Here in the Pre-Apocalyptic Dystopian Present

You know, I had a post all ready about releasing this thing, because it is in fact finished, but I still haven’t found a place to post it, and I thought maybe I could attach a PDF to the blog post, but I can’t.

So, there was something that I thought I would post tomorrow, which I guess I am now posting today, and then try and find a way to post tonight, and tomorrow work out all my thoughts about zombies so I can start my new screenplay, and I hope blog a few posts ahead. I don’t like running behind like this. The fact that I do it to myself is completely irrelevant.

Speaking of that, if you are wondering if I am going to write based on a band again, I hope not. This has been a great experience, but I want to write stuff I can actually sell. Still, if the right inspiration comes along, it could happen.

I have been listening to Kids in the Street (All-American Rejects) a lot, and there are strong thematic elements, and I totally could pull a narrative out from it. It would be kind of downbeat, but, you know, I’ve been writing about the post-apocalyptic dystopian future. If the characters aren’t constantly struggling just to stay alive, it will be a step up.

However, AAR has not had a music video that traumatized me yet, and if I am not being overtaken by an idea, that’s for the best. It’s like sometimes you know you could fall for someone, and sometimes you’ve fallen before you get a chance to think.

What I was going to write about was that post-apocalyptic future though. What sets everything off here is that there are huge solar flares on December 21st, 2012, that knock out power and satellites and trigger some fires. Those conditions set off a flu epidemic in the main city, and you have a lot of people die, while at the same time wild fires on the outside are just not letting up. A Blackwater-like security firm and a pharmaceutical company are both providing services, and they merge and take over the area, mainly because they can. It’s all downhill from there.

Part of it is just trying to imagine what scenario would get us from where we are here in 2012, to where you have things like Draculoids and Killjoys fighting in the desert in 2019. It also did pull in my worst-case scenario plan though.

See, in my emergency preparedness background, I have thought about what would be the worst that could happen, and then use that as a baseline for how to prepare. My thought was in the middle of winter, after a lot of rain where the ground is just saturated, you have a major earthquake. The quake and the accompanying mudslides damage a lot of housing, so you have people exposed, and then the flu kicks in.

(Actually, worse might be it happening in a hot summer, because it is easier to make heat happen in the absence of power than to get cooling working.)

Obviously, I did not use the whole thing. That level of wet would not support the fires, which matter for the type of landscape you end up with, and an earthquake would not knock out satellites, so communication would come back up too soon, which would pretty effectively remove the opportunity for the corporate power grab. This is good though, because I don’t really want this all to happen. Things are already dystopian enough in the present.

Remember how early I read a case study about a future earthquake the day before it was set to happen, so that procrastination set me up for something really eerie? So I am working in that timeline now. Right now, Jane and Gerard would be in the middle of the semester. I’ve never tied anything to actual dates before, and it feels a little different.

I was telling a friend about it, and she asked if it does happen, does that make me a prophet. Well, we’ve covered that already, although it’s been a while:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2008/12/proposed-timeline-for-apocalypse-3185.html

I’m going to go with a “no”, but It would feel very awkward, and I would probably feel guilty, even though it really would not be my fault.