April 19th, 2013. Day 117. Dear Diary, It’s been 117 days since the whole world went to hell. I realize I start out every journal entry this same way, but since I had to burn that Snooki quote of the day calendar for warmth three months ago, it’s the only way I can keep track [...]]]>Borrowed with love from The Atlantic
April 19th, 2013. Day 117.
Dear Diary,
It’s been 117 days since the whole world went to hell. I realize I start out every journal entry this same way, but since I had to burn that Snooki quote of the day calendar for warmth three months ago, it’s the only way I can keep track of time.
Other than a working calendar – at this point, I mostly miss the little things.
I don’t mean the little things that most people would’ve said they missed had they not been incinerated by the sun’s gamma ray burst, or killed by the subsequent droughts, famines, wars and diseases that ransacked the planet in its aftermath. I also don’t mean the little things that the relatives of those raptured miss. Those people would miss the predictable things. The kinds of things we’d hear characters in movies or Left Behind novels say. Sure, a hot shower would be nice, but I got used to smelling like a sewer about a week into the end of days. Yes, I missed my family and friends – but when you have to skewer your best friend in the face with a salad fork after he starts salivating over your flesh instead of the refried beans you’ve been eating for 30 days, you learn to move on. And sure, it might be nice to have a warm body to snuggle with or hear a concerned voice of another human not trying to rob me or evangelize me, but eventually, they become a liability.
Living in the land of the dead and dying is nothing like video games or movies. For one, pop culture never talked about the smell. I’m not even talking about the smell outside either – it’s obvious a landscape littered with bodies, fires and rotting…everything, is going to get pungent after awhile. But not one single post apocalyptic novel or movie pointed out how fucking awful a hostess outlet store with no plumbing or electricity can smell after you’ve been living in it for weeks and defending it from raiders, zombies and warring factions of scientoligists and mormons. I still don’t know how, but those are the only two religions left. But the other thing, dear diary, that shows like The Walking Dead or movies like The Road missed?
Boredom.
I never saw it or read it, but I heard the Road was pretty much a two hour movie about starvation after the end of the world. Thankfully, since most of the population died out pretty quickly, I’ve got plenty of cupcakes, twinkies, soup and ramen to last me at least a few years. So it kinda got that wrong. But replace starvation with boredom? Now there’s a good allegory. Boredom’s more rampant than diseases we thought we cured a century ago. It’s more common than dead bodies and more dangerous than the scientologists and mormons combined.
Sure, if you’ve got a crew you’re running with, you’ve got companions to chat up. But when you go it solo for awhile, you’ve got to pass the time. And unlike video games, there isn’t a zombie or a raiding party to shoot showing up every twenty seconds. It’s mostly trying to keep warm, finding something more interesting to eat and hopefully coming across a library that has more than old copies of reader’s digest and Danielle Steele novels.
Know what I miss, diary? I miss TMZ. I miss Jersey Shore. I miss Sarah Palin’s antics. I miss Donald Trump’s hair, bad trilogies and their eventual reboots, shitty drivers, bad jokes about marriage and indie rock. I miss bitching to strangers about hipsters invading my neighborhood while washing down a 2 dollar PBR after riding my bike home from work. I miss the internet. Hell, I even miss fucking Facebook. After all, I guess I do at least one incredibly amazing thing every couple of days. Sometimes more than one. Yes, I’ve fought off raiders, started a fire by rubbing two sticks together, mounted an assault rifle to a bicycle and learned how to distill water. But what’s the point if I have no one around to click a little like button and validate my fucking experiences? If no one’s going to reshare the sketch I drew of the bombed out subway station I saw two weeks ago, then why did I bother drawing it at all?
But I digress. Let this be a lesson to you, future historians, should you find this journal. It’s not loneliness, death or destruction that killed me, but lack of bullshit distractions.
