JAA Ch. 01: Aftermath

Like so many disasters in earth's past, this one too did pass. Eventually, the ice receded and the northern hemisphere became temperate. That part of North America that had once been the grand nation of the United States never recovered. The southern region of the once magnificent country was now broken up into three republics. The Republic of Texas, which now encompassed not only the state of Texas but Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California filled the western part. To the east was the Georgia Republic comprised of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Just to the north of them was the Kentucky Provence. What was left of Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, part of Oklahoma and Missouri comprised the Provence? The Republic of California ran from north of Los Angeles to the ice sheet just north of San Francisco and included the portion of Nevada not covered by ice.

The Federal Government of the United States, which had abandoned their once great nation, never was allowed to return north of the Rio Grande. The state of Florida, the only state not to secede, allowed what was left of the government and military back to its shores. All the republics to the north refused to allow anyone holding a US passport to enter their territories.

The valley where John Abernathy had settled his people, his friends and family, eventually became a thriving city, looked to for medical practitioners and medical help. For the two years after Cappy's death, Susan and Michelle taught medicine. In the third year, Susan retired and only taught her children medicine. All five became world-renowned doctors. Michelle continued to teach for three more years and retired to the Abernathy estate with her husband and friends to while away the days on the front porch in a rocker, the rocker that Cappy had sat in so long ago.

Michelle's three children had grown up and become statesmen, not professional politicians but true statesmen. Her daughter was the chairperson of the Board of Health. Her two sons were congressional leaders in the republic senate. Michelle was happy and proud of her children. George, her husband had died the year after she retired. A bandit, who wandered into the valley, had shot him, how he had gotten past Falcon and Eagle teams nobody knew. In her grief, Michelle killed the intruder with her bare hands.

Those four specialists from Austin finished the research Susan started. What was wrong with the men of the valley was the water. Those men that drank the water from the spring had a boost to their reproductive systems. Those that did not become temporarily sterile because of the ash dissolved in the groundwater. The spring water flowed through several filtering layers of limestone before bubbling up out of the ash-covered ground. The limestone did not filter the drinking water for the village, as it pumped out of the aquifer before filtering, allowing the ash to stay dissolved in the water.

The findings were a welcomed relief around the valley. The spring water, bottled at its source, was given to each male resident to drink daily. The water from the aquifer had the opposite effect on the female population. They became more fertile drinking regular water.

As the ice receded, the population once again expanded into the northern lands. New population centers grew and those people moved north as the ice receded more. Each new region was in and of itself, a new nation, as those republics now in existence had no taste for expansion. As each new nation came into being, it took as its own that one great document the founding fathers of The United States of America had written, the Constitution. For you see those that survived the great volcano... let us just say they worked hard at what they do. What they do is survive and even though the nation does not survive, the principals believed in to create that nation live on. They live on in the minds and hearts of true Americans.