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brain.
    We’ve tried burning the brain, but the wasp
screams as if it is in terrible pain.
    The ancient cleansing agents -- fire, soap
and salt -- work the very best. Wasps will walk right into a fire
and burn to death. The first two years, we kept the fires going day
and night for protection. Of course, we had a lot of corpses and
refuse to burn.
    Salt works in two ways. When we were able to
get the wasps to eat something really salty -- pickles or even
salted flesh -- the salt worked from the inside out. The wasp comes
apart from the inside out. Salt injections work better than salt
baths, but that’s mostly because it’s hard to force a wasp to stay
still long enough to absorb the salt.
    Wasps that have been around a while fear
salt. A two-inch line of salt in a doorway is enough to keep a
colony of wasps out. We’ve been able to keep the Pen free of roving
bands of wasps by salting the doorways.

11/07/2056
    I’ve skipped a day. I hate to admit it, but
I don’t know if I am up to the task of documenting everything that
has happened. I guess that’s why it’s taken me so long to get
started.
    I’ve never felt this kind of insecurity.
Ever. I’ve always been a person who moved forward -- either at a
rapid pace or one step at a time. I never understood why people
were afraid to change, or for that matter, afraid to do anything.
Insecurity was as bizarre a concept as human beings dying.
    My great-great grandmother tasked me with
this challenge. She manipulated my entire life, including going to
the United World College, so that I would be prepared for this
moment in time. I should be ready to do this thing, ready to
document the downfall of humankind.
    It’s only been a few days,
and I am struggling. I hate this Remington. I hate the way the keys
punch at the pages. I hate that the letters don’t match up evenly.
I hate the loose paper roller that makes the pages slip. And the
dirt and dust and broken keys and …
    And who is ever going to read this? As far
as I can tell, I am the only human being within a hundred miles of
the Pen. According to the spirits that come through on their way to
the afterworld, I am the only human being in the Western world.
    If a half-breed reads this, assuming they
can still read, they will use it to destroy George and me. Our
fates will be sealed by all the time spent typing away at this
typewriter.
    I hate this “journal” for reminding me how
much I miss everything. I miss computers and cell phones. I miss
the casual conversation between strangers. I miss my great-great
grandmother and my people.
    I loathe to admit this, especially since I
am a shaman, but, in the middle of the night, sometimes, I pray
that things will return to normal. I pray that the next morning,
food will arrive at eight in the morning. I will be one day closer
to release. I will read my books, take my exercise with George, and
plan my return to the Pueblo. My son will have children of his own,
my infamy will have grown, and I will take my great-great
grandmother’s place as spiritual leader of the Tewa. But this dream
will never come to pass.
    Instead, George and I are following some
ancient prophecy.
    We will leave the Pen with enough food and
water for a month. We have found a nineteen-year-old, cherry-red
off-road vehicle in a garage in Santa Fe. The fellow who owned it,
some guy name Kevin Costner, kept the vehicle in great condition.
It looks like he never drove it. He must have been some
make-believe cowboy because he had all kinds of pistols, shotguns,
traditional bows, compound bows, a thousand arrows, and riding
gear. We took most of this stuff from that guy’s house.
    George learned how to work on cars in
prison. Before he was shipped to the Pen, he was the mechanic for
the prison vehicles. I didn’t expect him to remember how to work on
cars, but he has completely recreated this vehicle. He’s replaced
anything with high-desert dry rot. He even found a machine to make
sure the computer parts