(note: originally performed live at May 2011′s Liquid Burning of the Apocalyptic Bard Letters)
Today President Obama finally released his “long form” birth certificate, supposedly proving that he in fact, is a United States citizen and therefore eligible to hold the highest office in the land. While we can certainly thank heroes of the Birther movement like Donald Trump, Orly Taitz and Pastor Bill Keller for this victory for [...]]]>Today President Obama finally released his “long form” birth certificate, supposedly proving that he in fact, is a United States citizen and therefore eligible to hold the highest office in the land. While we can certainly thank heroes of the Birther movement like Donald Trump, Orly Taitz and Pastor Bill Keller for this victory for the nation, hopefully their skepticism will not waiver. There are still plenty of unanswered questions, like “why did Barry let this go for so long?” or “why does he have dual citizenship?” In addition, some American Patriots have pointed out that this too, could be another Kenyan socialist plot. In the 60’s, no one would’ve called an African American child “African,” as the document suggests. When we couple that with the fact that the birth certificate is now locked away in a Hawaiian vault, as Fox News reports, we can confidently say that this isn’t over.
While the liberal mainstream media and even the small handful of Patriot press people in this country will stay focused on whether or not this document is another forgery (it most certainly is), a darker secret still lies waiting to be brought into the light. The birth certificate debacle not only proves Barack Hussein Obama is not a United States Citizen, but he is also not even a citizen of planet Earth.
Almost unnoticed by the media, SETI – the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, shut down the Allen Telescope Array, whose mission was to seek out signs of extra terrestrial life this week. SETI claims the array was mothballed due to inadequate funding, but this is only a half truth. SETI’s funding from the government may have been on the GOP budget’s chopping block, but no one’s asking why. Obama and the liberal elite fought hard for NPR to retain their 5% chunk of the federal budget, so why not fight just as hard for an organization dedicated to what should be the pinnacle of human exploration and scientific pursuit?
The answer is quite simple – had SETI been allowed to continue, it would’ve been more difficult to hide the truth about our pResident Alien in the White House. SETI first began in 1960, when astronomer Frank Drake performed an experiment under Project Ozma. Project Ozma used a radio telescope to examine nearby stars for inhabited planets. In 1960, Drake detected a signal, which was hastily declared “false” and written off as originated from a high flying aircraft. Curiously enough, Obama was “born” in 1961, the same year that the first SETI conference took place in Green Bank, West Virginia.
It’s well known that advanced cloning technology was among the alien wreckage in the Roswell crash. But without a blueprint, our top scientists could not use it to make anything. That “false” signal in 1961 Drake received was similar to the Arecibo Message Drake himself sent out in the mid 70’s, containing instructions on how to manipulate DNA to create a human/alien hybrid. With the help of the last remaining Roswell alien, Barack Hussein Obama was created to be a bridge between two civilizations.
Obama’s new forged birth certificate is just another smoke screen to keep the public away from the real truth. Aliens came to us in 1961 with more than just a message – they gave us a messenger. While the heroes of the birther movement have their hearts in the right place, they too need to look at the facts. The “man” is not from Kenya, but from a much further location with a very shadowy agenda. Aliens cannot be president any more than non-Americans can, and America needs TO WAKE UP.
Agent Robinson walked casually to his desk. It was 8:17 in the morning and though he was early for work, he felt as if the bureau chief would mock him for another tardy morning. By the time he strolled into the office downtown, plenty of agents were already at work. The building always buzzed with activity, night or day. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of agency employees were endlessly busy monitoring targets, evaluating threats and executing investigations, interrogations and covert missions. Robinson sat down at his desk, set his coffee mug to the right of his mouse and flipped on a computer monitor. His long slender fingers rested on the keyboard. He typed “arobinson,” followed by “duke819757,” an amalgam of his dog’s name and wife’s birthdate. He opened his email, sighed and muttered under his breath “47 messages already. A patriot’s work never ends. He remains vigilant.” Robinson glanced at the bumper sticker on the cabinet above his monitor reading the same mantra.
The agent casually scrolled through his morning messages. Department briefings, special meeting announcements, an office party on the 23rd floor for some IT guy’s birthday – he thought his name might be Matt. The work of government appears sexy in a press release but it’s pretty tedious day to day, he thought. Finally he found something interesting – a few activity alerts on some of his targets.
The office Agent Robinson worked out of was just one of many huge information hubs scattered across the continental United States. Each Infohub looked like a standard glass high rise office building and was typically placed on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area. The only difference between an Infohub and any other skyscraper was the amount of satellite dishes and antennae on the roof, which thanks to the information age, no one ever noticed.
