It was inevitable, mans greed and short sightedness had to catch up with him eventually right? Civilized society couldn’t last forever. Everyone assumed it would be nuclear war or biological warfare, especially after all the virus scares and the chaos that ensued. As it happens in the end it came in the form of mundane solar flares and an unfortunate coincidental slight tilting of the earth’s magnetic core. At first it was just a few satellites lost, minor inconveniences, loss of cell phone, internet, etc. Annoying but life went on. Then the GPS satellites got fried, traffic was a nightmare, supply chains were disrupted, store shelves were more and more sporadic in what was available. Still, things went on more or less like normal, that is until wide spread utility grids started to fail. Technology was so engrained in our lives that we couldn’t function without it. Oh there were attempts to rebuild of course, but the solar flares were here to stay. Each success seemed to be shorter lived than the last. Resources and sheer will power were waning. And of course anytime someone started to make any progress other people wanted to reap the benefits also, so the people who worked so hard to try to save things always had the fruits of their labor stolen or watched it be overran and destroyed by others. Eventually they gave up. Or so the stories go. If you still believe in all of that. Either way that was generations ago. If it wasn’t for the rubble left over from these supposed great civilizations I doubt anyone would think there used to be more.
As it is now, only three things matter, FOOD, WATER, and FUEL. It’s what we need to survive. Nothing else is important. Survival. Nothing more, nothing less, just survive. As a matter of efficiency over time our small societal group has formed subgroups to concentrate on these areas. I don’t know if its lack of imagination or the fact that most of the people left are illiterate, but the workers that are delegated to these tasks are identifiable by the color assigned to their duties. Red for fuel gatherers, wood mainly, coal if it can be found. Blue for those responsible for hauling and purifying the water (how original right?). Yellow for food gatherers, probably because corn is yellow and that is all that we seem to be able to grow with any consistency. God I’m sick of corn.
Not an exciting life by any stretch of the imagination, but a life none the less. Sometimes you have to make the best with what you got. Right? But people can’t seem to stay content. Who knows if it was boredom or greed, just the human nature of needing to feel superior to others but it’s happened. Someone decided that their function was more important than the others. So they needed a bigger portion of the God damn corn. Then the arguments ensued. We grow the food, we deserve more! Without water you would all be dead in days! Well without fuel you couldn’t purify the water or preserve the food and you all would freeze to death! You get the idea. We are more deserving, give us more. Of course when this didn’t work out asking and giving turned to taking. So people took. They banded together with their coworker tribes and took. Our storehouses have been ransacked, looted and burned. Each color tribe has retreated to opposite corners of our lands. Each day we return to the center where everything started to salvage what we can. Of course nowhere is safe we attack their bases, they attack ours. Now that no one is producing the only way to survive is steal from the others. Kill or be killed. Resources and territory are all that matter. We mark our territory like the neighborhood dog would. Well sort of, what good would that do since we can’t really tell whose piss it is anyway? So we identify dominance through our colors. Who’s winning the war of survival today? What was one of the earliest forms of human communication? What color is the SMOKE?
As it is now, only three things matter, FOOD, WATER, and FUEL. It’s what we need to survive. Nothing else is important. Survival. Nothing more, nothing less, just survive. As a matter of efficiency over time our small societal group has formed subgroups to concentrate on these areas. I don’t know if its lack of imagination or the fact that most of the people left are illiterate, but the workers that are delegated to these tasks are identifiable by the color assigned to their duties. Red for fuel gatherers, wood mainly, coal if it can be found. Blue for those responsible for hauling and purifying the water (how original right?). Yellow for food gatherers, probably because corn is yellow and that is all that we seem to be able to grow with any consistency. God I’m sick of corn.
Not an exciting life by any stretch of the imagination, but a life none the less. Sometimes you have to make the best with what you got. Right? But people can’t seem to stay content. Who knows if it was boredom or greed, just the human nature of needing to feel superior to others but it’s happened. Someone decided that their function was more important than the others. So they needed a bigger portion of the God damn corn. Then the arguments ensued. We grow the food, we deserve more! Without water you would all be dead in days! Well without fuel you couldn’t purify the water or preserve the food and you all would freeze to death! You get the idea. We are more deserving, give us more. Of course when this didn’t work out asking and giving turned to taking. So people took. They banded together with their coworker tribes and took. Our storehouses have been ransacked, looted and burned. Each color tribe has retreated to opposite corners of our lands. Each day we return to the center where everything started to salvage what we can. Of course nowhere is safe we attack their bases, they attack ours. Now that no one is producing the only way to survive is steal from the others. Kill or be killed. Resources and territory are all that matter. We mark our territory like the neighborhood dog would. Well sort of, what good would that do since we can’t really tell whose piss it is anyway? So we identify dominance through our colors. Who’s winning the war of survival today? What was one of the earliest forms of human communication? What color is the SMOKE?