The stores are selling off their inventories and clearing out. The trains and buses have posted their shutdown schedules. People are returning borrowed objects, cleaning out their refrigerators, and packing to leave for the assembly spots.

What to bring? Parents tell children to bring warm clothes, just in case, and toothbrushes, but no one knows if we will need them. We are vacating, leaving everything behind, taking only what we can carry or drag in a roller bag. The Earth is shutting down.

Everyone hopes the destination will be better, but no one knows if there actually is a destination, or whether our already departed friends will be there. Still, best to be prepared. No use bringing phones or hair dryers; there may not be electricity to plug them in. Credit cards and cash used to have power, but no longer. No one can buy a different future anymore.

So we pack Band-Aids, disinfectant wipes, water bottles, rolls of toilet paper. Mothers pack snacks so no one will get hungry, at least for a while. We can fit in some keepsakes, reminders of our time on Earth. But what to take? Family photos, obviously. Funny, how they all show happy times. Heirlooms must be small. Instruments to bring our musical traditions to the new place. Recipes, knitting, toys.

We may need something to pass the time, so books are a good idea. But what to choose? Something that will carry the accumulated knowledge and heritage of humankind? Or a good read to take our minds off leaving? That classic we’ve always intended to get to, or an art book to remember the masterworks by? Other people will surely bring Bibles, so that is covered.

Perhaps it ought to be a practical how-to book of survival skills. Or a cookbook. A book of trees, so we remember forests? A history of the world, or of our little part of it? Which book encapsulates all we want to remember?

Memories weigh nothing; we can take as many as we like. The smell of the breeze at dawn. Rain on the garden. Birthday parties.

We look around as we prepare to shut down the house for good. Might as well leave the swing hanging in the yard, though nothing looks lonelier than an empty swing.

How did we humans spend so much time with so little to show for it? All the squabbling, unkindness, striving, saving, and building we did—and no one will remember us long, not even the oak trees.

Oh well. For a short time, at least, we will still have each other.