And we all fall down

[For those...]

Collapse means falling together.

Think of those trees in Kant which grow straight and tall and do not touch, like the rain of atoms, because there are too many of them, because of competition for the light.  The more there are, the more they stand straight and try to not have contact.  Vertical, upright, arrows pointing toward noon.

Collapse, then, means breaking from standing up, from the vertical axis, it means falling and colliding with and inclining against one another, such that, for the first time, we stand because we are in contact with each other.  The fall of society means we may find our heads on each other's shoulders, propped up like tired toy soldiers, balancing each other in angles of repose.  Or we may miss each other utterly in our falling and clatter together, littering the ground, a tangled driftwood of the last.

Only one thing is sure: trees don't bear the axes that make them fall.  From where the wood of the axe's handle is gathered, though, is another question altogether.