Här är något annat jag började skriva på för några år sedan, på engelska. Storyn är ganska bra, måste jag väl ändå säga. Kanske borde jag återuppta skrivandet av berättelsen?
Freedom Forever
On July 4, 2012 at 4.21 p.m. Winston was eating a very good pizza when suddenly the world changed. His new neighbors were all down in Battery Park for the free concert, so he took the opportunity to listen to his old Metallica albums on a volume set to kill. His favorite was the Ride the Lightning LP, which he was enjoying at this moment. At the same time he had the TV on, watching re-runs of the Simpsons. As a true computer geek, he prided himself with the capability of such multitasking. Suddenly the program was interrupted by a strained news woman without the regular make-up, which was a good indicator that something big had happened. At first Winston was quite annoyed that Simpsons was interrupted, but after half a minute or so he began to realize what had happened. For the first time in his life, Winston turned off the stereo to listen to the news – this was not usually his chain of priorities. At 4.08 p.m. Hollywood and big parts of western Los Angeles had ceased to exist. The Big Nuke, later also known as Biggie, had just eradicated millions of American lives and changed the world forever.
Two extreme measures were taken in the United States as a direct response to this terrorist act. Firstly George W. Bush was taken out of retirement and appointed “President for the Era” (that is without time limit) to eradicate the threat of Islamic extremists. Secondly President Bush formed an Executive Committee, inspired by the group leading the nation during the Cuban missile crisis, and transferred all state powers to this small group of people. Thus the congress was “temporarily” dissolved. Even the Supreme Court accepted this after a quick amendment to the constitution, since the founding fathers could not ever foresee nuclear equipped Islamic terrorists. As this was announced there was some demonstrations and domestic insurgency, but most Americans saw it as a valid response to the extreme threat to homeland security.
The supporters of the abruptly retired president Bowman was of course upset, but when threatened to be sent to the newly reopened concentration camp at Guantanamo as enemies of the state and supporters of terrorism, most of them became silent. Bowman himself was forced to make a public statement where he declared that under these extreme circumstances he stepped down and transferred all executive powers to Bush who, Bowman said, “had more experience in handling terrorist acts on American soil” and that “at this moment we need a war president”. Under the slogan of “freedom forever” Bush began his transformation of the world.
It is a strange thing; a dictatorship said to be based on the idea of defending freedom and democracy. In retrospect, it was truly odd that no one saw what was happening before it was too late.
Chapter one, may 2014.
Where we get to know Winston, the obese newbie potato-farmer, and Philip Allison, the patriot.
May 4, 2014. Winston sat in his Manhattan apartment at the corner of Greenwich and Charles. Right across the street he could see the open space where the flea market used to be in early May. Now the place looked like a junkyard, filled with garbage, cars and other useless things. Some of the cars was actually not older than two years, but still totally worthless now that there was no gas anywhere on Manhattan. Sometimes Winston used to go over there and sit in the Porsche dumped there, and fantasize of the better times now gone. He always wondered who it used to belong to, and what that person did now. The image created in Winston’s mind was of a successful young businessman, living in a spacious flat in the area, maybe working in the financial district around Wallstreet. The car had an aura of past successes, power, youth and … freedom. There was not much left of the car now, the red paint had been scratched, the windows smashed in and the seats and wheels removed. The engine seemed to be more or less untouched – no one had any use for it. But still, this car represented the good old days to Winston. He had also seen others in the car, some just sitting there and staring in front of them, others crying or laughing. But nowadays it was quite unusual to see people at all in this neighborhood, especially anyone not living here. The only place in the vicinity that was visited by anyone other than the plunderers was the memorial down the street. It was a steel fence covered with glazed tiles, originally dedicated to the victims of 9/11, but now it was used as a place for non-specific grief and remembrance. A lot of the tiles were broken by now, and the fence was rusting. A lot of junk was piled up there, just like everywhere. But all the junk in the world could not disturb the peace of the memorial. It was magic.
