Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel
Contents
Chapter 6
Overview
The chapter presents an “incomplete list” of what the Georgia Flu’s aftermath erased: cities, infrastructure, modern entertainment, and basic public services. It highlights how quickly fuel, medicine, and aviation disappear, leaving only abandoned remnants like grounded airplanes repurposed for storage. The final loss is digital connection itself—no Internet or social media—underscoring a new isolation in the surviving world.
Summary
The chapter shifts away from specific characters to a stark catalog of what vanished after the collapse: everyday leisure and comfort such as swimming pools, night games under floodlights, porch lights, subways, and even the presence of cities themselves.
It emphasizes the disappearance of modern entertainment and technology—concert culture, electric instruments, and ubiquitous screens—along with the near-end of film, which survives only briefly in generator-powered screenings before fuel becomes unusable.
The list then turns to the loss of essential systems: pharmaceuticals and the reliable safety they provided, the end of routine air travel (with abandoned planes repurposed for storage or decay), and the dissolution of nations as borders go unmanned.
Finally, it underscores how public infrastructure and connectivity have failed—no police, fire departments, road maintenance, garbage pickup, or space programs—and closes on the total absence of the Internet and social media, removing a key source of connection and shared life.