Joe's Night of Terror

He found himself thinking about the safest place to relocate his scant, precious possessions, always on the move reminiscing about his old life before the mutated Covid-19 virus pandemic struck, coupled with the rapid increase in global warming ending life as it once was. Joe Baker was a popular Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, until the day everything changed. He had moved to California to take up the academic post from New York City with its oppressively hot summers and bitterly cold winters, where it would sometimes snow, and loved the warm, carefree lifestyle of San Francisco with its sunny beaches and friendly cafes, restaurants, and nightclubs that offered such promising opportunities for socialising. Oh, how he had relished his new life here! The collapse of the central stock exchange had led to an end of world trade, and despite the central banks all over the world flooding their economies with money, it led to a rise in inflation. And now money was worthless, as governments around the world struggled to feed their populations, world trade ceased to exist. It really had become “every man for himself” as governments completely collapsed. The first institutions to go were public services, and so a gang mentality quickly formed, displacing the mass populous, with the elderly neglected and even cast aside, as drugs becoming the currency of the day.

He himself now lived a vagrant lifestyle in a burned-out warehouse, scavenging for food and water wherever he could and making his meagre supplies of medicine and essential possessions last that he had taken with him the day he fled his beautiful apartment, having held out for as long as possible. Even with all his academic training and substantial body of research work, he was not prepared for the destruction of his neighbourhood and city, including its natural and man-made environments. Forests were being felled for firewood now that there was no electricity, only exacerbating climate change. And there were no longer any attractively trimmed and manicured gardens in what used to be orderly suburbs. He longingly pictured his small but comfortable former apartment with its small balcony where he kept non-fruit bearing pot plants and knew it was too dangerous to go back there. It was now necessary for him to look further afield for any bushes and trees still standing that might bear berries or fruit to pick so he could avoid getting scurvy like sailors on a ship of the damned! He barely recognized the former streetscape close to his former apartment, now broken, dilapidated, crumbled brick and concrete, strewn with rubbish and dismembered plant material. There was extensive vandalism of all buildings and houses, looting of shops, and killings of people fighting over food, water and shelter with violence being the only way to get what you need. He dreaded the nightly fires that the gangs congregated around to divide up their finds for the day which usually signalled danger for anyone else passing by. This state of anarchy and destruction was also mirrored in the breakdown of communication between people who previously had healthy social ties and who were now displaced, so that all former niceties were replaced with savagery.

Joe had not seen his students for weeks now since the university closed and wondered how they were coping with everything that had happened. He had in mind the fresh, enthusiastic faces of the young men and women who filled the lecture theatres he gave his lectures in and the cosier rooms where he held tutorials on various anthropological themes. The first-year students were being introduced its concepts, such as, studying culture and linguistics of primitive societies, and he enjoyed seeing their progress and waiting for them to move on through later years of the course so he could enjoy their increasingly lively and sophisticated discussions. On this cool autumn morning, he stepped out onto the street hoping to avoid the marauding gang he encountered the other day when foraging for food that was so hard to find without impinging on others. He especially felt badly for families with young children and what they made of all this violence and ruin. In what was once a carpark of a neighbourhood shopping centre, he came across a golden heart-shaped locket threaded onto a fine broken golden chain. He opened it and looked inside to see a picture of a beautiful young lady around the same age as his first-year female students and wondered if it had once been owned and worn by her mother who had passed it down to her as a memento of her grandmother. The photograph inside whilst old fashioned was beautifully coloured and not faded. She had lovely auburn hair, the brightest blue eyes, and such a winning smile. It was like a symbol of the world as it once was – beautiful, ordered, functioning, predictable and filled with hope! It also reminded him of how beautiful the city and indeed the whole of the world was before it had descended into chaos which only deepened his current depression.

As he was contemplating the upheaval to his life and of all that had transpired in his neighbourhood, city, and country, a tear formed in his eye for the life he once had with its endless sunny days, parties with university friends where overflowing champagne and canapes were served, against a backdrop of lush suburbia, with its houses in neat rows, or in the university grounds or fancy night spots. He pondered why he had not aligned himself with the local gang after the neighbourhood was destroyed, since he may have felt protected rather than having to take his chances of being beaten up whenever he left the relative safety of his cavernous burned-out warehouse. Joe preferred not to align himself with the brutal groups feeling that with his anthropological training it was a form of primitive tribalism that ultimately led to the downfall of society and indeed civilisation as he and western society knew it. Gang members drew power from coming together he believed, bullying an individual and committing violence when necessary, or threatening violence to get what they wanted from their victims. Individuals on the other hand he ruminated, unless physically big and with fighting skills, did not have the power to do wrong that a group had. He wanted order and civility re-established so that people could walk the streets and eek out survival without fearing for their physical safety or of losing their lives for a loaf of bread or cup of water! But he knew that the genteel world of the golden heart-shaped locket with its olden day picture inside was representative of a world that no longer existed and that would likely no longer exist again.

He awoke in the morning from this harrowing dream about the destruction of his city, country, and the world, and luxuriated briefly in the congenial, familiar surrounds of his beautiful apartment before rising to shower, dress, eat breakfast and leave it for a day of teaching at the University. He felt reassured of this beautiful reality and pinched himself to make sure he was awake! He mulled over what a dismal world he had inhabited in the dream and once in the lecture theatre in front of first-year students, resolved to impress on them that the salvation of culture was up to them as they made their place in the world, and in fact they held the tools to make that world a bright and peaceful place! He spotted a young woman, Louise, in the second row who closely resembled the picture of the young lady in the golden heart-shaped locket from his dream. He audibly gasped and realised that as it was an old-fashioned picture in the dream, she too might look very much like her grandmother did when she was young. It was a reassuring step back in time to an era when life was uncomplicated, and the social norms more easily defined than the shifting ones of today so relentlessly playing out in social media. He realised in that moment that it was in fact a love of humanity that was really needed by the world the most!