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Her shift remains long, from early at eight in the morning until eight in the evening, four days a week. She is one of the lucky ones, though, with a good job and extra rations. Years ago, the desalination plant had been built by the local municipality in cooperation with state and federal agencies. With the collapse of order and government, those remaining with wealth and power had been able to commandeer it and to use it for themselves and their members. Also cordoned off by security perimeters, these last vestiges of modern cities acted as isolated islands for any remaining civilization. Unable to produce or sustain life sources for themselves, many had joined these quasi-organizational groups that fortified certain cities into protective zones. Those with money or needed talents could join a Sector, pay fees, and be granted basic protection, housing, and rations. Knowing the main manager at the plant had enabled Clare to get a job there and had allowed her to survive with her two children. And she hurries home anxiously to them now.

Crossing the last deserted intersection, she ducks into the third staircase from the corner and climbs the two flights to her apartment. It is dark, no electricity for the stairs or hallways, and she navigates by memory of repetition until reaching her door. Clare knocks once, waits, and then knocks twice. She hears the footsteps of one of her children running to open the door.

“Mommy, is that you?” asks a small voice.

“Yes, Jenny, it’s me, you can go ahead and open the door,” says Clare. And the door opens quickly and widely as the little girl throws her arms around her mother’s waist and hugs tightly. “It’s okay, dear, I’m back now,” she says.

The room is mostly dark except for a single candle burning on a kitchen table. Only a flickering half light breaks the darkness and illuminates a sparsely furnished room with just the basics of furniture. Clare sees her son sitting quietly in a chair. “James, is that you, what are you doing?”

“Oh, not really anything,” answers a rather indifferent James. “Jenny and I were just playing some board games but one of the candles burned out and we couldn’t see anymore. We’ve been waiting for you to get back home.”

“I’ll get dinner going, you kids must be hungry,” says Clare. The electricity is strictly rationed for each member household of the Sector. Those going over their allocations get a reduced amount for the following month and so on until, quite possibly, all electricity can be shut off to willful violators. Clare and her family save their electricity for the refrigerator, for operating fans for the now daily extreme temperatures, and for that one Saturday night a week. Then they will use the lights for an evening of nostalgia and normalcy, playing games or reading books or just sitting and enjoying the ability to see each other clearly, removing the dreariness of the dark. The rest of the time they will rely on candles for their light as did their ancestors almost two hundred years ago. The path of progress had gone full circle and had curved back on itself.