trying to learn and predict the currents.
We still plan to cross the Channel and set up a new life at the Med, but no-one appears optimistic anymore. None of us know how to sail, or make a sail, or a boat large enough to carry us and our equipment. I’m certain we all know we’re doomed to fail, so I guess this is it.
Wake up, scavenge for food, make clean water, avoid urban areas and keep our heads down. We don’t know who we’re running from, but if they’re not in The Clan (that is, me, Chris, Oliver, and Matt), then they pose a danger. No-one knows anything anymore. Literally. Oliver has a calculator, and he’s adamant we’ll need it to help make the boat’s dimensions accurate, or something. I don’t know any formulae, except the ones we all know, and Oliver studied history.
I’ll stop for now, the guys have come back to camp and have some Glasswort, I think. The pages in the food book are deteriorating too fast.
Entry 181:– I’ll try and make this entry less depressing than last time’s, as we managed to find some new equipment! Chris broke into a fisherman’s hut, and we found netting and plastic buckets. We can now use the new buckets for collecting, and the old metal one to cook water in the meantime. We’ll be able to divide the camp into two groups; gatherers and homefolk. We’ll be able to forage for longer, without having to return to deposit the food and use the single bucket to cook some clean water prepared by whoever volunteers to stay behind. We’ve tried to use the netting to catch fish, but I don’t think there are any. But they’re probably just hiding from people, I suppose.
Entry 182:– I stopped writing the journal since the arrival of Claire, who flagged us down as we moved along an open road for the first time in a while. She was huddled behind some burnt-out cars, and told us that nomads had taken her clan, and everything useful they had, with them. She said she hid from them, but didn’t go into any detail. It’s been a long time since we’ve spoken to anyone from outside our clan, and even longer since we’ve seen a woman. She’s very attractive.
Entry 183:– Matt’s infatuation with Claire has become unbearable, he’s always staying at camp with her when we go foraging, even though we managed to find another container; he ‘escorts’ her to a safe place so she can piss, and he’s trying to teach her self-defence, though he only went to Tae-Kwon-Do with me about 4 times, and I’m far better than him. He’s trying on every Hollywood cliché to bed the girl, and she’s only leading him on. She should just tell him to fuck off and leave her alone, she obviously doesn’t like him.
Entry 184:– It’s over. Clan disbanded. She didn’t reciprocate and he wouldn’t stop. We came back after foraging and he had gone. Dream over. I’ll burn this tonight.