I
run my hands through my hair and stare at my computer screen. I'm not
sure what to include. I drink some coffee and try and concentrate.
It's
11am on a Tuesday morning. I'm at work. I'm ignoring the post I am
supposed to be writing for the website (subject: it is in the best
interests of everyone - especially our customers - if we double the
penalty charges for late repayment) in favour of compiling a list of
items I need to acquire to give me a fighting chance of escaping the
coming apocalypse.
I've
been concerned for some time that humanity is heading for meltdown,
one way or another. If you look at our filthy, violent,
disease-ridden and brutal history, it's plain to see that at the
moment we live in a golden age of health, peace and prosperity. Which
we have used as an excuse to be decadent and profligate beyond the
dreams of Roman emperors. It can't last.
It's
difficult to say what the final straw will be. Global warming? The
death of the bees? Nuclear war? We finally consume all the resources
and there's nothing left?
My
personal bet is a disease. Some wild pathogen with a 99 per cent kill
rate gets into someone's blood-stream somewhere and ends up taking
out the majority of humanity. It would need to be airborne, because
fluid transmission wouldn't spread fast enough, and it would need a
period of four or five days maybe before you knew you were ill.
But
if something that lethal – some Ebola variant, or a superflu like
Stephen King's Captain Trips – ever did emerge we would all be
completely fucked within a couple of weeks. Considering you can cross
the world in less than 48 hours now, all a very contagious flu-type
would need would be one infected person reaching a major city with an
airport. This is not just possible, but actually likely. It's
happened before. The Black Death. The Spanish flu. And that was in
the era before global travel.
The
only way to avoid something like that would be to lock yourself in
total isolation until the disease had burned itself out, and then you
would have to contend with whatever came afterwards (bodies decaying
in the streets, meaning disease and contaminated water; no food;
other survivors).
Of
course, I am doing everyone concerned the courtesy of assuming that
such a thing evolved naturally. I know there are people out there
working on bioweapons. Of course there are. I can think of it,
therefore other people can think of it, so somewhere it's happening.
Honestly, sometimes I think the universe would be better off if a
species as dumb as us made itself extinct before getting
off the planet.
I'm
not entirely sure I want to survive the apocalypse, considering I'll
probably end up fighting off packs of starving dogs for a scrap of
food, but that's not the point of the game.
I
start typing.
Boxes
of disposable gloves
If
it's a disease, I don't want to be touching anything that might have
virus on it
Tough
biker leather gloves
Going
to run out of disposable gloves at some point. Also, God knows what
I'm going to have to be handling.
Face
mask, or gas mask if I can get one
See
above re disease transmission. Also, if the city is full of decay,
which it will be, you run all the associated risks of illness. And
the smell is going to be horrific.
Water
purification tablets
Absolutely
vital. Clean water is unlikely to be available during this level of
crisis. Boiling water for more than five minutes and then filtering
it through clean cloth will serve the same purpose, but I might as
well use the tablets until I have to start doing the other.
Fire
lighters/matches/candles
There
won't be electricity and any food I eat is going to have to be cooked
to destroy bacteria. Also, if it's winter, I'm going to need to keep
warm.
Wind-up
torch and wind-up radio
See
above re electricity
Out
of the corner of my eye, I see my colleague Maria approaching,
clutching an envelope. I panic, randomly click buttons to cover
myself, and only succeed in bringing up Facebook and accidentally
clicking on the top post. Maria arrives at my desk just as I notice
that the top post is from Sally and features an arty black and white
photo of a naked and heavily tattooed pre-op transsexual. She is tied
to a window-frame. There are tits and dick everywhere.
There
is a horrific moment when I realise I am genuinely about to lose my
job, but Maria leaves the envelope on the corner of my desk without
looking at my screen. She smiles and moves on.
