Juice! A non partisan view of life in 2027, after TSHTF
Juice! A non partisan view of life in 2027, after TSHTF
by lawnorder
Wed Mar 2nd, 2005 at 01:54:19 CDT
The night was cold and damp, like late winter nights in Manhattan have been for decades. Times Square shined and flickered, the brightest point of the city, even today. The air was dense with smoke from the myriad of fires that were lending their brightness to the Square, just like neon lights used to do before TSHTF and the city ran out of Juice.
Rolf stopped at the nearest street vendor and browsed: cigarettes, a hairbrush, deodorant and some food cans. "Maybe Lynn will like the hairbrush", thought Ron, her last one had been sold to the subs last year, when Pa had pneumonia and couldn't work pedaling for Juice.
* "How much for the brush ?"
* "Just one matchbox, brotha, cheapest around!"
*
One matchbox! He had hoped to do a better trade, perhaps just a lump or two, but a whole matchbox ?!?
* "Do I look like a sub to you ?". "I'll give you two lumps and 3 matches for it."
* "Two lumps of coal and 5 matches. Sorry, brotha, it's the best I can do."
In a city that the cavemen offspring built with their mastery of energy and power, fire was again a matter of life and death.
Diaries :: lawnorder's diary ::
Rolf quickly paid the street vendor and grabbed the hairbrush. He wanted to go home and get warm again, but he wasn't done with his shopping, not yet. Ma had asked for a book, any book, or a magazine, if he could find it. So he kept on browsing.
"Ma and her books..", he thought, remembering how his mother managed to hold on to that kids book she used so much and a few others, during all those years, sometimes risking freezing but refusing to burn the books for fire. Without fire one could not cook, get warm, boil water and keep the rats at bay.
He kept on remembering his childhood...
Heat and night lights were among the first things to go missing after TSHTF and the subs abandoned the city. Food was the first.
After the Oil Wars of 2003 and 2007 a few started to notice that Oil was becoming a rare commodity. Some had noticed even before but those who saw the writing on the wall earlier were visionaries, with a head full of dreams and a belt empty of weapons. Their many inventive ways to survive after TSHTF were looted, broken and stolen by a mob of people hungry for Juice and it's many wonders, angry at the world for cutting them dry all of a sudden.
The Early Exodus of 2009 had been orderly and somehow escaped notice in the middle of all that was happening. Those lucky SOBs had 3 years of head start. When The Shit Hit The Fan in 2012 they were all out of Manhattan, living in the suburbs, fortified behind large concrete walls. Those rich suburban dwellers - subs - had stockpiled on food, wood, medicines and the like. No way a half starved city dweller could touch them.
The 2009 dirty bomb on Ellis Island and the riots of 2012 served as excuse for the subs to place guards on the bridges. They said they just wanted to avoid radiation covered materiel and people to leave Manhattan without a cleanup but everyone knows better. Right about that time the tunnels and the subway flooded. Urban myth says it was the subs but they deny it.
Stuck in a city living through the pains of Peak Oil and running out of Juice to power elevators, water pumps, cars, refrigerators, heaters and the like, a lot of people tried to leave. The subs tried to stop it but they too were running out of Juice so they opted for saving their bullets and guards to protect their own "Forts" and let people leave in the Mass Exodus of 2013. After that, only the very poor or the sick stayed in Manhattan.
That's when Pa was able to get our "house", more like a camping ground for our family in the charred remains of someone's apartment on the 35th floor. Pa even tried to board the windows but those boards are long gone used to feed the fire that kept us warm in the winter and safe in the summer. Pa and Ma had stayed to take care of my uncle Joe, who had lost an arm in the first Oil war but it turned out to be a fortuitous decision for our family too.
During the Mass Exodus of 2013 people had left in a hurry. They took all they could carry, but a lot was left behind. Bankrupt store chains and office companies didn't bother to come back to empty their stores and offices. I still remember my many foraging expeditions with Ma and Pa, around 5th Avenue and Wall Street, or even some past the bridge in that no mans land between us and the subs. Pa was able to secure a lot of stuff for us. Our life was somewhat comfortable at that time. Me and David even got a Christmas with a tree and all the trimmings once or twice.
But then word of the easy pickings started to spread and hungry, desperate people started pouring into Manhattan. Subs got into the game and started buying any plastic we had. Then they started wanting glass and metal too. They paid good for it, and they paid even better for anything we could find in pristine condition. Pretty soon Manhattan was gutted of anything remotely usable and the famine started.
There was not enough food to go around in the island, with all those new people. We had managed before, but things got pretty rough with Lynn being born and uncle Joe getting sicker. Pa had to start selling his stash of wonders he found foraging. He an I had to start working for the subs, pedaling those nasty exercise bikes to give them Juice.
On the streets, the trees were being cut to feed fires and the animals, pets left behind by their owners during the exodus, started... well, you can guess where Pa and many other people feeding their family found their protein. We thought about moving, but with uncle Joe needing his meds we couldn't go very far. New York had been one of the centers for pharmaceuticals on US, before TSHTF. After the crash, no one could afford shipping so products stayed were they were being manufactured. Pretty soon with just locals being able to buy their stuff the factories themselves had to close. Luckily they had oodles of products in their warehouses and in the docks of NY. So NY was and still is THE place to buy meds cheap. Well not cheap, but at least cheaper than the rest of the country. I think. No one travels much this days, with the cars out of Juice and the horses, donkeys and dogs gone, so I can't be sure.
They say that people living before TSHTF had so much Juice that they had the equivalent of 12 slaves working for them. For each one lucky SOB who managed to live in the care free years before the crash! It's hard to believe it today, but I do. I remember my foraging days. God, those people had so much stuff! Just the wood, plastic and paper one guy kept on his "cubicle" - that's how they called the place they worked, Pa tells me - could keep our family fed and clothed for a long time!
Ma makes me read this kid book she likes so much. It teaches kids about US, how it was formed, it's constitution, the flag, the bill of rights. The amendments. Ma makes me repeat each one by rote. Ask any one amendment. Go ahead!
Ma says we have to know those by heart, because they made the US a great country once, and they will do it again, if people don't forget they existed. Sometimes I wonder how a country that was so great managed to squander so much and save so little. Didn't they care about the future before TSHTF ?
With the 12 energy slaves for each person they could have given up a little, say 3 "energy slaves" and use them to build a better future for us, their children. I ask Ma this and she just keeps saying that that's why we can't forget our rights, our constitution and our history. That her generation and the people before them forgot and that's how they let things slip so far...
Daily Kos :: Juice! A non partisan view of life in 2027, after TSHTF
posted by lawnorder at 1:24 AM
