How it all happened pt. 2

chapter 12 from Truncated: Apocalyptic and Loving It!

One of the problems with the earthquake in Northern California was the breaking of our levies that held our water supply in Sacramento. Which was very near San Francisco. These levies were a sand and rock construction, kind of like a kid makes to hold back a lapping wave on the beach to guard his castle, only bigger. They broke. Our wonderful fresh water was now mixed with salt water. And it wasn’t great timing because the entire West Coast had been in drought conditions for at least five straight years. Nary a drop of rain. Just tighter and tighter water restrictions and ever lowering reservoirs. And yet, people were still watering their lawns. Acting as though that magic fountain of life giving water would always supernaturally appear. And why not? It had done so their whole lives. Fresh water could never end.

The Colorado river, which fed much of California’s water supply with billions of gallons of snowmelt was eventually blown to smithereens by some locals who thought it would be a good idea if they damned the water and kept it for themselves. They were probably right. And they did a solid job. Two cliffs were fixed with dynamite and the rocks and dirt that formed the cliffs were blown across the beautiful river and not just at one spot but several. After other states had fallowed suit, water wasn’t flowing to California anymore.

The California reservoirs were visited as much as the grocery stores whose supplies had all but dwindled. Families and friends began the treks out of the cities to greener pastures and a hopeful future. Maybe somewhere more wild. Where water still flowed.

Farms across the nation were slowly, then quickly ransacked of their precious crops. Panicking people trampled what they didn’t rip from the ground. Farm animals were killed or stolen. Violence was the burgeoning answer to conflict. People were protecting their own.

The electrical grid had gone down for some reason. No fuel. Some terrorists. Earthquakes. Fires. I didn’t know how they worked anyhow. I just turned on the lightswitch and the lights went on. My refrigerator kept my food cold. My television showed me shows. All I had to do was set up an automatic monthly payment account and it kept going. It just kept working. Kept me comfortable.

Things were changing too fast for a culture that didn’t like change unless it was for the better. Most of us chased immediate gratification over long term suffering for greater gains. We were unfit for this growing calamity. Our character was built on the desire for comfort over purpose. And it hadn’t even gotten bad yet.

Military jets and helicopters had showed up first. Circling monsters of power and destruction. Troops on street corners to stem the tide of anarchy. It didn’t do anything but fan the fires of insecurity. Of panic. The minds of fathers racing about what to do next. How to protect. How to survive. A clash over food here. Over water there. Stealing gas and taking supplies. An oily length of rope was now a golden lasso. Something to be treasured. Kept. Something worth killing over. Worth taking.

Things weren’t too bad in Southern California, even as things were getting bad everywhere else. We’d had it too good. We wanted it to last. I suppose that’s why it got hit the hardest when people realized that hope was a useless and comical fantasy. That there was nobody coming. Nobody would save us. Your car was useless. You didn’t have a job. There was no electricity for months and we didn’t know if there ever would be again. Communications went down with it. Nobody had stored food. Or prepared in any way. Their weak unconditioned bodies weren’t ready for the task of marching miles, and their minds weren’t hardened enough to sway their panic. Scared, hopeless, helpless, smart-things, that had no clue what to do, or where to go, or what they were becoming. The meteorological catastrophes were nothing compared to the humans who were losing their way of life. Their comfort. And nothing is more dangerous than a comfortable human trying to keep it that way.

Our military personnel’s duties began to wane in the sight of the conflict over saving their families in their home states. There were houses that needed protecting that they actually owned. Mutiny and desertion were common, and it was becoming clear that duty and patriotism was with family and friends, not with the Commander and Chief.

Panic is a word that is too small for what took place. Crammed freeways clogged with cars. Large, out of shape, and underprepared panickers panicking with nowhere to go, no direction, no nothing but a plastic suitcase stuffed with hundred-dollar jeans and a few water bottles.

The rest of the world was dealing with its own nightmares as well. Part of it was the fact that what America does, the world follows shortly behind and ends up doing the same damn thing. If we wear Levi’s, the world wears Levi’s. If we riot the world riots. And face it, we were a global economy, and by that I mean America supported the globe on its purchasing power. We weren’t buying anything. There was no way we were going to buy oil to make fuel because we couldn’t store it to refine it because we weren’t refining. Everyone was reeling from every catastrophe that was befalling us, and they were being befalled too. China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan were going to blows. Japan was destroyed by earthquakes and tsunamis and typhoons. There was war in the Middle East and shifts in power. A massive heat wave in Africa that was already a hot fucking place. Strangely, snow storms were reeking havoc in Russia, and the Euro was collapsing all of Europe while they tried to not be a union. Borders were crossed. Nations were falling. Those without, wanted. Those with, kept.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans were trying to cross the border into Mexico and Canada. The wall we had put up to keep people out was now keeping us in. There were battles at our national boarders. Hoards of people running for their lives. To food. To water. To shelter. And more pouring in. With no real military or border protection, it was every man and woman for themselves. Nobody knew where they were going. What they would find. Just that, where they were, how they had lived, was no longer viable, and wouldn’t be any time soon. No water. No food. No gas. No electricity. You couldn’t even flush your toilet. Corpses were piled in cemeteries because people didn’t know what to do with the bodies. Trash blew everywhere. And everywhere there was the stench of death. Of fear.

Millions of people made for water supplies that were soon poisoned with dead bodies and feces. Freeways became long graveyards of colorful automotive headstones that stretched on for hundreds of miles. We could go to our relatives up in the mountains. We could follow the Christians to the desert and await the Second Coming. They have it better in Utah. In Maine. In Arizona.

What humanity we had gained after some serious historical lapses, such as, the Nazi’s, Stalin, and Mao, there were various other atrocities, but those were pretty big, and they were coming back to haunt us like forgotten ghosts. Some sick voice reminding us that we are just like them when pushed. And we didn’t disappoint. Man against man. Friend against friend. When it came down to you or them, or more importantly, your family or them, the answer was always the same. Most people thought they would come back. Ride it out for a month. And come back. The grocery stores would be filled. The water would be back on. They would never have to bury their shit again. But nobody made it back. You can’t go where they don’t want you and there was nothing to come back to. And people who were busy keeping everyone out, eventually turned against each other. Better them than you. You would survive. Until you didn’t.

I had seen it coming. Years in advance. I wasn’t exactly sure why. I just thought we were less important than we thought we were. People thought that nature was built for us. That all this was about us. That we were it. The safety was the illusion. The calm. But there was a slow building inside of me where I knew, somewhere I couldn’t place, that it would all happen faster than we thought it could. That we would be caught off guard. And when it did come, it came faster than even I could have imagined. And I imagined a whole lot.

You see, as tough as the storms were on us. The destruction. The death. As much as not having gasoline could have been just a hassle. As much as the purple spotted flu might swoop in and make everyone sick maybe even kill some of the people who got it. And the lack of water here. And too much water there. The earthquakes and the tsunamis. The camps. The food shortages. The radiation leak. Nothing, not one of them, compared, even closely, to us. To what we could do to each other. To what we did do to each other. We were what happened

Read the first half of Chapter 12 from Truncated: Apocalyptic and Loving It!

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