Desert Dust: The Peridot Necklace

What happens when a pandemic causes a large part of the population to die and the infrastructure is no longer sustainable due to the loss of people? Transportation stops, electrical generation stops, police, fire, and emergency services stop, water plants shut down, trash pickup stops, and commerce grinds to a halt. How does the average person survive? Wrap a love story around this scenario and throw in the mysterious history of a peridot necklace created during the 1918 Spanish Flu. I hope you enjoy the story.