Varland Story - Chapter 2 - Morgana

I remember when there were palm trees, lawns, flowers, birds, a promising medical career, a white house on the hill and a marriage. All of these were among the disaster casualties.

Lars blames himself about the marriage and I wish he wouldn't. It would take a stronger marriage than that one to survive conditions as they are now. I doubt that it could have survived even without the disaster. Above all else, I wanted children. Thornton didn't. In those days, each of us believed that there was plenty of time for the other to come round to our way of thinking.

Lars is such a dear man. Although our progress is incremental and miniscule, he never stops striving. "A man's reach should exceed his grasp" he says.

When he perseveres through the dreary go-round of clogged toilets, monotonous meals scorched or missed altogether, endless filth and stench...

How can I complain?

Once he dreamed of being a star ballplayer. Now he soldiers on, working to restore a semblance of order such that the curfews can be lifted. I should so love to see the beach and the park once again, unrecognisable as they might be.

I work hard as well. Where once I planned to eradicate cancer through genetic resequencing, today the work is the most rudimentary of first aid, triaged so severely as to be heartbreaking. There's little else we can do until we've restored clean water and basic sanitation.

Although Lars wants children as much as I do, it will be a challenge to persuade him to relax long enough to start a family...

And now that's been accomplished in due time, no pun intended.