Just like most folks, Winston didn’t want to live here either; but he could not afford to pay the bribes needed to get a permit to move. He quite often contemplated on the irony that he had moved in from north Bronx just a few weeks before the Big Nuke. How he had struggled to get this apartment in the (at the time very trendy) West Village! How much overtime he worked to save the money needed for the down payment! Oh, misery! Half a year after he bought it, it was more or less worthless. No one wanted to live in the city centre after the Big Nuke. It seemed very obvious to all that New York was a very attractive target for nuclear armed terrorists. First they blew up LA and Hollywood in the Big Nuke, obviously to cripple American cultural dissemination. Everyone expected New York to be the second target, to disable the western economy. Bearing in mind the economic panic after 9/11, one could expect a never before seen economic disaster if Manhattan were eradicated. The big depression of 1929 would be a breeze in comparison, and therefore it was considered to be just a matter of time before the attack would come. Thus, no one wanted to live there, despite President Brown’s initial attempts to get people to stay. Only half a year later when Bush/ExCom decided that a permit was needed to move, and disobedience were severely punished, the outpouring was somewhat halted. Billboards were posted all over with the message that Manhattan had to be populated, or the terrorists would have won. For the sake of Freedom, we all had to give up some of our rights, “temporarily of course”. As always from this time forth, these messages were accompanied by the “Freedom Forever” logotype. But this ban on movement was already too late; over 85% of the population had fled from the city core. The people still trapped in Manhattan soon renamed their island Dis, and the surrounding rivers were known as East Styx and West Styx respectively. This was naturally banned by the authorities as subversive activity, but still frequently used.
Winston was one of those still left behind in Dis. He had nowhere to go, and did definitely lack the financial means necessary after he spent his life savings on the apartment. Sure, it was a quite nice apartment, but Winston was sick of it. Since there were no jobs to be found in this part of the country if you weren’t interested in a military career (which he wasn’t, and even if he would be, he was not quite fit for service), he spent most of his days just sitting in or near his apartment, trying to find someone to blame for his misery. The rest of the time was spent looting abandoned apartments or taking care of Eden, as he called his collection of plants in buckets, tubs and bowls on the roof. He had quite a collection, eight buckets and two old bathtubs with potato plants, and three smaller bowls which he planted herbs and spices in. It might not have looked much, and it would not keep him fed for more than a couple of weeks, but to Winston it was not only a source but just as much a secret rebellion. He had worked almost a full month to find enough stuff to trade for the seed potatoes and herb seeds from the local gang, and then he had to carry topsoil from a park nearby for two full nights to be able to create his Eden. So far no one had discovered his garden, except his closest neighbor Rose who he had to bribe with a promise of some potatoes. She was a good old woman, but starving. Winston liked her, and tried to help her sometimes. She reminded him of his grandmother.
It was actually not that society as a whole had broken down. The rest of the country outside Dis was more or less functional, except for the area around LA obviously. The main difference now was that people were terrified, and that basically all productive capabilities of the nation were transformed into one gigantic war machine. Not even during the Second World War had the whole American society been so focused on war – it was virtually impossible to find a job that was not a part of the war effort, or “the struggle for freedom” as it was officially named. But in Dis society had collapsed. And God knows that the island, except for the parks, was not fit for producing food. Sure, the government did provide food and other necessities to the population of Dis at a few places throughout the area, but they required registration and the signing of a loyalty agreement, the patriot agreement, to provide the minimum amount of food. If you wanted to get more food than was required for mere survival you could sign an additional agreement to become a “Freedom Fighter” – that was a euphemism for becoming the neighborhood spy. As such you agreed to report any suspicious behavior to the officials – including behaviors as for example calling Manhattan “Dis”, growing your own food instead of eating the food provided by the government, saying anything remotely negative about the president (or any other official for that matter), not going to church, openly doubting the truthfulness of the Fox News reports or any other of a long list of unpatriotic activities. In this perspective Winston enjoyed eating his home-grown potato and looted snack bars; and staying out of Philip Allison’s way – the most notorious Freedom Fighter in the area. In full compliance with Murphy’s Law, Allison lived on the same block as Winston.
