Night (The Long Dark Teatime...)

Sitting outside this evening, as the darkness deepened and the mosquitos were biting, I listened to the neighborhood slowly quiet down. Gone now are the quads (4X4/ATV) and the kids shouting, the cars comming and going, the signs of ordinary life.

There's no birds now, and with the clear sky I can see some stars (I'm in town, so many are washed out by the glow from the nearby city), and the ocassional jet flying high overhead, headed ... who knows where?

I'm writing on my old tablet, listening to music streaming on my phone to a Bluetooth speaker, and the phone is connected to a WiFi extender which is connected to a second Ethernet router, which is connected to my main router which uses slow DSL to be my bridge to the world. (I'm in a cell phone black hole, at the low spot on my side of town.)

I enjoy reading "what-if" fiction, and both fiction and pundits sometimes take a look at doomsday scenerios. What if there was a more serious pandemic? What if the culdera of Yellowstone erupted into the 10,000 year volcano? What if? 

And recently, some wise compassionate politicians in New York City chose to make a Public Service video, reminding many of us of how life was lived into the 1970s. In the event of a nuclear attack, go inside, get away from the windows, and wait for further instructions!

Sure, in the event of a nuclear attack, the danger  to many is the fallout, not the blast itself. Of course, if you're in the direct blast zone, like Heroshima, your chances are poor. But many would be outside the immediate threat, and the danger is the radioactive dust cloud. Staying inside, away from windows, gives you some chance to avoid the worst danger as the dust settles. And hopefully, it'll rain soon, washing the worst of the radioactive danger into the storm sewers and the waterways of the nation. 

And  then what? I suspect that many of our dystopian nightmare of a collapsed economy, collapsed infrastructure, loss of freight and goods incoming into the city, loss of power and water and telecommunications... all of this might come true, either directly because of the atomic blast, or indirectly from fear or gradual systemic failures.

I personally wouldn't expect to live too long, as a diabetic,  and many others would also die within the first month, first quarter, first year of the super disaster. Doesn't matter much which scenerio summons the death angel, it'll still wipe out a large portion of the population, even far from the direct impact of the disaster.  

On a cool quiet summer night, one can get a sense of what it might be like after the world effectively comes to an end. 

And then a car turns the corner, shedding a brief bright glare into my eyes, and I think it's time to go inside. 

(I need to find the spell check tool in Blogger! LOL Plus, I'm not used to this compact chicklet Bluetooth keyboard.)