Secretly, I have a fondness for post-apocalyptic fiction. Admittedly, if you were to rank this genre of literature, the red-haired stepchild of science fiction, it would probably only rise slightly above bodice rippers, Watership Down, or anything written by Jean Auel. I can’t help it, however, I’m completely hooked on these novels.
All of these books follow a firmly established 3-step pattern: The good life is unexpectedly ended forever by the catastrophe leaving the protagonists to struggle for survival in a dystopian world. This formula was firmly established by Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis and rarely does an author stray from this well-beaten path. (And just to make sure you understood the lesson, Noah repeated the formula.)
It was while reading a new entry in this genre—sadly, one that doesn’t deserve mentioning—that it occurred to me that frequently the protagonists don’t realize the world they knew is gone forever, that they have slowly slid into a dystopian world without realizing they have irrevocably passed the apocalyptic threshold. Instead of a dramatic apocalyptic event, there was a series of small steps that transpired so slowly, that by the time the situation became desperate, the problems had no solution. And more often than not, this future world is a desert exactly like the New Mexico I call home.
Naturally, these realizations reminded me of the current pandemic and the inevitable personal question: Am I already living in a post-apocalyptic world? Guessing that you, too, are wrestling with this question, I have prepared an informative quiz.
The “Do I Live in a Dystopian World” Quiz.
- Are you currently hoarding more than 20 rolls of toilet paper? Though the vast majority of toilet paper is manufactured domestically and the availability is not affected by the problems in the supply chain, grocery stores still report a periodic ‘runs’ on wiper paper. Meanwhile, all of the upper management at Procter & Gamble (the manufacturers of Charmin) are currently shopping for mega-yachts.
- Have you walked into any business unmasked any time recently? Covid mandates may have been eased, but are there still places you can’t go without wearing a mask? Five years ago, if I entered my bank wearing a mask, I would have been shot. Today, everyone in the bank resembles Jesse James.
- Is your pantry overflowing? Is your freezer packed? Do you have still have more than two dozen bags of Ramen noodles you bought during the early days of the pandemic? Did you buy more cans of Campbell soup than you are likely to need in the next twelve months? Are you still wondering why you bought all those cans of Spam?
- Have you bought a gun in the past year? Twenty million Americans bought a firearm in the last year and one in five of them were first time gun owners. The last time I went to the local gun range, it seemed like every damn one of those newbie gun owners was there. Compared to staying at the range with those morons, it would have been safer to drive across Texas in a pink Prius sporting a “Hillary 2024” bumper sticker.
- Has it been more than 30 days since you ate dinner at a table inside a restaurant, went to a movie theater, visited a museum or library, or had a beer with a friend at a bar?
- Are you buying substantially less gas for your car than you did three years ago? (I think I only filled my car twice in 2021.)
- Are the only people you regularly see a small handful of close friends who could qualify as your gang? Have you gone weeks without smiling at a stranger? Smiling behind a mask doesn’t count. Because you are wearing a mask in public and know that people can’t see your facial expressions, do you find yourself acting rudely more often? (I hope this is common, otherwise, I’m becoming a real asshole…Or perhaps just a bigger one.)
- In the last year, have you binge watched all of the seasons of more than three television shows? (I’m guilty of this one, having polished off Bones, Psych, and House. Currently, I’ve downloaded all 271 episodes of the original Perry Mason and am slowly working my way through them. Did you know that in season six, while Raymond Burr was recovering from surgery, Bette Davis stepped in and took his place?
- Does it seem like evil is growing by leaps and bounds? Is meaningless violence becoming more prevalent daily and… Oh, hell yes!—This one is a given. Did you know that violence against Asian women is up 4300% over the last twelve months? Why? It is hard to imagine a more gentle, harmless group of Americans.
- Have you totally lost confidence in anything any government leader now says? Has the phrase “follow the science” lost all meaning for you? Do you still trust and listen to your own personal physician, but believe anyone on television wearing a white lab coat is incapable of correctly stating the date?
- Do you have masks and hand sanitizer in your coat pocket, in your car, in your purse, or in your office drawer…or (Heaven help us!) in several of the above convenient locales? Isn’t it kind of strange that your car doesn’t have a first aid kit, but has several surgical masks?
If you answered even half of these in the affirmative, then (unfortunately) you are already living in your own personal science fiction story. The zombies aren’t staggering down your street: they are confined to the anchor desks of the evening news and to your state legislature. There doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it, either, beyond grabbing one of the above novels and studying for the final exam.
One last novel I’d recommend: Try The Children of Men by P. D. James. Instead of there being a sudden apocalyptic event, it portrays a world transformed by a series of small events that reach a climax in the year 2021. You know the book has to be great—the main character is a historian.
I read that Perry Mason was modeled after Percy Foreman, a shady Houston lawyer noted for getting criminals off through courtroom shenanigans. I saw Percy in action my senior year. Our history professor took us to observe the trial of Charles Harrelson (Woodie's dad)for the murder of federal judge John Wood. A man near me in the gallery, evidently a veteran Percy watcher whispered, "Watch how Foreman distracts the jury."
ReplyDeleteForeman was smoking a cigarette (you could do that in courtrooms in that day). Actually he wasn't smoking it, just holding it in front of him, elbow on the table in full view of the jury. As the prosecutor droned on the ash on the end of the cigarette grew longer and longer. Percy didn't flick the ash into the ashtray on the desk, he just let it grow. Someone later told me that Percy would insert a wire through the cigarette to support the ash. Throughout the last half of the prosecutor's examination of the witness, the jury watched that ash, mesmerized, waiting for the ash to fall. Foreman left it hanging precariously from the end of the cigarette until the prosecutor announced, "Your witness." Whereupon Foreman flicked the ash into the ashtray, laid down his smoke and rose to cross-examine the witness. The jury sort of shook itself as though waking from a dream and turned its full attention to Foreman. Harrelson got life, dying in prison in 2008 I believe it was. He was up for the death penalty, so I expect he got credited for a win. It was an interesting look for a high school senior like me at how lawyers manipulate juries. It set me up to see through the way politicians manipulate what people see and explained how we wound up with Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barak Obama and the truly dismal Joe Biden. I think they would all have used Percy's cigarette trick had the party not set its cap against smoking. Instead they had to do things like bomb aspirin factories and Yugoslavian villages to draw attention away from getting caught with nubile interns providing unauthorized services under the desk in the Oval Office. It's the same game just on a larger more expensive scale.