Special thanks to Alex Hofelich for getting this story onto the show. I was very proud to present it.
Burnt Norton (1935) T.S. Eliot
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
(there's more, of course):
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Four_Quartets"human kind
Cannot bear very much reality"
would seem to be the resonance - a truth that underlies all horror fiction. Move, while you can. Live, while you can, in the moment. The truth of life (in this case, the truth of hunger, although one could say the truth of family and civilization) will destroy you if pondered on for too long. "The idea of time and the concept that only the present moment really matters because the past cannot be changed and the future is unknown"
I felt the "I am a unique person" details were there not only to underline that it is a life and death situation (I imagine nowadays a lot of young people unexpectedly dying on a street somewhere under suddenly harsh sunlight will have last thoughts like "but, this can't be happening - the new PORTAL hasn't even come out yet...") but also as an indicator of a generational difference between her and her children (who are more pack like). It's conceivable (not provable, given the dearth of detail in the story) that this attitude is also intended as indicating a holdover from pre-collapse - perhaps culturally taught or personally known - "our" way of thinking that, of course, will not survive in this brave new world as the next generation devolves down.
Or perhaps it's already started and we didn't need a collapse ("of this magnitude", he qualifies)?