Winston had never been a fan of self-proclaimed do-gooders, or “anal idiots” as he preferred to call them ever since he read that article about Sigmund Freud and his theories. Well, sometimes he varied himself by calling them “fascistic idiots”. He himself favored a more laidback lifestyle, not bothering anyone and expecting the same treatment in return. In the time prior to the Biggie, Winston was a webmaster for a local organization of pizza restaurants. The salary was not that fantastic, but he didn’t have to pay rent for his room above one of the restaurants, he could eat all the pizza he wanted for free and he could decide when and where he wanted to work. Most of the time that meant late nights in front of the computer and a stack of pizzas next to him. As he dreamt of getting an apartment in the Village, he successfully convinced the pizza-conglomerate that they needed a bunch of very advanced and stylish functions on their website, and that this meant that Winston unfortunately had to work a lot of overtime. The investment did actually pay off for the restaurants, and they were happy to pay Winston for the maintenance and development of the site. So, finally, after almost three years of hard work he could get the long desired apartment in the Village. Normally Winston despised hard work and anything else remotely strenuous, and after he acquired his flat he planned on never ever working so hard again. Ever. The years of labor would reward him with a super-laid-back life in the Village. That was the plan. And so it was for about two glorious months before the terrorists gave themselves the right to intervene in Winston’s life in this most unpleasant and absolutely not laid-back way by blowing up Los Angeles.
This may day was much like the other days. Since there was no reason to get up early Winston had slept until around 1 p.m. when he suddenly woke up screaming in his claustrophobic bedroom. As so many times before he woke up just when Allison pulled the trigger of his big-ass gun. Standing at the edge of the roof after running for his life, Winston was trapped and gunned down by that fascistic idiot. This was a frequent nightmare, probably based on the fear of Allison and all that he stood for. Winston suspected that Allison might have killed one of the missing neighbors, who were openly criticizing the president. But there was of course no evidence to support these suspicions and Allison claimed that John had enlisted – even though everyone knew that J would never do that. Winston looked at the poster on the wall opposite of his bed. It was very torn and a bit faded, but he really liked it. Metallica …and justice for all. He had found it in an apartment he looted on a cold day in January. First it caught his eye just because it was a Metallica poster, but since then it had also taken on another meaning. The poster was from another era, another world, where the words printed on it actually meant something. Justice for all. Not that the world was all that fair back then either, but compared to this pale new world it was a marvel of justice.
Breakfast, or more correctly lunch, this day consisted of two candy bars Winston found last week and a mouthful of Coke. Even the few remaining health-freaks in the area thanked God for the preservatives added in all the snacks and candy making them edible even after two years. After this nourishing meal Winston stepped out the kitchen window and went up the fire escape to Eden, where he counted his potato-plants and herbs and watered them. Plants like these were very valuable these days, and if any of the plunderers, gangs or Freedom Fighters would find them they would be gone.
The plunderers usually worked alone or in pairs, looking for life’s necessities such as food, water and other usable things. These people were usually good and honest, but forced to steal from others sometimes to satisfy their hunger. Winston was one of these, living mainly of what he could find in all the abandoned houses. These “plunds”, as they were commonly called, tried to stay away from the government and its minions – and above all they tried to stay away from military service. The gangs were a bit different. They roamed the streets, terrorizing people and stealing much more than they needed for themselves. They were selling their findings very expensive to poor desperate people, especially women with children who couldn’t go scavenging themselves. From time to time the military hunted the gangs, but mostly they could rule the streets as sovereigns. Finally the Freedom Fighters, who also looked for plants and other useful things, but mostly to destroy them. As they were paid for everyone enlisting in their area, these guys (they were almost always men) had a huge interest in removing any means of surviving independently. The official reason was of course that home-grown food could be unhealthy, and thus illegal. The Freedom Fighters themselves were well fed by the authorities.
To Winston’s relief all the plants were still there.
***
Philip Allison was a man of firm principles, faith and patriotism. Ever since he turned his back on his earlier liberal views, he felt an obligation to serve his country just as his father, grandfather and great grandfather had done before him.
Up until the nuclear attack on his nation he had lived in Clanton, Alabama, working as a postman. When President Bush asked the cowards in New York to stay and populate the city Allison felt that this was a chance to step up to the task. He decided to be a good patriotic role model and move to Manhattan.
