Which Shouldn't Come As A Surprise
BOOJUM! after all, is not about happy fluffy bunnies and sparkly rainbows. You can't call a diet of military history, the dark deeds of Modern-Day Mordor's Hellfire And Brimstone Export industry, and a certain morbidly-obese South Canadian and pretend that we love everyone. Art!
"Landscape with Dada trees"
So, today we are going to look at what my notes rather long-windedly called "Post-Apocalyptic die-off rate", as I've been pondering this very topic of late, usually when getting ready to doze off (for some inexplicable reason, my dreams only rarely feature fluffy bunnies and sparkly rainbows).
Put yourself in the shoes of a PA survivor. Hooray! You have survived the alien invasion/zombie pandemic/ superflu/meteor strike/AI revolt! Well done!
Then what? Art!
"The Stand" of recent iteration
Ol' Steve has a small chapter dedicated to the aftermath of 'Captain Trips', the superflu that killed 94.7 of all who contracted it and who weren't immune. You have people dying from plain bad luck, like the chap who insisted on jogging strenuously and died from a coronary thrombosis. Or the girl who fell off her bike and fractured her skull. Or the eejit who accidentally locked herself in a walk-in freezer and starved to death. Or the drunk woman who fell asleep in bed with a lit cigarette and who burned down her hometown (and herself). Or the chap who stepped on a rusty nail and got gangrene, and who died from trying to amputate his own foot. Egad! Art?
Yes, places like this will still exist in Ol' Steve's apocalyverse, as the superflu doesn't destroy physical objects (unlike a post-thermonuclear war scenario). But the doctors and paramedics will all be dead. There won't be anyone to pick up the sick or injured in an ambulance and stabilise them until delivery to a hospital. The hospital itself might have a back-up generator for when the national grid dies, which will itself only have a limited lifespan. There won't be any utilities functioning.
In Conrad's favourite John Wyndham novel - which would be far too expensive to make as a film and Netflix don't seem interested, either - "The Kraken Wakes", a chilling little encounter takes place at the end of the novel between the Masons and a bringer of news.
" - the population's down to between a fifth and an eighth of what it was - could be even less ... Pneumonia, mostly, he said, it was. Not much food, you see; no resistance, no medical services, no drugs, and three hellish winters -" Art!
That's as neat an encapsulation as you're likely to find. Plus, the novel was written in 1953 when the UK population was only 50 million. So potentially only 6 million survivors. Earlier, Bill Mason mentions the " - fearful tales about the guerilla warfare between starving bands that goes on in Devon - " and here you have another PA die-off influence - Hom. Sap. being beastly to other Hom. Sap.
I won't bother listing all the zombie apocalypses where human survivors are the biggest threat to other human survivors, or we'd be here all week. Art!
Case in point. Hollow-point! Ha! Do you se - O you do.
Well, except to point out in my own Zombie Apocalypse magnum opus, "Revelations", as order fractures and the rule of law is partially-suspended, bandits and robbers operate with a complete disregard for the rest of their community. Not with impunity; justice during an apocalypse tends to be rapid and terminal. Strangeways Prison suffers an epidemic that finished off three-quarters of the inmates, and nobody beyond it's walls is bothered, since fending off the undead hordes and eking out what food they have occupies rather more attention. Art!
Sweeping for "revs"
In "The Last Train", which I hasten to add is nothing to do with how bad TransPennineExpress are, rather about a group of train passengers who mysteriously sleep through a meteor strike on Planet Earth that has destroyed civilisation and reduced the population to a few straggling remnants. Art!
Sheffield never looked so lovely
They do throw in an unexpected Post-Apocalyptic die-off influencer; a pack of feral dogs that rip one of the unfortunate train crew into bits for dinner. Then, as ever, a band of those straggling remnants take umbrage with our Rip Van Winkle survivors and, amongst other things, crucify a couple of them. They do balk at doing the rotisserie over an open fire with them, even if they are hungry.
Well, I could go on, and may do again as this is an expansive topic. It just goes to show you, though, how what you thought was the end was in reality only the end of the beginning, and things are going to be entirely absent of fluffy bunnies and sparkly rainbows.
Not Quite Fluffy Bunnies And Rainbows
But getting there. What's this on the BBC's News website? Why, I shall prod Art into providing an illustration.
You say "Awwww!". Conrad sees a snack.
Say hello to one of the characters from Lewis Carroll: a dormouse.
Ladders have been built in the Forest of Dean for dormice to get around the forest.
No, I'm not making this up. We have proof. Art!
These aerial walkways - or 'scurryways', I suppose as a more apt term - connect one part of the Forest of Dean to another, bridging a road that would be hazardous for the mice to cross.
Going To The Other Extreme
My last post about 'Crisis Point', honest. To sum up our "Cold War Commander" Czechoslovakia 1948 game, by Turn 17 the Czechs had reached their Breaking Point. That is, they had lost sufficient units to need to check and see if they would carry on. Art!
Unfortunately for them, Andy the umpire rolled an 11 on two dice, when he needed to roll as low as possible. SO the Czechs broke and ran, which downplays that their Mission Briefing was to delay the Soviets as much as possible. They certainly did that since the game was expected to last 12 moves. Art!
The players, from port to starboard: Phil, Andy, Ron, Dex, Neil and Conrad's 'Star Wars' Christmas sweater (it was cold first thing in the village hall and it was the nearest warm clothing to hand).
"City In The Sky"
The Doctor, Ace and Captain Kirwin have arrived in the derelict and ruined city of Adelaide, all the better to collect - party poppers and confetti?
‘I suggest you retrieve a helmet from your bag and put it on,
Captain. It helps you to adjust a little
quicker,’ said the Doctor. Ace
recognised all the symptoms that Alex experienced days ago.
‘D’you think we’ll find any of this stuff?’ she asked.
‘Do your best. A party and
novelty shop would be a good start.’
Captain Kirwin, now with a stern expression, a gently quivering lower
lip and a helmet seated firmly on her head, came striding out into the warmth
of an
‘Wow,’ she whispered.
Checking his half-hunter, the Doctor waved his umbrella majestically.
‘Back here in sixty minutes!
Captain, these buildings are derelict and in peril of collapse. Do be careful.’
The Doctor’s recommendation about a party supplies shop had been wise,
reflected Ace. Looting, panic buying or
forcible government requisition might very well affect supermarkets, or hardware
shops, or a hundred and one other types of business – but an inessential
purveyor of fripperies would be left undisturbed. Thus “Dais ‘s D lgh s”, as the sign almost
said, yielded up the candles, plastic cups, foil and balloons from her list,
plus a couple of items she might need in an emergency. Captain Kirwin had found tea-lights, no
balloons but a stack of partly-perished black bin-liners, and the Doctor came
jangling back with armfuls of coathangers.
You may well ask. Don't worry, all will be revealed.
Living Dangerously By Tempting Fate
One of Your Humble Scribe's pet peeves about both the weather and Edna's need for exercise is that, when the skies are blue and the sun is sunning, the streets of Lesser Sodom are positively infested with dogwalkers. I have also been proven emphatically wrong when the weather is bad, cockily musing "O there can't possibly be anyone else out walking their dog in weather this torrentially wet!"
What did I espy shortly before leaving The Mansion with Edna? Art!
This must be the manifestation of a dog-walking club. Just remember what I said about a ruined landscape ruled by rabid packs of ravenous slavering canines, and don't forget to feed Bowser and Spike.
Finally -
Counting down to Friday. Why so? I'll let you know.
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