When Flora got married, she was fourteen. Now she has three kids and the village wells are dry and the nearest reliable water source is a two-hour walk from her home. Here in the Funhalouro District adolescent moms like Flora spend about six hours a day searching for and transporting water. Yesterday she walked three hours to harvest water lilies from a lake so her kids would have something to eat. And what do our most enlightened leaders suggest we do? Switch to e-billing. Buy three LED bulbs and get a free tote bag. Earth has eight billion people to feed and the extinction rate is a thousand times higher than it was at pre-human levels. This is not something we fix with tote bags.

Bishop is recruiting warriors, he says, to dismantle the global industrial economy before it’s too late. They will, he says, rebuild societies around new thought systems, where resources will be shared; they will reclaim the old wisdom, seek answers to the questions commerce cannot answer, meet the needs money cannot meet.

The faces Seymour can make out in Bishop’s audiences glow with purpose; he remembers how it felt, his whole body taut, when he sprung the lid off the crate of Pawpaw’s old grenades for the first time. All that latent power. Never before has someone articulated his own anger and confusion like this.

“Wait,” they said. “Be patient,” they said. “Technology will solve the carbon crisis.” In Kyoto, in Copenhagen, in Doha, in Paris, they said, “We’ll cut emissions, we’ll wean ourselves off hydrocarbons,” and they rolled back to the airport in armor-plated limos and flew home on jumbo jets and ate sushi thirty thousand feet in the air while poor people choked on the air in their own neighborhoods. Waiting is over. Patience is over. We must rise up now, before the whole world is on fire. We must—

When Marian fans a hand in front of his eyes, for a few breaths Seymour cannot remember where he is.

“Anyone home?”

The link flashes Join Us Join Us Join Us. He takes off the headphones.

Marian swings her car keys around one finger. “Closing time, kiddo. Can you turn off the Open sign for me, please? And, listen, Seymour, are you free Saturday? At noon?”

He nods, collects his book bag. Outside rain is falling on the old snow and the streets are full of slush.

“Saturday,” Marian calls after him. “Noon. Don’t forget. I have a surprise for you.”

At home Bunny is at the kitchen table frowning over the checkbook. She looks up, her attention returning from a long way off.

“How was your day? Did you walk all the way home in the rain? Did you sit with Janet at lunch?”

He opens the fridge. Mustard. Shasta Twists. Half a bottle of ranch dressing. Nothing.

“Seymour? Can you look at me, please?”