Located within the walls of Infohubs were non-descript offices, plenty of conventional surveillance systems, thousands of computers, several lock up areas, enhanced interrogation rooms, lethal and non-lethal tactical equipment rooms (armories), and even temporary living quarters. The real excitement though, lay in the analytics department. Each Infohub contained several NaurusInsight systems, supercomputers pioneered in the early 1990’s by the Defense Department for mass electronic surveillance, ECHELON interceptors, a communications monitoring system built during the height of the cold war and subsequently networked into every phone line across the world and the Genisys system. All data mined globally fed through Genisys, an almost sentient software program developed to handle large repositories of information. Data was pulled via Naurus and ECHELON along with information handed over by credit card companies, banks, retail outlets, plus local and regional law enforcement. Even the postal service fed intercepted mail scans into Genisys. The program would route information through about a dozen subroutines in order to determine what individuals or groups could be potential threats and predict their movements and actions, down to what day of the week an individual went grocery shopping.
Essentially, Genisys took care of the bulk of Agent Robinson’s work for him.
Michael, one of his targets, would apparently be out of toilet paper sometime tomorrow.
Geni, as most agents jokingly referred to the system, picked up on Michael years ago after it noticed an email list he maintained during the early 2000’s. Mike would forward out suspect or seditious news articles to a small group of friends. Since then, he started writing and blogging about any number of supposedly hot button political issues, attended various radical left wing meetings, even engaged in street protests. Mike would never be a physical threat to any political administration, federal government, local government, police, or even a partisan opposition group – but Geni knew Mike had something wrong in his head and labeled him an ideological threat.
Agent Robinson slurped his coffee with excitement and read the alert.
Subject number 614: Michael Wilson, aged 35. Ideological threat. Watch level status: Yellow.
Begin sitrep: Subject M. Wilson authored 17 articles, all published on the internet on the following subjects: war, terrorism, Lollapalooza, civil liberties, the constitution, beer, Milton Bradley, Islam, World of Warcraft, Christianity, class war, dubstep music. Facebook activity: 150 links shared, 39 status updates, 10 new friends, 3 friend deletions, joined groups “Americans against war in Iran” “Cryogenically Freeze Eric Estrada’s Head” and “Don’t you hate it when your ass gets sweaty after sitting in your office chair for too long.”
Robinson let out a little laugh and took another swill from his coffee – it was sweet, two sugar packets and two creamers. Never Nutrasweet – like Flouride in drinking water, Nutrasweet was bad for one’s health. He remembered joining the very same Facebook group two nights prior, under the fake account he kept in order to maintain pseudo friendships with some of his more interesting targets. Even though he knew Mike worked as a temp for a firm contracted to sell advertisements in the Tribune, he somehow always thought his personality type seemed more akin to shipping and receiving.
The report continued and Agent Robinson’s soft brown eyes glazed slightly: spending reports for two weeks, travel logs, some minor surveillance footage from various ATM’s across the city, internet browsing history containing pie charts of most viewed themes – the two majors of which were labeled politics (37%) and p (32%) – a ratio the majority of his targets, usually opinionated but otherwise innocuous middle aged males, held. At the bottom, a window popped up – it read “Agent arobinson, what option would you like to execute?” The options read “immediate arrest, detain for questioning, upgrade alert status, continue monitoring.” There was never an option to downgrade alert status. After briefly thinking about the data, Agent Robinson clicked “continue monitoring” and opened the next alert.
He did this a few more times, desperately hoping for something interesting. He read an update on Jack, a 17 year old male from a more rural area, highlighted by Geni because of a questionable flyer Jack printed featuring a caricature of a president drawn with a pencil in his head. Agent Robinson read about Darius, a 47 year old teacher from the city, on Geni’s list because of a paper he authored in college questioning the legitimacy of attacking Afghanistan. He even saw an alert for Jessica, a pseudo hippy college liberal type who often got arrested at one demonstration or another for “civil disobedience.” Though she was orange flagged as a legitimate threat, the only thing close to a crime she had committed in the past two weeks was posting a picture featuring her in a “fuck you” trucker hat on Facebook.
