Six Sparks Rising: After the Ash

SIX SPARKS RISING is like a juicy love letter all wrapped up into a survivalist handbook. It's also a post-collapse elegy and anthem, quietly told and fiercely felt. It is about reconnection; not to devices, but to dirt, to meals cooked from scratch, to hands held in the dark. It is a narrative of rediscovery, for anyone who has ever stared at a cracked screen and felt a deep, unspeakable longing for something analog, something alive.

This story is for those who find poetry in torque, in recipes written from memory, in maps that unfold instead of glow. For the ones who kneel at garden beds and understand that food is not a commodity, but an act of devotion. For lovers who choose paths not for their convenience but their resonance.

The storyline and characters are fiction. But the soil beneath it is real. This novel wasn't meant to predict, or warn, or solve; but maybe, if you let it, it helps you remember too.

You might find a part of yourself in it; somewhat buried, maybe unfurling, or now fully blooming and reaching toward the light. And if you do, I hope you'll stay a while, and carry the story forward in your own way.

-Forrest Huisman

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Here's a glimpse of the timeline that shapes it all: from the final days of modern convenience to the forging of chosen family amid the ashes:

1. The Hollow Before

Before the fall, the world buzzed with artificial light and shallow connectivity. People were addicted to convenience: screens fed them content faster than thought, meals arrived via app in plastic wrappers, and conversation devolved into emojis and auto-replies. The scent of fast food replaced home-cooked meals, and social interaction was trimmed down to efficiency. Underneath all the brightness and Bluetooth, something human quietly slipped away. The rituals of gathering, sharing food, and real dialogue faded into oblivion, unnoticed until it was too late. In trading depth for speed, people lost the warmth of community. The collapse, when it came, found them hollowed out; unready, unmoored, and largely alone.

2. The Collapse and Climb

With the grid down and no aid on the horizon, survival became a gritty classroom. Supermarkets disappeared; foraging and bartering replaced modern life. People relearned ancient skills; boiling water over open flame, trading socks for herbs, watching steam rise like prayer. Civilization didn't come back. But in the silence, people began to find each other. A small group, weary but determined, pooled what remained and left San Francisco by a repurposed school bus. When it broke down above Sausalito, just outside the Robin Williams Tunnel, they walked north; guided not by GPS, but by paper map, instinct, and a fragile sense of togetherness. The hike was literal and emotional: stripped of comfort, and they built something truer than before.

3. The Tribe They Built

Their journey was rough and riddled with relics: an old Zen house, a near-mythical truck, a Cessna that never flew, a cobbled-together motorcycle that crashed gloriously. Pain and survival knit them tighter. A healer patched their wounds and joined them. Eventually, they reached a real haven; water, food, peace. It didn't last. Drones came. Mist fell. Fires spread. They fled again, down to the Russian River, where they met a yellow dog who led them; Wizard-of-Oz style; not to a city, but to Cowboy Earl, a shotgun-bearing hermit with a cautious heart. Slowly, trust blossomed, through mushrooms, teas, silent evenings by firelight. They didn't flee anymore. They stayed. They made community. Not flashy, not high-tech, but sacred. Under starry skies, one whispered: soon, we'll grow by one more. A new life, not of convenience; but of meaning.