Robinson needed a break. He opened up a news website and read an article on China’s human rights violations and its pervasive surveillance systems. Apparently, the Chinese government installed and networked cameras in two provinces in nearly every public space. Livid with outrage, he nearly spilt his coffee. Why would people stand for that, the elimination of their privacy and freedom? Sure, America had to make a few sacrifices – networked some cameras in more urban “trouble spots” together and yes, he had to monitor people – but those people were deemed threats. His job was different though, it was science. Science and technology figured out the threats and targets – not some arbitrary people, be they part of a governing class or not. For a government to monitor every inch of the public square, especially without scientific proof? That was going too far.
Agent Robinson looked at the clock in the corner of his computer monitor. 11:15, time for Matt in IT’s birthday party. The work of a patriot may never be complete, but at least sometimes there’s cake.
He spent too much time wondering about the end.
At ten years old, Mike wrote a report about the prophecies of Nostradamus. The same day he awkwardly stammered the oral part it in front of the class, rambling on about quatrains and anti-christs, a blaring siren interrupted his speech, forcing students to abandon their snickering and cram themselves under their desks in dead silence. Silence was important, because the bombs Russia dropped could hear their targets. Should a whisper leave a student’s lips, he or she would be responsible for the nuclear holocaust raining on the school. There would be no chance to be a good wolverine and save the world.
On the train, Mike stared at candy colored advertisements for events, phones, shoes, cheap doctors, massage therapy schools. He once asked a stranger if any of the ads shown would be important 20 years down the road, in the face of peak oil, water wars, a surveillance state and a doomed economy. Hell, would there even be ribs for Ribfest or giant turkey legs at the Taste in ten years? The stranger only responded by moving a few seats away.
Like any lonely aging hipster riding a train at night, Mike had a battered brown notebook he scrawled in. He wasn’t hip enough to travel with gadabouts finding their way home from good parties and shows and too pretentious to sit at home working on a poorly maintained Tumblr. He thought riding the Red line late at night writing in a notebook could be pretentious, but remembered it’s only pretentious if you tell people about it.
Mike puzzled on the piece he was working on. He dubbed it “notes from the apocalypse.” He meant it to be a history of what life might be like, after Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck ran on a presidential ticket in 2012. In 2013, Palin would be crowned First Queen of America while Beck would be Prince. The whole affair would resemble Napoleon’s coronation. The world around him seemed scary enough where that could happen. Michael wrote the following passage:
The Free States of America looks much like the old United States of America, with some minor changes. Washington DC is no longer a state, but a prison colony, completely moated and walled off from the surrounding states. In order to keep the Free States of America at 50 states, much of the Caribbean was “democratized” in 2014. The places that were once Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas were liberated after what was known as the global war on terror was christened the War for Democracy. Since our executive liberator (what used to be called the president) freed the area, it was dubbed Disneya and is now the world’s largest resort. The Walt Disney company provided much of the funding for that particular “democratization” force used to liberate the former countries by hiring contractors from Xe, formerly known as Blackwater.
Mike spent too much time reading Orwell, Chomsky and Alex Jones in his younger years. He knew Prison Planet was a haven for some batshit crazy ideas and realized the FBI wasn’t planning on boxing him up in a FEMA camp anytime soon. He couldn’t though, shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. He could almost touch that feeling. He lived in Chicago, the world’s second most surveiled city, only trailing London in the amount of cameras watching his every move. Mike closed his eyes and thought about the night he spent in lock up after protesting the war in 2003. He touched his face; he could still feel the spot where a police baton collided with it. He took a deep breath; he could almost taste the tear gas from that night on his tongue. Eyes still closed, Mike saw the face of his childhood friend, killed in Afghanistan in 2005. He watched the flames and heard the bangs of Shock and Awe in Baghdad. He wondered about people who said dissent was treason 8 years ago, now protesting in the streets with guns strapped to their backs. He wondered if he should send the agents keeping an eye on him Christmas cards this year.
As the train slowly crept along, Mike found himself staring out the window and singing a line from a song. “When you sleep, no one is homeless,” he muttered out of key. He scratched the tattoo on his right forearm. It read “reality is the original Rorschach” in French, a pedantic homage to two favorite philosophers now dead. He thought about solipsism. But, if he were really just a collective hallucination of the world around him, was it one person’s hallucination or everyone’s? Did he pass back and forth between jobs and family and friends because he was skittish and flighty, or because he only showed up when they wanted him around? Was there a difference? What kind of self important assclown dreams that kind of shit up anyway? Could he be an expression of the unconscious desires of Glenn Beck?
The robotic, yet soothing voice of the CTA called out “This is Grand.”
He leaned back, closed his eyes and woke up.
It’s hard for some people to imagine the apocalypse, it wasn’t for him. Enter Nicolas, a man in his early 30s, with dark features and even darker thoughts. Humanity disgusted him, and he lived life with as little human interaction as possible. He worked his cubicle, rode the train, and slept in his studio apartment. [...]]]>On the walk from union Nicolas’ mind wandered, completely oblivious to his surroundings. Despite his nihilism he was fascinated with time and history. He thought of the great Chicago fire, about How the city was purified in the flames. Something alive must die, to be resurrected.
Before he had realized it he had arrived at the lobby. He glanced at his watch, June 23rd 3:53pm. Slightly early he decided to sit down for a moment, not entirely eager to force conversation with his parents. He sat, and his thoughts struck on the 1968 democratic convention. It doesn’t matter how many people disagree with any particular governmental or political policy, it doesn’t really become important unless those that disagree are willing to die for that cause. And those in Power don’t even flinch at the flickering of just a few souls. Nicolas couldn’t even estimate how many would have to die to actually change the world. Perplexed, he gathered himself and his thoughts. And prepared to enter the building.
Upon stepping out of the revolving door, Nicolas reached for his wallet, took out his Driver’s lisence and his REALID card, and Walked up to the doorman. Nicolas avoided eye contact, and handed his papers. The doorman took his hand off his 9mm to inspect the cards. Nicolas stared at the man’s bullet proof vest and badge, when the doorman said, “Hold still”
The doorman turned around and pulled out a machine. Essentially a laptop, connected to several other components: three lenses that operated at different spectra, a satrelay dish and a cornucopia like apparatus. The doorman then turned it on: Nicolas’s muscles spasmed for a second while the scanner initiated. It penetrated Nicolas on a level so deep, on an electromagnetic stage it probed the inner connectivity of all my vital organs. The doorman half smiled when he read the only threat level Nicolas indicated “suicide watch”handed Nicolas his ID back and he stepped into the elevator and pressed 53.
As Nicolas fascinated as he was with death and repulsed by humanity, he never relished in the death of others. It was a pure curiosity, a bloodied innocence. He was forever questioning how and why wars were started. The assination of Ferdinand, The Lusitania, The Reichstag, The gulf of Tonkin, and the one with the numbers, oh yeah 911. These all seemed to rigged, fixed events. Nicolas wasn’t a paranoid, but he couldn’t help to believe there was a guiding hand in history.
Nicolas arrived at his parents, hugs and all, he smiled and nodded. All those pleasantries that with any other human would make him sick inside. His mother handed him a sweatshirt, “you left this here at Easter.” Nicolas noticed it was heavier than it should be, checked the pockets and inside found a book. “Foucault’s pendulum.” Nicolas sat at the dining room table flipping through and almost reading random passages, while his dad turned on the TV.
Nicolas was jolted to his feet when he heard his mother scream:
OHMYGOD
Nasaimages.org used with Creative Commons License
Every channel was the same. A stream from NBC news, Along the ticker it read; Asteroid hits earth off the coast of Japan. Tsunamis heading for N.America.
Nobody moved, Nobody said anything. standing in disbelief. Nicolas finally walked over the balcony looking out at the horizon he saw nothing unusual.
The anchorwoman, was visibly nervous, but tried to put on a brave face as she went on to say that japan is decimated along with the first 200 miles of inland china. That scientists have been tracking the asteroid and it wasn’t until yesterday that its trajectory had changed to a collision course. it cuts to an interview with a researcher who says “we don’t know what happen, but some force acted upon the asteroid to deflect it towards earth. We have no idea what that could’ve cause the deflection.”
The anchorwoman is handed a new piece of copy, and trembles as she reads, “It now appears that the impact has triggered several tectonic events throughout the ring of fire in SE Asia.
Nicolas didn’t notice it at first, but now began to feel a deep pit in his stomach.
They had no idea what to do so they all sat and stared at the television. It was the same information over and over for about ten minutes when. Cutting to a different feed. A man was saying that the first waves were hitting the west coast. The waves cresting at border of Denver and Idaho. After that the screen went static. Nicolas looked at his dad, who didn’t even bother pouring the wine into a glass anymore, his mother violently trembling on the couch. He stood up and walked to the balcony again. This time the horizon was glowing red.
Nicolas looked to the north, and saw something rising in the horizon. He stared at it in amazement; with no sense of time couldn’t tell how long it was before he was looking right the crest of the wave. Nicolas ran inside, and hid in the closet. After all the thoughts about death for some reason Nicolas felt the need to survive.
It wasn’t long before he felt the whole building lean and rock back, and the water broke all the windows. All Nicolas could see was darkness, while he heard the entire city crumble. It went by in seconds before a very quiet minute passed. Nicolas went to the balcony again. Only to be looking up and the crest on the next wave. He barely got back to the closet before the apartment was submerged. When Nicolas opened his eyes, his ears rang. He was washed out of the closet and was slumped against the wall, he saw his parents motionless on the floor in the next room.
Nicolas didn’t know what to do, but knew he didn’t want to be in that building anymore. It wasn’t until he hit the stairs that he realized he was still holding on the book. And when he did, the pit in his stomach grew.
When he reached the floor he ran outside, to see over turned cars, hear sirens, bodies. It was all too much information to process. The only idea in his head now was run. And he did, towards grant park. When he reach millennium park he looked up at the skyline and noticed that the sears tower had fallen and taken out the CBOT.
It seemed to get quieter as he made his way toward bucking ham fountain. He then noticed a guy dressed like a SWAT waving at him from the lakeshore. With nowhere else in his mind. Nicolas ran across the deserted Lakeshore Drive to the guy.
“I’ve been waiting for you” he yelled as soon as Nicolas was in range. The man introduced himself as Charlie. And ushered Nicolas into a yellow rubber raft
“what’s going on?” asked Nicolas
“you probably know more than i do” Charlie responded.
Charlie then pushed the raft into the lake grabbed the paddle and began making his way north. Nicolas sat in silence, he had so many questions but, just couldn’t put them into voiceable words. A few minutes passed, when Charlie took out a compass and said, “I guess its still happening”
“what’s still happening?”
“The poles are shifting.” Charlie then showed the compass to Nicolas and he saw that the needle was spinning wildly.
“Is that what cause the asteroid to hit?” he asked
“I have no idea.”
“How did you know the poles were shifting?”
“When it ends, that’s when He should show up.”
“Who’s he?”
Charlie looked back at the compass and saw it stabilize. Now showing south as north. Just then, the noise of rushing water, and a submarine surfaces about 100 yards away from the raft.
“Him?”
“Yeah.”
Charlie paddles to the sub, while Nicolas watches as a tall dark skinned man pops out of the hatch.
“Hello Nicolas. I’m Hagbard Celine. and you have a date with destiny.”
They climbed into the sub. Hagbard tried to explain to Nicolas what was going to happen.
“We are going to see Gaea. The soul of earth; several miles beneath the north pole…There is something special about you Nicolas”
“What is that?”
“Its how you see the world. We’ve been watching you and have found that you are the only one that can do this. “
“Do what?”
“Save the world”
“How?”
“Sacrifice. One soul to save them all.”
“We’re here” Charlie chimed in.
Clambering out of the sub, in some underground rivershore. Nicolas hagbard and Charlie walked into a cave as hagbard lit a torch.
On the walls were ancient carvings that seem to defy modern ideas of ancient culture. Chinese images were juxtaposed with Egyptian and European ancient styles.
As they walked there seemed to be a glow. Soon it overwhelmed the torchlight. They stood in front of a massive ball of light. Blinding if it weren’t so soft.Nicolas could touch the light.
“Ok here we are”, Hagbard said
“This is where you die”
Nicolas took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Jeff Disler is a Chicago writer and musician. He read this as part of our monthly “Liquid Burning of Apocalyptic Bard Letters” series on May 13th.